Holland 8/4 - Brown Trout Quest

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Pushed off at 5:00pm, ran out slightly north to 55 FOW and started a north troll.  Ran a high & low mono dipseys on the SB side down 45-48' with small size spoons, low diver silver with black tape and high diver orange & black stripe.  SWR down 40' at the ball tipped with blue dolphin type spoon with no reflection to it (below).   Ran all the way up to the Power Plant between 48-61 FOW, cleaning the spoons from time to time as I was trying to stay about 8' off the bottom.  Went 4 for 5 on that pass, all kings and no brown trout.  High and low dipseys had one hit each.  SWR accounted for the other 3 hits.  Bounty was 3 jacks and one 13lb king (female plant) that came on the SWR.  The large king did not want to get into the net but I got it done.  Marked two huge balls of bait.  Turned around and headed south.  Moved all three rods to the other side of the boat.  Replaced the silver spoon on the high dipsey with and orange ladder back I worked up in the off season.  Had two quick hits on the high and low dipsey, 1 for 2 with another small king.  At 8:30, I replaced the high dipsey with a standard alewife spoon and raised all lures to about 42' as I was now in 50-52 FOW still looking for browns.  The high dipsey got hit 3 times in the span of 20 minutes, 2 for 3 with again, small kings.  Marked more big balls of bait along the way.  Now getting near the condos and I put Blue Jeans glow and another blue/white tape glow spoon out on the dipseys.  Added a dark J-Plug to SWR.   Went 2 for 3 with each dipsey landing a small king.  As these rods were up, I pulled SWR and called it a night at 9:30.  Ended up 9 for 13, kept the large king and released all the small kings.  Could not find any browns.  Water temp for the baits was 51 to 56 degrees for the most part.  One jack I know didn't make it due to the hook set.  In closing, I was impressed with the amount of bait in close and the good water temps that could hold feeding fish.  For now, they appear to be all small fish in this part of the lake.

Spoon on SWR and South Troll Rigging pics below.

[FBD]

(There's good structure in that 40-60' range from about a mile south of Saugatuck to a couple miles south).  And what you did to catch those small kings as saved my butt in tournaments a few time when it was 11:30 and we didn't have our full amount of fish to weigh.

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Structure is important for browns.  Thanks for the recommendation.

[FBD]

You may be surprised with what else you catch doing this.  

[Aaron Nusbaum]

Pushed off at 5:00pm, ran out slightly north to 55 FOW and started a north troll.  Ran a high & low mono dipseys on the SB side down 45-48' with small size spoons, low diver silver with black tape and high diver orange & black stripe.  SWR down 40' at the ball tipped with blue dolphin type spoon with no reflection to it (below).   Ran all the way up to the Power Plant between 48-61 FOW, cleaning the spoons from time to time as I was trying to stay about 8' off the bottom.  Went 4 for 5 on that pass, all kings and no brown trout.  High and low dipseys had one hit each.  SWR accounted for the other 3 hits.  Bounty was 3 jacks and one 13lb king (female plant) that came on the SWR.  The large king did not want to get into the net but I got it done.  Marked two huge balls of bait.  Turned around and headed south.  Moved all three rods to the other side of the boat.  Replaced the silver spoon on the high dipsey with and orange ladder back I worked up in the off season.  Had two quick hits on the high and low dipsey, 1 for 2 with another small king.  At 8:30, I replaced the high dipsey with a standard alewife spoon and raised all lures to about 42' as I was now in 50-52 FOW still looking for browns.  The high dipsey got hit 3 times in the span of 20 minutes, 2 for 3 with again, small kings.  Marked more big balls of bait along the way.  Now getting near the condos and I put Blue Jeans glow and another blue/white tape glow spoon out on the dipseys.  Added a dark J-Plug to SWR.   Went 2 for 3 with each dipsey landing a small king.  As these rods were up, I pulled SWR and called it a night at 9:30.  Ended up 9 for 13, kept the large king and released all the small kings.  Could not find any browns.  Water temp for the baits was 51 to 56 degrees for the most part.  One jack I know didn't make it due to the hook set.  In closing, I was impressed with the amount of bait in close and the good water temps that could hold feeding fish.  For now, they appear to be all small fish in this part of the lake.
Spoon on SWR and South Troll Rigging pics below.

My dad and I have been committing more time lately to hitting bait schools in close when we mark them. We've noticed they almost always hold fish but the drawback seems to be they're almost all jacks and steelhead, although two weekends ago we did lose an absolute shark in 45 ft. As for browns they're kind of a needle in the haystack this time of year. Our DNR hasn't planted lake run browns south of Ludington in years (they finally did a small plant this spring in GH) so if you get one it's really going out of its way, plus the strain we plant, wild rose, are very fragile and don't adapt well to open water so the returns usually aren't that good. Wisconsin plants Seeforellen strain which are more hardy and built for open water which is part of why you see more and bigger browns over there.

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[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

I greatly appreciate the insight.  I have no knowledge of the strains that are stocked.  In the DNR search engine under strains, Sturgeon River is also listed.  This strain is supposed to be more warm water tolerant but likely not getting to the big lake as well.  When I harbored out of Waukegan, IL, just south of the harbor before the Naval base was a fine brown hunting ground.  I do miss that.

[Salmon_slammin]

You know fishing has been really good this year when someone gets bored in August and starts looking for browns.