Chicago 7/7 Midday

[ReelLady]

4th season salmon/trout fishing out of Chicago. Met some good people on the now defunct Chitown Angler forum where I learned a ton to get started. Lilskatertoo thought it was a good idea to return the favor here. There is definitely a learning curve and the Chicago fishing has been a little unique compared to other locations and reports in Lake Michigan. We go where the cold water goes, but our depths are way out. Getting to 100 FOW can be 8-10 miles offshore. 150+ FOW can be 15 miles. We also have a very limited amount of structure. We've had an excellent season so far and the Coho's are still around, typically they've mostly departed our area by mid to late June. Kings are also hard to come by. If you get multiple Kings in a day, you've had a damn good day.

We communicate a lot in latitude minutes and depth. I've attached an example of N58 74 FOW. Figured it was good to put in a little context.

Yesterday I started in N00 65 FOW heading NE. Setup an 8 rod spread, mostly spoons and a single 8 inch flasher/fly, and initially marked a small bait pod. Got a few scattered hits of coho's and landed a nice 12 lb king on a Kevorkian Mag spoon. Eventually headed out further to N03/04 100 FOW looking for a more consistent bite where we grabbed a few lakers. Similar slow bite. Crew was newer and waves started to pick up, so trolled inward. When the overcast skies came over, the Coho bite picked up fast and 8 inch flasher/4 inch flies started getting hit. Put out a few and kept getting hits every few minutes. Sadly the conditions started to worsen, so we had to pick up and head in.

Finished 8 for 16, 1 king, 4 cohos, and 3 lakers.

Still a good day of fishing. Coho's have been chunky 6-8 lbs with a few 10+ pounders. Good luck to anyone getting started, hope these help.