6/25/16, Saginaw Bay, Au Gres, Fishing Report

[Trophy Specialist]

 

We experienced an absolutely beautiful day on the Bay today indeed. Lots of sunshine and a light, south wind made for ideal fishing conditions and my clients from various parts of Michigan and Ohio caught their 32 walleye limit and some bonus perch too for good measure. We started out at the area where we ended the trip yesterday catching fish in about 40' of water off Pt. Au Gres, but that area only produced one walleye after about 45 minutes of trolling. The fish were in that area as we marked tons of fish there, but they just wouldn't bite. We pulled lines and ran in a looping, fish seeking boat ride that covered about 10 miles. When I found an area with lots of big fish marks and few bait fish marks, we stopped and set lines. We started hooking up immediately and never stopped catching fish there going back and forth over about two miles of water. Most of our fish were in the 19 to 21" range (a few bigger and a few smaller), so some good eaters with lots of poundage of filets for sure. I started off with some bottom and suspended sets, but it quickly became clear that the fish wanted spinner/crawler rigs on the bottom, so that is what we gave them. Color did not seem to mater as they hit everything pulled behind my 3 oz. bottom bouncers both off the Church Boards and also right behind the boat. A speed of 1.4-1.5 mph seemed best. Afterwards, I did go to the Doc. Harpham's tournament weigh-in and they had some catches with a lot of high teens and 20+ pound boxes. The winning weight was almost 26 pounds. Most of the best weights came from the steeples north of Big Charity but there was some good catches from Alabaster, Hat Point and some even ran as far as Grindstone City, but the top boats were by Big Charity (if you they told the truth on stage). One top guy was in the money jigging off the Pinconning Bar, but he had one real big walleye though that put him up there. Most of the competitors were pulling meat, but some top finishers did pull good weight trolling crankbaits. I think that had over 120 boats in the event, so it was a good turnout.

Capt. Mike Veine