tc 9/15-9/17

[gmfishon]

slow fishing is the word from traverse city. spent lots of time on west bay the last couple days. all the other boats were haveing the same or less success

mon am -saw a couple cought at daybreak in the hole we toughed it out til 11 then got a king as we pulled lines 50 down rigger pearl dodger green squid.

mon pm-not a hit for anyone until last half hour. we went 2/2 one glow plug on rigger other glow green hooch and squid braid diver 100 back.

tue am not a hit til 8;45 lost one that got in a rigger cable hit a red meat rig (only meat hit of the trip) behind a silver echip 110 back on the diver.

went to frankfort for lunch to rough over there so back to tc for the only skunk of the trip on tue pm.

wend am -started not marking much and no hits with nobody else hooking up,surface temp was the same 61 but figured the nonstop south wind blew some warm water out so ran a homemade glo plug at 25 on a rigger for one king then 1/2 on green splater back plug at 20 ft on a rigger all around 8am trolled to 11 no other hits. called it a day and maybe a season.

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[highpointdf]

Really Odd right now. Should be gang buster combat fishing. It is no better south. Struggle may be an understatement

[tom]

A 16 lb King won the Big King contest in Grand Haven last week. September. Grand Haven. No one on another site thought this might be indicative of a PROBLEM. A charter guy wrote back and said they are getting tons of huge salmon. I'm a little worried. Are you? My take is the size is trending down as is the numbers of fish caught. I know some charter guy or gal will come back and say they are killing them, but what do you regular folks think?

[highpointdf]

No one in GH is killing huge or large numbers of fish. We have not caught one over 20 this year, last year was our first year back into it in 20 years, we caught half a dozen over 20. We typically slice the stomachs on most every fish we catch. We caught one big Coho mid summer, had 7 alewives in it. 80% of all we caught were empty. There are issues out there, Last weekend should have been amazing, first skunk of the year, no one could find them, they are not up the river yet in any numbers. The big boys are coming in empty too. I am holding out hope that this weekend will produce some fish, but I have my doubts. The affects of last winter are unknown, but they may have a negative impact on the fishery, hopefully we do not follow it up with another like it, or worse.

[mattmishler]

The sample size of the big king contest was not a good enough sample size to see what is going on with the fishery or size comparison. Love it on saturday morning had a 18 pounder, Whitney charters had a 19, catch a bunch had a 17 pounder and those are the boats i talked too.

[mrhookup]

I think it's safe to say this has been a weird year for most, it seems like it's been difficult to stay on the fish if you're not out their everyday. Is this because there's less? It's hard to say but I definitely think the cooler water temps this year had some effect. I know I can count on one hand the number of fish we hooked deeper than 55ft down in the water column (not including lakers) all summer, that tells me there's been a lot of cold water out there meaning more area for the fish to spread out into. As for size, I don't think it's fair to compare any year after the late 70s to last year; I think average weight may be a bit down compared to the last 10 years but nothing drastic. We had 3 over 20lbs on 8/16 fishing the mud in Grand Haven when everyone else ran offshore http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36642 and pulled a 19lber in April in St. Joe http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34641. I personally think there is a below average year class out there that shows up every few years. I typically gauge things by the run in the Pere Marquette river which is 100% wild and not effected by stocking numbers. Every few years there seems to be a late run that is a bit of a dud IMO followed by a spectacular run the next year. (see BBT guide Steve Fraley's report on http://www.fishbaldwin.com/). DNR studies show a large number of the fish in the lake are wild so maybe this pattern on the PM is occurring on other systems as well. Either way, there always seems to be an ebb and flow to the run quality from year to year, but with the reduced stockings beginning to take their effect next year, we may just see the peaks be a bit lower than we are traditionally accustomed to.

[mvmaas]

Go take a look at the wier in tc its full. But dont be fooled there are still fish in the hole. I have a buddy who fishes everyday in the hole monday he was 6-15

[gmfishon]

Go take a look at the wier in tc its full. But dont be fooled there are still fish in the hole. I have a buddy who fishes everyday in the hole monday he was 6-15

monday morn is when we saw the most cought mon pm we had action i consider it slow and was at the weir yesterday i dont call that full at all. the pens could hold many more and i have saw many more down below than there is now just my opinion but i have saw lots more fish down there at this time of year.