Grand Haven Offshore Challenge 2026 - Day 2
Day 2 was going to require some strategy. We expected to get some early in shallow and then pull out deep. The pressure seems to affect these shallow fish but there had to be a few dumb ones around early. Even just a 4 fish start would be huge. From there we had an area out in 200 feet that we wanted to go and another in shallower around 110-80 feet. The only problem is you could miss the bite window in any of these places. It seems on just about any salmon trip that the first couple hours are just so critical to having a good day.
Pass number one in shallow was empty and not a good sign. We also had a lot more company making life difficult around us. Pass number 2 produced one of the right bites but came off after a short fight. I’m thinking that fish would have been a great one for the 333. We only weighed one fish for that on day one, the 12 pounder. The next couple of passes were empty and we had a choice to make. Try and catch the tail end of the bite somewhere else or start exploring in here. We pulled lines fast and sent it out to 200 hoping to make up some ground out there. It was empty, we had a tangle, and things were trending downward. So we pulled again and headed to the next spot. Instantly we were marking some fish but nothing was going. That bite window had faded but maybe we would get some stragglers. Finally at 8:30 we got our first salmon bite there and it was a nice one. An 11 pounder on a wire diver/flasher fly. A great 333 fish for us and we could stop joking about bringing an empty cooler to weigh in. The top 5 from day 1 all have their coolers sealed and weigh in last. It was really setting up for an embarrassing weigh in. While we were still marking some fish out here, our lines were dead as can be. I would have expected some of the board rods to go but it just wouldn’t happen. The captain made the call to head back in shallow and try to get our 7 no matter what size they might be. We desperately needed one more fish for 333 and all had a little regret about not weighing the 8 pounder from the day before.
It was around 11 when we caught our next salmon. It may have been a 12 incher but it was a morale boost. Shortly after a 5 pounder came aboard, then another fish, and another fish. Pretty soon it was 12:30 and we had an hour to get one more bite. At 1:08 we finally landed king number 7 for the day. On a day when not much went right, it was a pretty dang good moral victory to get our kings. Rigger bites down on the bottom were saving our day, we did pick up a couple copper bites too. Divers were just dead and I was surprised because we were definitely around some fish. Maybe everyone else struggled too but with the nice weather I didn’t think that would be the case. Some teams came from behind with really nice boxes and most of the top 5 did their job again. We would drop out of the money down to 8th. One more trout would have been a big boost for us although I will say we did a good job of working with what we had. I really enjoy the challenge of the trout and salmon combo vs just catching all kings and hoping for the biggest ones. We did finish high enough in the 333 to get a prize pack so that was a consolation prize. I’m looking forward to a bunch of bass fishing next as D&R is coming up this weekend. Hopefully my boat will back up and going by then. I got an alarm in last weeks Monday tournament so it is at Camp and Cruise for some service right now. Hopefully nothing major and too expensive but we will see.