The year of the 20# king.

[Wild@]

Now that the big kings are up river I was wondering about the numbers of 20# fish that fisherman on this site caught this year. For us it took quite a while to get our first....but we took 9-10. 7 of them came on boards and. 2 on riggers (both in front of the pierheads) and one i cant account for. Hottest on the boards was plugs. Half core, 300 45# copper and 300 30# copper with two colors of leadcore with a blue ladderback plug took 4 with one at 26#. Our biggest 26/half in the channel on a white paddle green fly. Wonderin how other guys ended up?????

[Gnarf]

had 5 or 6 20+ lber come to the back of the boat offshore in july/august but they all spit the hook or broke the line.

Finally got em in the net combat fishin.

[kid coulson]

This was my first season chasing salmon(not done yet) and my boat got 2-22lbers and 1-20.5. Now these were weighed on a HD Rapala spring scale so I'm not saying these are "official weights" but that Rapala scale seems pretty darn accurate from the tests I did with it. All 3 put up 20+min battles(10 color core). What a blast! I'm used to muskie fishing where the fight is usually over in 5 min or less(we use really heavy tackle). My boat never got numbers, but we didn't get skunked either. Good times, good eats!!

[fishy1]

My best tear for over 20# kings in Ludington since 1999 the year of giant kings and cohos, didn't see the 12-20 # cohos as we did in 99 though.

[Rascal Trophy Fishing]

Fun fishing with friends: took 14 kings sized 20-33#, all silver too. Biggest Coho 16#.

[Long Lines]

Didn't keep the greatest track this year, but based on pictures I went through real quick, I believe we boated 5 fish over 20# this year. And estimating 12 plus fish in the 15-19 lb range; didn't take near enough pictures. Didn't fish the piers at all. All big fish (and most of our good fishing this year) came in 80-130 fow out of Holland. 120-130 fow north of Holland was exceptional for quite awhile. 10" spin doctors with a meat rig or a green fly were consistent big fish producers; although we did take a few 17-19 lbers on coppers with spoons.

Great fishing in my opinion! Hope we get some more of it next year.

[Just Hook'n]

We didn't fish a ton this year with a new baby girl at the house, but we did get out on average about every other weekend.

We boxed our biggest to date 27.5lbs on a rigger.

We caught a few others (maybe 2 or 3) in the 20lb range - one I know was 21.5.

There sure were a lot of big fish out there this year.

Fewer fish caught than last year, but much bigger.

[westwind]

Thinking we had over 10 on the big lake, don't combat fish. Fish all taken out of Whitehall. Meat rigs, Meat rigs, Meat rigs. Going back to running them more often.....

[mattmishler]

It was weird when we didn't have one close to 20 or over. I would probably say 60-70fish. I also did fish 135 charters though.

[tronner]

Last year my buddy said we logged somewhere around 500 fish caught. Maybe one or two of those was over 20lbs.

This year, I don't know what the final log was, but it was a lot less than 500, but there were many (into double digits) caught over 20lbs. Biggest was just over 29lbs.

Troy

Team 'Off The Hook' and Team 'Got Fish?'

[jeffsisson]

With 4 kids who all luv to fish (16,15,13,9 three oldest boys youngest 9 yr girl) I am religated to gear set up rod puller net man and driver and loving every minute of it ! We around 15 fish 20 + 30# being our largest official weighted fish hottest for us where dipsey spin doctor green/ blue and frog type flies all in late July and august don't combat fish on our vacation first part of august we took 28 fish and 26 of them came on dipsey fly out of Muskegon countless others lost out of pentwatet later in Aug had much the same resualt mostly flies a couple off riggers biggest coho was 12#s that came outta Muskegon 30# king did as well in fact now need to stock back up on white green and glow spin doctors and white green /glow and black and plaid fishcatchers/ plaid prottoll flashers if anyone has any they would like to sell hit me a pm now on to the steelies!!!!!

[Justtrollin]

A friend of mine caught a 15lb king today in 240 out of grand haven. It was completely silver. Next year they will be big again I think. I think we boated 5 over 20 this year.

[Far Beyond Driven]

One buried an accurate 25# scale, two around 21#, and a pile of 19.x pounders I could not round up.

Granted I caught more kings in May than the rest of the summer did not help. An 18# we took in April was our biggest fish until late August.

[2MD]

we bagged a 21 and a 23 and two 24s the kids and I - the best were the two 24s at the end that came inside of Mac on dipseys when the run was just starting - both jumped like crazy and one even launched a solid 4 feet in the air when just along side the boat

it was a good year - biggest kings in 11 years (recall the 2001 hogs that quickly tapered off in 2002)

my biggest king to date was a 30.5 master angler hen that somehow we managed in 2003 in shallow off of Saugatuck - thought I could shatter that record this year but it didn't happen - not yet at least

2014 is probably going to be a strong year - we caught a few 3 year olds this fall that were as big as the 4 year olds we were catching in 2004-2012 and they got all winter to chow down on bait

[jimbobber]

we got at least ten kings over 20 this year with two just under 24 lbs .caught almost 100 less fish this year but got bigger ones.

[chandler]

We got around 20 give or take.. This year we fished mainly for big kings running practically all meat rigs and plugs starting through june. Even though our overall numbers wern't very high our big kings count was. Our first one over 20 surprisingly came in May. That one weighed in at 21. Our biggest one was a tad bit over 26. The 3 biggest fish(26 and two 25s) all came on downriggers deep down late in the day.

[fishsniffer]

My biggest was 12 lbs. give or take

[fishinmachine]

My boat name is fish-n- macho e I got twpp e 20 and o e 23.5 got 9 or 0 that was in the 18 to 10 lbs good year

[mattmishler]

My biggest was 12 lbs. give or take

When did you catch one that big???!!!!

[PPLEPEU]

My boat name is fish-n- macho e I got twpp e 20 and o e 23.5 got 9 or 0 that was in the 18 to 10 lbs good year

So how do you like your new smartphone?

[j1musser]

I would guess 4-6 over 20# with some big fish lost. 26.5# was our biggest.

A 20# with my grampa, 22# 1st fish for a good friend and 26.5# on da boat made one heck of a season in my opinion. I guess it is was it is from here on out, but this season will be unforgettable.

[MoJoRisin']

OK - new used boat that I got late in the season and only made 5 trips between the week before Labor Day and the week after. 2 fish over 20, one 29 4 oz and another just over 20. About 15 fish over 3 trips less than 100 FOW and 2 skunks harbor patrol. Got some other higher teens and some nice hen cohos.

[young gun]

count

kings:54

coho:26

lakers:9

steelies:5

[bowbender]

2, over 20 this year, biggest was 23lb 7oz 8 hrs after it was caught so probably around 25 live weight. Only fished out of Holland, both bigger fish were caught on green/white glow spoons, one off full color lead, one off DR at 50'.

[martemucci]

Caught these two the week after Labor Day. 23 and 18.6. I count these as two 20 pounders if you do the math. Add them together and divide by two = 41.6. Had them on at the same time off the point during combat fishing. One hit a fly the other a spoon in 50 foot of water at 8:30 pm.