8/21/15, Saginaw Bay, Au Gres, Fishing Report

[Trophy Specialist]

We had to delay our departure on today's charter until about 9:30 am due to high winds. It blew very hard the last several days with winds yesterday over 40 knots at time. I didn't know what to expect when I headed out having not been able to fish in days. We did go through a lot of riled up water in patches, but the area we fished was not too bad with visibility about 3-4 feet down into the water. The first four hours of the charter were pretty slow with only 4 or 5 walleyes making it into the box. The second half though was better as the wind died down and things settled down a bit. At first we had to make west to east trolling passes, but when it died down and switched to the southwest, we were able to circle around in an area where we found some semi-active fish. The bite was very light today with all fish barely hooked. My clients from Pinckney, MI though did very good on the rods today and as a result they went home with their limits of walleyes. We only caught two undersized walleyes today and all our keepers were in the 19 to 26 inch range for a nice sized box of fish. They also caught one yellow perch (kept) a couple catfish and one sheephead (thrown back). We did get raided some by white perch today that stole a lot of crawlers. Most of the fish were marked on the bottom today, but with all the perch down there with the walleyes we had to keep the lures a few feet off bottom to keep things running efficiently. Trolling speeds of 1.7 to 1.8 mph were best. I pulled all 3 ounce bottom bouncers with spinner/crawler rigs. The color did not mater as everything got hit about equally. We fished in 25 to 30 feet of water and did not have another boat fishing within sight of us all day. This will likely be my last fishing report of the season. I only have one open date left this year and half a lot of writing assignments to complete before the end of the month. On top of that, we are closing on a house in Au Gres next week and need to get a lot of projects done on that place before the snow flies. We will be moving to Au Gres next spring permanently and will be selling our house and 38 acres near Chelsea. We will also be selling our 20 acres near Au Gres next year too. This will be a very busy next month for me indeed.

Capt. Mike Veine

[Priority1]

Mike, GJ and good report. It will be good to have you in the area permanently.