5/31/17, Saginaw Bay, Au Gres, Fishing Report

[Trophy Specialist]

5/31/17, Saginaw Bay, Au Gres, Fishing Report

We closed out May in style today with my clients from the Grand Rapids area taking limit catches of nice walleye while fishing in tough conditions on a half day charter. The winds blew hard again today for the third day in a row with 20+ knot, south westerly winds forcing us to fish close to port. Thankfully we have decent numbers of fish close by since going any distance in those rough conditions would be nearly impossible. We certainly caught a lot of walleyes today with a lot of them being undersized fish, but we catch a fair number of larger fish today too keeping things interesting. Fishing in high winds and trying to keep the trolling speed slow, which was necessary in water temps in the 50s like we have now, means a lot of tangles and lost fish too with the light bite. Keeping hooks super sharp and using good fish fighting techniques is ultra important to minimize the hassles and maximize the catch rate. We caught all our fish today on spinner/crawler rigs fished right on bottom in deep water using long set backs to keep lures in the strike zone. I did mark a few suspended fish today, but they would not bite. A trolling speed of less than 1.5 mph was needed to get bites. Lure color did not mater today, which is normal for this type of fishing. I have an article out in the current issue of Woods N' Water News that details the spinner/crawler fishing we were doing today and also the rigs we used. Give it a read for 2,000 words of solid information.

Capt. Mike Veine

[I_Catch_Her]

Great job in tough conditions Mike.

Always love your articles.  Thanks for the update!

[Trophy Specialist]

We had great action early today, but when the wind did a major shift, the bite slowed down.  Still ended up with a good catch today though fishing close to port.  The problem with fishing out front though is that there is a lot of algae and other slop from all the winds in the water that glops onto the lines and must be cleaned off every 30 min. or so to keep things running right.  There are also a lot of dink walleyes there too.  We probably caught 25-30 today and those two year old fish are just shy of keeper status so they are a pain too.  They are a great sign for the future though and next year the fishing on the Bay should be off the charts good.  

 

Capt. Mike Veine