What Lures Do The Milwaukee Charters Use?
By Capt. Jim Hirt 
Charter captains have been known for guarding their secret lures for as long as there have been charters. Now is the time for passing on that information. This article contains detailed descriptions of the hottest producer for salmon and trout where ever you fish for them.
I am not concerned that exchanging information with other anglers will in anyway affect the available number of fish or impact my charter business. Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes are a put and take fishery. The salmon and trout in the lakes are raised for stocking in hatcheries. Where there is some natural reproduction the majority of the fish do not reproduce. They live their normal life cycle and die.
In recent years I have found a definite trend in tackle among the most productive charters. This is not to say that on any given day another piece of tackle cannot out produce the captain’s favorite. It is also my experience that the right lure presented incorrectly will not produce the desired results. Please keep in mind that the lure I am about to discuss is very temperamental to speed and presentation.
The lure I am talking about is the attractor and fly. Some of you will say I can’t catch crap on them. In this article I will try to remove some of the mystery. Attractors come in a variety of types. Some manufactures call them rotators or dodgers or flashers. All of them are very speed sensitive. They must run at the correct speed to produce!! The good news is some work well at faster speeds and some at slower speeds. For this reason you may find a combination that works for you, I run them all. Because they are speed sensitive when trolling you must have a tool for measuring your speed at the lure. A new product out in the market place for this purpose is the Depth Raider. This unit offers a probe that you connect to a special downrigger cable, giving you speed and temp at the lure to depths of 200 feet. This information is sent to an easy to read display. I was very impressed with Curt Kell of Kell Laboratories the innovator of this product. His attention to quality and customer satisfaction sets him apart in the industry. The Depth Raider will set the standard for this type of product for years to come. To get information on this product call Curt at 262-534-2202. Most of these attractors come with instructions as to how fast to run them. That is where I would start. Generally speaking dodgers run at speeds from 1.0 to 2.2 miles per hour. Opti-dodger makes a product I have good success with it works well even at higher speeds. Flashers need a little quicker pace to work some where between 1.8 and 2.6. Rotators, like Spin Doctors, cover 2.0 to as fast as 3.5. The trick to consistently catching fish with this tackle is speed and the distance from the attractor to the fly.
Flies come in every color of the rainbow and a variety of sizes. In the area I fish the two hottest colors are all the shades of green and all the shades of white. Size does not seem to be that important. Most of the flies sold locally are about 3 inches long. There are dozens of manufactures or you can tie your own and save a lot of money. I will cover fly tying in another article. The distance from the very end of the hook to the tip of the loop, which attaches it to the attractor, is critical to success. On any day it varies from 18 to 30 inches. So where do you start? I start with 23 inches. You can go longer on some of your attractors and shorter on others and see what happens. The smaller fish like the short leads and big Chinooks like longer leads. Water temperatures also come into play. Fish like Lake Trout in very cold water like longer leads. Think of it like this, the longer the distance from the fly to the attractor the slower the speed of the fly. Day in and day out the main stay of the most productive charters are attractors and flies. Good Luck Captain Jim. Let’s go fishing!!
Jim charters out of Milwaukee, WI. With Blue Max Charters He can be reached at 414-828-1094 or visit his web site at http://www.bluemaxcharters.com