Rockport 9/1/13

[hear fishie fishie]

9 for 10 this am off Rockport w/Here Fishy Fishy from Holland.

Ran over gill net setting lines around day light.

Saw float and was able to pick up lines and clear net with out any issues.

Set lines down and only had three set and ran into second gill net. Turned and ran East parallel to net and took first fish a nice king in about 80 FOW.38' down.

Circled around between the nets and ran East parallel to the second net again.

Took another nice king in about 100 FOW.50' down. Second fish took a while to land and ended up about 2 miles from the fish. when finally got back to fish area they were gone.

Managed to pull 9 lake trout of various sizes. Tossed one back. Four of them were w/o fin clips. Lakers were from 50 to 100 feet down with no real pattern.

Only one fish on a spoon[blue dolphin] rest of fish were on paddles and flies.

One rip on a white w/black ladder back j-plug on a 250 copper but came off.

[Corey K]

So when you say no fin clip are you saying that fish was not stocked? Just wondering all that I read says the chance of natural reproducing Lake Trout in Lake Michigan/Lake Huron is rare to say the least. I've talked to several charter boat captains on Southern Lake Huron and asked them how many Lake Trout without fin clips, they say few to none that they can recall. I guess Northern Lake Huron could be a different story, I personally cannot recall any without fin clips in Lake Huron but, I have not fished from Oscoda North. I personally like to eat a few Lake Trout but, I throw most back especially the larger ones if they are not hooked bad hoping for some 20lb plus Lakers! I do know the ones that I did clean this year out of Huron were chucked full of smelt or spit up smelt when they burped close to the boat...

[hear fishie fishie]

That is correct. We caught several in the ten pound range last year that were

checked by DNR confirming no fin clips.

Re: your smelt comment

All the fish caught yesterday had various size smelt in them but no mature smelt.

We believe that's why spoons didn't work but paddles and flies were hot.

We marked several small bait balls in about 70 FOW at daylight with fish around them. These bait balls were not gobbies or ale wives. Figured them to be smelt. It appears there was a good class of smelt this year and bodes well for the lake Huron fishery next year.

Error in first post: Managed to pull 9 LT should have said 7[seven]

Kept lake trout are for the smoker and deer camp snacks. Salmon are preferred for the grill.

[Corey K]

Thanks for the reply, and by the way it is none of my business what you keep! Just saying I see alot of people keep them and they simply just get freezer burn....That is great news, sounds like from what I've heard it is very hard for them to miss clipping a fin the way they do it. In Southern Huron I do know that the smelt numbers were decent, marked large bait balls in 60-80fow on a regular basis during May. Steelhead had bugs, lakers, kings, walleye had smelt. The further North the Walleye only had gobies for some reason though.

[snowfish]

Thanks for report and posts on the smelt. Hope they make a big comeback like the good ole days. Could fill the void left by the ales for lots of fish.