Team Trout - Trolling Version
I don't know how I got here but here we are. Rod holders, line counters, planer boards on one of my boats? The non existent ice fishing season is sure making some crazy things happen. However it has been fun making the most out of this mild weather and learning some new tricks.
The beginners luck has been strong so far and we've gotten bites on every trip. Mostly running a standard shallow water trolling spread for Lake Michigan. Thin fins, spoons, crank baits, and stick baits. Big thanks to ClearH2O Tackle for getting us started on the right direction. They've got the trolling game dialed in and will ship the right gear anywhere.
One of the interesting things is that I can only get one species of trout per trip. Lakers one trip, steelhead the next, and the most recent was all browns. I'm not quite sure what's up with that but I'm shooting for a mixed bag next time. However I'm not sure how to do that unless I wanted to take a minute to target Lakers exclusively. We've been lucky in that we've had some great weather and the forecast has been spot on.
The war eagle has been a solid boat for it with its open floor plan design. I can tell you that I've got some upgrades to do though. It really gets used a lot for fishing when we don't have ice. But since it spends a bunch of time in the fall chasing ducks it isn't that simple to set up solely for fishing. I'm certain I need a Humminbird MEGA SI transducer on it now. But it will have to be removable because it isn't surviving the marsh. I've got some thinking to do on that. But I know I could be picking fish and depth changes out in that shallow water on a Lake Michigan. MEGA SI is an incredible tool for actually spotting fish but it isn’t normally as effective in a typical great lakes trolling environment (out deep) but in 15 feet of water I’d see them for sure. Probably putting the MEGA Live transducer on there too, it will be interesting to see what this all ends up looking like. Speaking of MEGA Live there is a new update for it out (and for Helix and Solix models also), now is a great time to take care of those updates and get the best performance from your birds. I did fabricate some rod holders (for rods not in use) with some aluminum, PVC, and the Clam Lock system so it could easily be removed for duck season. Expect a full blog on some of the fishing updates to the War Eagle at some point.
Back to the trouting, trip 2 was a Presidents day show. The forecast was really good but there were some worries about leftover waves from the night before. I was afraid to go all in on the Lake Michigan bite so we decided to go out of Muskegon with the perch and cisco gear packed too. I did not count on it getting down to 19 degrees and I did not count on it calming so quickly from the night before. It was cold all weekend but blowing so hard that there was no way Muskegon could freeze until that night. I knew there would be ice but I was way wrong on how bad it was going to be. Getting the boat in wasn’t too big of a deal as it wasn’t too thick at the ramp. Just slowly backing in while smashing ice with the oar so we didn’t break any trailer lights. Once we got out of the shallow water and away from a couple open pockets it was a different ballgame on the main basin. Idling to the channel from the condos while listening to ice crunching on the boat wasn’t all that fun. The closer we got to the channel the thicker it got. Right at the mouth ice sheets had frozen on top of ice sheets and I was having to ride the boat onto the ice and let the weight crash through.
The good news is that once we finally made it, Lake Michigan was looking calm. It appeared that trolling was going to be the only game in town as I doubted the ice would melt where I wanted to perch fish. I also had my fingers crossed that my path would widen throughout the day with the warm temps and sun being out. Trolling was going to be unknown since we didn’t have the dirty water or the population of shad we would have in Grand Haven. We started in laker water 20-30 feet and had no action so we pushed closer to shore. It didn’t take long to lose a nice fish on a red thin fin in 15 feet. It wasn’t long after that when the gold thin fin went off and we landed a super nice buck steelhead. If we didn’t catch anything else the rest of the day that fish was going to make the trip. There wasn’t much time to think about that when the 3 color went off and another steelhead came aboard. A couple short bites and another steelhead an hour later on a wiggle wart and that was the end of our action. It was kind of cool to catch one on a bait I grabbed out of the bass box. I think there are a few other crankbaits that could be sneaky good out there but I need the right water conditions, time, and active fish to test that.
I couldn’t ignore a quick morning fish that popped into the forecast a few days later. Once again it involved breaking some ice but it was much more of a skim this time and no big deal. We ran a similar program picking up 2 browns on thin fins and 2 browns on spoons. One was was a diver bite which was awesome and once again it was all one species of trout. This was just a quick before work mission and once again the weather was beautiful. Most of our action was later in the trip and we probably should have stayed out and dialed in that area some more. We had found some warmer water and it seemed to be holding the more active fish.
It’s been cool to experience what I always see some boats doing every spring while I watch from the office. I think I’ve got a couple more trips in me depending on how the weather is. I’d really like to get a chance at it while the cohos are around but I also really need to get on getting the Nitro ready and practicing with my MEGA Live. I just don’t have the time or space to do it all. However going out on the big water seems like more of an adventure right now and is more of a mystery to me. Exploring is what keeps me motivated in fishing and will keep me fresh for when it is time to make the switch to mostly bass. Until then who knows what we’ll be after every trip, targets are plentiful around home right now.