St. Joe 4/12

[Whatahoot]

St. Joe 4/12

We ended up 1/1 with a small coho, Not a great day for our cooler but a great day on the water for my friends shake down cruise!

We trolled from 50-150, Surface temps were all 45F until 135 where it dropped to 39F and the water finally cleared up a bit (out 8 miles!).  Talked to a guy at the ramp who went to 200 and he went 4/7 with 185 the best.  He said the water finally cleared up out at 200...

Gotta say we were amazed at the warm water, 51F north of the piers!  We followed our instincts thinking fish would come in to the warm water.  We were way off, should have listened to the other reports of fish stacked up in 200 fow.  

Assuming all of that warm, dirty water pushed the fish out over deeper water?  Thoughts?

[EdB]

Thanks for the report. Cohos head offshore when it warms up like that. When we used to have large year classes of kings, they would start taking off when the Cohos left but kings have been so depressed in recent years, there just aren't enough around like it used to be. You could probably target Lake trout bumping bottom inshore in the next month or more and there always a chance to hit a few kings up higher..

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ReelNauti]

We found them down by the nuclear plant two weeks ago water was warmer and cleaner down there than it was by the pier..we think the cleaner water was definitely better

Sent from my SM-G930V using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

[Whatahoot]

Thanks guys,  We haven't been targeting early coho's the last few years (sorry, no great excuse!) to keep up with the subtleties of the spring hunt.  Never to old to learn!

All total, looks like this spring has been encouraging for the fishery.

[dan agnello]

We had heard reports in Holland of 90-100 and 190-200.

So Wed, 4/12 in SoHa we set lines in 80' n headed SW, we got a coho in 64' last Sat.

But it was crazy, 150-170 from just little south of the piers to almost Palisades was hot.

I've fished for spring cohos for a long time n never fished deeper than 35'.

80-100, 150-170 n 200-220+ are usually great places to setup for kings. Crazy.