Salmon showing up in Saugatuck

[westrate]

Finally we are getting that good salmon bite in the 100 foot depth that we had been expecting. During this past week we had been pounding the bottom for lake trout in 85 to 100 foot of water and catching 7 to 15 fish per trip. However, Friday and Saturday we concentrated on the 100 to 110 foot range to find the salmon and Saturday we finally got the consistent chinook bite. Saturday we caught 6 fish in the morning with 4 being salmon (however we lost the last 5 salmon we had on) and then in the afternoon we caught 12 fish with, 10 salmon and 2 lake trout, with 4 over 12 pounds. There are big schools of bait in this 100 to 110 foot of water and the salmon were full of adult alewife.

Once again we used the metal flashers and the Rapture Wild Fern, Frosted Wild Fern and Green NoSeeUm flies for the lake trout pulled behind the downriggers at 115 foot down in 100 foot of water. You have to check the fly constantly since they will pick up zebra mussels as it bounces on the bottom. The salmon are coming on Pro Chip and Hot Chip flashers (green glow, white glow and frog glow) with any Rapture fly, as long as it was green in color. The same flasher/fly combinations were run on the 300 foot of copper line and the larger chinook salmon (up to 16 pounds) were caught on this set up.

More good news!! Some consistent perch catches have been reported in the 65 foot depth in the rocks off the Douglas Point. The problem with fishing the rocks is that you have to contend with golbies in order to catch the perch. On Friday there were some nice perch caught in 25 foot of water north of the Saugatuck harbor, however you had to drift to catch them consistently.

There have also been some reports of nice steelhead being caught off the Saugatuck, Holland and South Haven piers during the week, however trolling in this water produced only a few fish.

For information or charter reservations email me at [email protected].

[TRAPPER ED]

Thanks for the report.I never fished out of saugatuck,just wondering how far off-shore the 100fow is ? We fish out of a small boat,and don't like to get too far off-shore

[DIRTY DOG]

100 is around 1.5 mi.

[TRAPPER ED]

Thanks for the info. dog