Grand Haven Fishing Report 4-22-26
It’s about dang time I got out on the big lake this year. I missed most of the beach trolling season with crappy winds and weather. But finally the big day came and we went out for a shakedown cruise. This was no ordinary shakedown cruise though, we had Traver’s brand new Angler Quest to test out. Neither of us had ever fished off of one before but it was going to be fun to start dialing it in. As is the case with every afternoon trip I take on Lake Michigan. It got rougher than anticipated but I guess that was a bonus for the testing.
I’d been down that way recently on the work boat doing some water sampling. I at least had an idea of how things might look. Mud for days to the north with a line of cleaner water/mud to the south. We had the same wind direction and everything was set up the same on this trip. The logs floating out of the Grand and out in Lake Michigan were no joke. Muskegon has plenty of stuff floating around too. There are going to be some hazards for awhile. We had to adjust the boards several times to avoid hitting trees.
I hadn’t heard much about the fishing being on fire so a couple bites would be a big success. We just dropped lines at the mouth and went about our way. First bite was a steelhead on a flat lined red squiggles thin fin and we had some fish slime in the boat. Anything else would be a bonus. Next up was a steelhead on a free slider that went absolutely crazy. It almost jumped in the boat at one point. Both those bites were in about 70 feet and were no start to a pattern. If they were salmon then maybe we were onto something but we will take getting lucky.
The next little bit of action was around 50 feet on the way in. The free slider took 2 more bites (small kings) and the 125 copper took another small king. A glow rasta goose Yeck and an orange backed greasy chicken wing dreamweaver super slip took those bites. We did lose one of the free slider fish but were happy to start the year off with 4 in the box!
I will say that I was impressed with the fishability and also how it handled the waves. Time will tell but I have high hopes. The Cannon electric downriggers weren’t a bad addition to the team either. I am looking forward to a fun year on the big pond.