9-7-26 Lake Michigan - Whitehall

It was kind of last minute but weather conditions had improved from Thursday and we headed back to Whitehall for a revenge tour. It didn’t take long to get things going and the first fish came on a rigger/plug combo. It took the plug so deep we just got another plug out vs trying to get that one out.

Then Chaos erupted and we had doubles and a triple. It was kind of fun to see the wire diver just going in the rod holder with no one to grab it. The gaff came in handy at this point with plug hooks tied up in the net. By the time our morning flurry was over I think we had 7 mature kings in the box all from around 90 feet of water. Traffic forced us out of the zone for a little bit and we went through a little lull after the first flurry. Other than one flasher fly bite, plugs ruled and we did not have enough of them out. A 200 and 300 copper with spoons never got touched and they were definitely in the zone.

Once we got things going again we lost the next 4 fish. 2 fish on long lines with spoons that I’m assuming were coho and 2 other kings on plugs. These fish weren’t getting the plugs as good and didn’t have as many hooks in the fish. They both came back all bent up. You can tell the hooks that come with Dreamweaver plugs are trash by looking at them and you wouldn’t catch me using those at all if landing fish really mattered or money was on the line. The plugs themselves have been pretty good fish catchers for us but If I was serious, I would make my own harnesses with some BKK 62 Fangs. I haven’t seen a lot of aftermarket premium harnesses out there and that kind of surprises me.

As the morning went on we started picking away at them with wire divers. Nothing else would go but there was a white/blue flasher with a blue bubble fly that took almost all the rest of our bites. I think we ended up 12 for 17 and we did all that damage to the north in 90-100 feet. All mature kings except one mature coho and one steelhead. An interesting observation on the coho was that it was packed full of gobies. Maybe we should have been pounding bottom for them! That isn’t the first observation I’ve heard of that this year either. Hopefully it is because they are discovering a new food source and not because we are starting to walk the predator/prey ratio line again.

I’ll be honest I fully expected to “box out” before this trip started but I’ll take it. It was a good one and anytime you can fit that hour of chaos in, it is a good day. Plugs mostly on riggers and divers ruled early and then the wire diver with a flasher fly late in the day. We did pick up one nice king on a 100 copper later in the day and one early on a 225 copper with a plug. But our long lines really let us down for whatever reason. Still a lot to learn with this salmon game but I’m really hoping we get a good push to catch them out of the bass boat soon. I also have to commend the city of Montague on their cleaning station. Amanda and the girls met us up there so we could go on a bike ride after. They hung around while we cleaned the fish up really quick and that cleaning station makes it easy. It makes it a lot easier for people to justify the launch pass if they have restrooms and a nice spot to clean fish.