Muskegon Salmon Run 2025 Update
We are experiencing the great salmon stall of 2025. Wind events are so critical to predict kings flooding the channel and heading up the river. We haven’t got any of the right ones in over 2 weeks and that has made things tough.
We did get a good push of fish a couple weeks ago and while I never had a banner day with them. The action was consistent enough to make it fun. Unfortunately for me that all transpired around Labor Day which is peak salmon fever season. The launch ramps were crazy! I was going to go to Whitehall one day when I got the call at 6am that the ramp was full. Luckily that didn’t happen at the same time we had a bass tournament. The bulk of the boats were actually still going out to the big lake. We had the perfect storm of nice weather, holiday weekend, and hot fishing. The jigging action wasn’t great by any means but I was able to get some fish and some much-needed eggs for fishing skein.
The girls all hopped on the boat that day and Mabel got to fight her first good sized king on a jigging rod. We actually located an epic school of fish right before we had to leave. A little more time and I think we could have really filled the box up. Basically, all my trips have been solid and no skunks this year! It hasn’t been that way for the whole pack though and while it can seem easy when a bunch of fish are in. Those days with low numbers and stale fish it really helps to have a lot of experience on where to position your boat and what to do. One thing that has been interesting is that I have really struggled with skein. I have not been able to make them work it like I did last year (watching them on MEGA Live). But I’ve been getting the bobber game figured out some. Some lightbulbs really went off on my last trip this week. It really is a lot of fun catching them on skein and the bobber drops are a lot different from a king compared to a catfish (who apparently love skein). The Temple Fork Outfitters Steeldriver rods have been fun to fish with and has definitely helped vs fishing with bass rods like I was doing last year.
While the skein bite has been challenging for me, the jig bite has been awesome at times. There was one particular afternoon trip where I didn’t mark that many fish but dang were they crushing that jig. Check out the net debacle on social media or YouTube from that trip, that was a show. The BKK Fang 62 UA hooks have been awesome on the jigs as well as the BKK Octopus hooks on skein. I use #2 with the jigs and 1/0 on the skein rigs. Those afternoon trips can be lights out especially because traffic is really light a lot of times. You can search around and find fish vs trying to guard a small spot. However, once it hits evening, I really struggle in Muskegon. I usually pull the plug at 5pm, anytime before that is a good time to fish. 2 ounce P-Line Green Tiger, Pink Tiger, and Chartreuse Shad UV have been the only spoons in the water this year. I’ve been really impressed with the UV spoon and it is new this year.
All that being said, it is stale right now. But guys are still getting them good out trolling in Lake Michigan. Our big problem is that the water is hot, like top to bottom hot around 100 feet. There’s a bunch more fish to come but I don’t know what is going to trigger it. We don’t have any big winds forecasted (except from the wrong direction). They are either going to come because their biological clocks are ticking or maybe we’ll get lucky and some wind will happen. Either way I will be closely watching the NOAA buoy out of Muskegon, Port Sheldon Buoy, and the Seagull website. I’ll be looking for the temp break to creep up some to hopefully trigger the fish. The temp break I’m talking about is where the cold water and warmwater meet. The higher the cold water gets, the closer the salmon will come to the ports and head for the river.
There also is the option of trying to follow the fish that have already come in. I’ve done some of that too and it has been fun. A lot of people have already given up because it has been tough or they’ve moved onto the next thing. Boat traffic will absolutely be lighter the rest of the season and that will be nice compared to the Labor Day chaos. Don’t give up on the late run yet, there are more kings coming!
