Hi, It seems most guys out fish me out of Sheboygan. I usually run spoons and glow spoons. Also an occasional blue and silver j plug. I run 2 downriggers and 3 slide divers. no leadcore. My 1st choice is to fish up by the pigeon in 50 to 70 feet of water. Any help would be really appreciated
Thank you
I just saw Annes Regret’s question whether I slow down to net. Almost always and typically to 1.6-2mph because I’d rather land a hook up than get a double. Many many times we get hit at the slower speed, keep in mind we are in a fishy area. The higher trolling speed is new to me. When I get hit I drop a waypt and once back to it I may drop my speed a couple of tenths mph to spend more time in fishy water.
I typically fish only mornings with 3 other guys and 6-8hrs per trip. Coming from McFarland takes me 3-4hrs on the road depending on which port we fish so we stick it out despite not many fish after first 4-5hrs. This year 26 trips for 266 fish which is fewer trips than normal of around the low thirties and annual fish per outing 12-14. Yes, I have a great group of fishing friends who point me in the right direction and that helps immensely.
Grey Beard
The most valuable tool a person can have for being successful on Lake Michigan is a good information network. There are less fish in the lake now than there was in the past and knowing where to start from reports is a huge help. I know Greybeard has a broad line of information that puts him on fish. I have put a group together that we call the Salmon Slayers with most of the members calling Milwaukee their home port. This year I was fortunate to get out 40 times on my boat and other members boats. We were able to put 194 fish in the boat on trips that I was on. This was less per outing than previouse years, but better than most did. The coho season was shorter this year for usthan other years. Cohos usually acc ount for bigger numbers on my boat. Down riggers, leadcores, and coppers accounted for most of our fish. Seven and ten color leadcores along with 250-300 coppers off the boards with spoons were the top producers. Last year our last outing was december 2nd and we did well on browns and lakers in November out in the open water in 60 feet or less. We hope to do the same in the next month. If you are willing to share information both on and off the water and would be interested in joining our group messenger me.
Weather did not help Lake Michigan fishing this Season. Keeping a log is fun I've kept one for every outing since 1991 but when fishing is poor as it was for me out of Manitowoc this season those log notes don't help much. Fishing was fair June to late July but once the water fleas showed and there after things were really really slow. I don't even bother launching when those things are thick. Agree wire dipsies seem to produce for me more than most other sets; I run just flasher fly on them and a short lead to the dipsy under 50". I do have a couple copper sets but really don't enjoy fishing them. 2.3 - 2.8 GPS is probably my go to speeds and will usually have some bites a little faster than that but not many much slower. I may have to set up a 10 color next year haven't ran more than 7 colors of lead-core for a few years. You have to take what the Lake gives you as in 2017 we netted 23 cohos only 3 this Season. 143 Kings in 2006; 12 this Season. Sometimes it is best not to look back. On those leadcore I have 2, 3, 5 and 7 colors and release 5 or more colors at the boat and let 2 & 3 color planers run down to a stopper as they are usually outside rods. Some days when things are slow I like to do a 360 every so often this can trigger a bite when nothing else will. Always fun reading other reports and watching the videos guys like to share.
Echoing what Grey Beard said, I can only run 3 lines in my kayak. I too own Keating's books and they were a tremendous help in helping me start to catch king salmon. My king setup is usually a flasher fly on my 12 oz torpedo rod and then a spoon on my 8 oz torpedo rod. I use the 12 oz torpedo rod as my speed indicator - meaning I use the bend of the rod and angle of the line to the water to let me know of any currents and adjust my speed accordingly. I typically am trolling quite a bit slower than most boats 2.0-2.2 SOG and have even taken big kings coasting to a stop with a flasher fly.
As Keating preaches, I don't randomly just throw lines out.. the whole spread plays off each other. I lengthen my lead on my 8oz torpedo and put it further back so if the FF brings a king it, but it doesn't want it, maybe it hits my 8 oz spoon setup. Then down the chute, I'll run leadcore, usually with a different spoon, unless the 8 oz is on fire, then I'll double up that spoon. Many times, I'll try to set that up so it's swimming 100 ft behind my 8oz, so again, if my FF brings a king in, doesn't want that, refuses the first spoon, now it has a loner behind that that might be a different color or different action to close the deal.
I usually bring a whole tackle box worth of stuff out with me (20 flashers, 50 flies) along with 100+ spoons and cranks. In reality, I could go out with 3 flasher flies and about 5 favorite spoons and some select cranks for specific situations and I'd be set.
Salmon fishing is more challenging because we have fewer fish planted. This year the thermocline was driven deep by all the NE winds and we spent more time 10+ miles off shore just to find a few fish. Lucky to be retired and in a 21’ boat so I could pick my days carefully.
I think you would benefit from taking a bigger bite of water by including Shellfish’s suggestion of in-line planers and leadcore. How many rigs and which ones is up for debate. I would add 2, 5 and 10 for starters if you are typically fishing 2 guys and 6 rods. I would also suggest you get various Snap Weights with Off Shore OR-16 releases so you can add more depth to what you have. You can find charts that provide info on depth achieved with various weights.
In addition you could use your 2 color on one of your downriggers, the SWR, a favorite of the famous Capt Dan Keating. Buying his books on fishing salmon is a great way to shorten the learning curve. I have all of them and still refer to them. He would also likely tell you to run a flasher/fly on one of your riggers especially early AM when fish are more active. Many think even if the flasher/fly isn’t hit it attracts fish to your spread. If you don’t want to get into flies a number of people I know run spoons behind their flashers with 4-6’ leaders with good success.
Many fisherman who run all spoons troll faster, >2.5mph, than the flasher fly program typically <2.5mph. This summer on the advice of a friend, who has been doing it a number of years, I tried trolling 2.8-3.2mph with a combo of flasher/fly, spoons and Brad’s cutplug/Big Al Flasher and they all took fish. That speed is way faster than most advise but I caught fish and covered a lot more water. I reviewed one of Keating’s books and he typically lists his trolling speed in knots. I was delighted to find that when you convert to mph those speeds are right in his zone. Same zone for the famous Capt Bill Saiff on Lake Ontario who and has a number of instructional videos on YouTube.
I think using some version of slide diver is a stealthy presentation that gets more bites in our clearer water. But running them as ½ of your spread may be overkill. For whatever reason wire divers for me get more bitesl Wire divers setups are another expense, learning curve and fussy to work with but for me worth it. For you I would start with leadcores. Good luck.
Grey Beard
muskymike21 That's a long ways out, 15 miles! I fish out of a Lund Explorer SS, 18. With all the east winds this year you really had to pick your days. I've seen that lake turn on a dime. Makes for a long wet ride home some days. Then there was the fog. That scares me. Some knuckle heads on auto pilot going full throttle. Old sailor verses bold sailor. There are no old bold sailors. Old saying.
I always go buy the 1/3rd rule. 1/3rd going out, 1/3rd going in and 1/3rd in reserve. I'm talking gas consumption.
I have fished lake Michigan since the early 80's. I was fortunate to have a great mentor. This gave me a quick learning curve. If you could find a buddy who has a bunch of lake Michigan experience, try and fish together to increase your knowledge base. Another thing that I always do before I go lake Michigan fishing is to closely check the fishing reports for the past 2 days. Don't just check the report for the place you intend to fish ,check the cities north and south of where you are planning to fish. Look for depths, temps, baits, style of fishing. Look for similarities between the locations. For example, if the bite is hot in 195 fow northeast of Milwaukee and 250 fow southeast out of Port Washington , maybe don't blindly go south out of Milwaukee. What I am saying is put the many pieces together to help ( it's never a guarantee) solve the puzzle. This should help eliminate a lot of dead water. Also, I don't see that you run boards. Get some, and a few lead core set ups.
Fishing lake Michigan is a blast. Have fun when you are fishing. It's not a competition.
Shellfish.
Yeah there was definitely points in the year where we had to run way out to find cold water, furthest out we got was pushing 15 miles. (Only did that on really nice weather days - I'm fishing out of 17.5' boat!)
Another piece of equipment I think really helped bump our catch this year was getting a Depth Raider. I was originally going to get a Fish Hawk, but didn't want to spend that much $. Managed to get a used Depth Raider last winter, and that made a huge difference.
The year before we were pretty much guessing what depth to fish, and what speed our lures were running (due to sub currents). Having the depth raider know where temp brakes were and what speed our lures were running was a huge help. We could quickly eliminate water to get to target temp ranges faster than guessing.
40 is more then we caught this last year out of McKinley Marina. We have to go out 8 - 10 miles to find cold water. I've been fishing Lake Michigan since 1976. We boated very few Kings this year as did most charter boats. You did good; very, very good. Maybe you had colder water or we were just un lucky? There's always next year if I live that long?
Haha, I doubt that. Like I said was only my second year fishing out there so my 3x improvement this year vs last was probably skewed because last year was bad as I had little to no idea what I was doing.
Last season was total of only 12 fish for the year, this year we put over 40 in the boat.
But like I said before - wire divers made a huge part of that improvement! Love em!
