Post by greybeard on Jul 2, 2017 22:00:40 GMT -5
I had not been trolling for almost 2 weeks. I somewhat reluctantly canceled Saturday's outing with my cousins because of potential weather but mostly poor fishing reports. I didn't want to take newbies on a boat ride for their first Lake Michigan experience. Late morning yesterday I got a call from a buddy who boated 12 fish south of Milwaukee. Luckily my crew was available for today.
Set lines in 70 feet of water with an east southeast heading. Out early enough to put lights on the planer boards. A small king hit a five color Flounder Pounder before we could put the rod in the holder. Shortly thereafter the 40' rigger with a Big Al Fish Flash pearl and Brad's Black Jack took the only rigger hit for the day.
It took quite a while to get the next bite despite running through quite a bit of suspended bait and a few hooks. Once we got into 80 to 90 feet of water the action was not fast but steady. The shallow set ups were taking most of the bites so shuffled things around to fish primarily the top 30 feet of water. Surface temperature was 61° and it was ranged from 45 to 52° down 35 feet.
The 60 loc wire Dipsy fired in the middle of a turn and the initial run stopped around 450 feet of line out. We thought we had a monster and it took a long time to reel in. When the counter hit 200 I saw the bait from the four-color followed shortly by the bait from the six color! What a mess! Got out some empty spools and started winding on all the tag ends and managed to wind in the remaining 200 feet of wire and hand land the little bugger, only 8.5 pounds. My very patient crew managed to salvage the wire and a good share of the lead core.
We had a particularly good hook up rate landing 15 of 17 and only one drive-by. The fish must have been hungry. Considering the amount of suspended bait we marked surprised we didn't have more action. However feeling blessed compared to other recent reports. Didn't leave our initial waypoint by more than a mile catching fish as far out as 106 feet of water. The skies darkened to the north so we pulled and ran. Halfway back the wind switched from the south to the northwest so tucked in to the south gap for our remaining ride home. Ended up with two chinooks both clipped, two rainbows, three lake trout and eight Coho up to 6 1/2 pounds.
3 color coho rig 0-0 then Brad’s Seahawk Silver Big Al Fish Flash 2-2
3 color Brad’s Seahawk Silver Big Al Fish Flash 1-1
4 color Brad’s Blue Hawaiian Silver Fish Flash 2-2
5 color Flounder Pounder 1-1 then UV Chicken Pox 0-0
6 color Brad’s Shamrock 1-1
7 color Brad’s Mountain Doo Grn/Char Fish Flash 2-3
150 copper Seahawk/Blue/Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
10 color Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 0-0
Dipsy 3 set 35-50loc Coho Rig 0-0 then Brad’s Shamrock Fish Flash Red Silver 2-3
Dipsy 3 set 30-7loc Coho Rig 0-0 then Brad’s Black Jack Fish Flash Red Silver 2-2
Dipsy 1.5 wire 60loc Brad’s Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
Rigger 22-40 Misc lures and many changes 0-0
Rigger 50-90 SWR Mag UV Grn Tiger 0-0 then various lures 0-0
Rigger 40-60 Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
Grey Beard
Set lines in 70 feet of water with an east southeast heading. Out early enough to put lights on the planer boards. A small king hit a five color Flounder Pounder before we could put the rod in the holder. Shortly thereafter the 40' rigger with a Big Al Fish Flash pearl and Brad's Black Jack took the only rigger hit for the day.
It took quite a while to get the next bite despite running through quite a bit of suspended bait and a few hooks. Once we got into 80 to 90 feet of water the action was not fast but steady. The shallow set ups were taking most of the bites so shuffled things around to fish primarily the top 30 feet of water. Surface temperature was 61° and it was ranged from 45 to 52° down 35 feet.
The 60 loc wire Dipsy fired in the middle of a turn and the initial run stopped around 450 feet of line out. We thought we had a monster and it took a long time to reel in. When the counter hit 200 I saw the bait from the four-color followed shortly by the bait from the six color! What a mess! Got out some empty spools and started winding on all the tag ends and managed to wind in the remaining 200 feet of wire and hand land the little bugger, only 8.5 pounds. My very patient crew managed to salvage the wire and a good share of the lead core.
We had a particularly good hook up rate landing 15 of 17 and only one drive-by. The fish must have been hungry. Considering the amount of suspended bait we marked surprised we didn't have more action. However feeling blessed compared to other recent reports. Didn't leave our initial waypoint by more than a mile catching fish as far out as 106 feet of water. The skies darkened to the north so we pulled and ran. Halfway back the wind switched from the south to the northwest so tucked in to the south gap for our remaining ride home. Ended up with two chinooks both clipped, two rainbows, three lake trout and eight Coho up to 6 1/2 pounds.
3 color coho rig 0-0 then Brad’s Seahawk Silver Big Al Fish Flash 2-2
3 color Brad’s Seahawk Silver Big Al Fish Flash 1-1
4 color Brad’s Blue Hawaiian Silver Fish Flash 2-2
5 color Flounder Pounder 1-1 then UV Chicken Pox 0-0
6 color Brad’s Shamrock 1-1
7 color Brad’s Mountain Doo Grn/Char Fish Flash 2-3
150 copper Seahawk/Blue/Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
10 color Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 0-0
Dipsy 3 set 35-50loc Coho Rig 0-0 then Brad’s Shamrock Fish Flash Red Silver 2-3
Dipsy 3 set 30-7loc Coho Rig 0-0 then Brad’s Black Jack Fish Flash Red Silver 2-2
Dipsy 1.5 wire 60loc Brad’s Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
Rigger 22-40 Misc lures and many changes 0-0
Rigger 50-90 SWR Mag UV Grn Tiger 0-0 then various lures 0-0
Rigger 40-60 Black Jack Pearl Fish Flash 1-1
Grey Beard
