1 big king on deep dipsey, 1 big catfish on 1/2 core - PORT SHELDON

[2MD]

Trolled out of Holland this AM north and ended up in Port Sheldon where the boat will stay overnight on anchor as I am going to fish again tomorrow morning. Zig-zagged back and forth with east and west trolls since in the current this seemed to be the only way to get them to pull true. Fishing is so bad this year and just for fun and variety decided to stop running riggers so ran 6 dipseys just like on my last five or six trips. Also, ran a couple full core and a couple half core. Managed to get our biggest fish of the year (did not weigh it but probably an easy 20# with the size girth - see included photo and you will see what I mean). This fish came in 88 FOW at around 8am on the inside deep diver dialed on .75 with 85 foot of braid out. It ate the green spin doctor green fly. Other than that not a single other hit and we threw it all at them. Actually, no that is incorrect. We did get a screamer on a half core running a hot steelhead bait and this turned out to be a big channel catfish which created all sorts of trouble for us. Half cores are fine and do not tangle into the fulls UNLESS the targeted species turns out to be a bottom feeder that dives down as it passes around the inside board. Anyways, we landed the kitty and untangled all the core in the 40 minutes that followed. Great fishery we have this year. Hats off to the DNR. So much bait and hardly any trout or salmon to eat it so the kitties are moving offshore and getting a piece of the action apparently

[mrhookup]

A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work! We had really good fishing last weekend in Grand Haven, fish were a bit deeper though as our action was in 110-120 FOW early and 140-160 FOW later in the morning. There wasn't any water cooler than 60deg in the top 90ft of the water column and we only hit one fish above 80ft down and it was a plug on a rigger down 70ft first thing in the morning. We haven't been out since Saturday, but looking at the buoy temps off Port Sheldon it doesn't look like the water temps have cooled off much if at all, the half and full cores probably aren't getting down to the fish, I'd try running a bit deeper spread, that's our plan tomorrow evening pending what the probe tells us. Of course, it's a full moon this weekend and that never helps the morning fishing either....good luck and let us know how you do!