Fish Report 10/1/2007 Milwaukee Fishing Lake Michi

Fish Report 10/1/2007 Milwaukee Fishing Lake Michigan

By Capt. Jim Hirt
I have been out the last five days and action has been average to excellent. Good numbers on Chinook, Browns and Lake Trout with an occasional Coho. The wind has kept the water cold near shore and fish have been high in the water column. Downriggers are working but leadcore and Slide Divers are producing better. All the action has been from 50 feet to the surface. The boat speed of 1.7 to 2.1 has been best. If you are not catching fish you are probably fishing too fast. The currents have been strong on some days and you will find very fast speeds when going south to north. When this happens reduce your boat speed. Watch the angle of your downrigger cables they should only show a five to ten degree blowback. On some days you must fish into the wind or put out trolling bags to reduce your speed. Regular or small spoons are producing most of our fish. Our best spoons have been the Reaper Silver Peacock and Big Joe Silver. You must know the temperature and speed at your lure to find consistent action. If you don’t have a speed and temp gauge on your downrigger you should at least have a way to check the down temperature or call another boat on the lake for that info. I extend the invitation if you fish out of Milwaukee to call my boat the Blue Max, I would be pleased to help with that information. We have had good action when applying this basic principal. Most recently we had fish from 10 to 50 down in 55 to 80 feet of water. The action has been steady with all species active. Baitfish in the four and two inch size is in the stomachs of the fish. Big four-year-old Chinooks are snapping at first light and last light of the day in the areas of the harbor gaps, river and marina. We fished them last Friday with some success but the action was slow. We have been fishing in Whitefish Bay and off the water filtration plant. On the calmer days run leadcore in 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 colors. Choose the number of colors based on the depth of water temperature for your target species. If you don’t have leadcore run 150 foot leads behind the ball on your downriggers. It is a continuous all day bite when you use this presentation. Slide Divers with regular size spoons, 60 foot leads set to #2 with 55 to 100 feet of line out. 50 to 100 feet of water has been best for the two and three year old kings. On overcast days run Reaper Magnum Fish N Chip, Peacock and Vulcan Magnum Silver Leaf, Silver Sky spoons on the downriggers. They are taking Chinooks and Lake Trout. The only place you will find Reaper and Vulcan spoons is on their web site at http://www.badgertackle.com Have a great fishing season. 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

Planning on heading out tomorrow afternoon, with Bro-in-law visiting from California. Seems that most of the recent scuttlebutt has been about the in-harbor fishing, but would like to get out for some open-water trolling. Been a few weeks since my last trip, so kind-of out of touch with the bite. Any suggestions for late afternoon bite would be appreciated. Typically launch out of McKinley, and play between there, and the towers.

Made it out in the afternoon as planned, but didn’t head out to troll open water as the winds/waves were too high. Trolled in the harbor, and in first hour while still foggy, picked up 3 browns, 3 to 8 lbs, on 3-color lead, and orange ladderback spoon. Lost a screamer king that hit a J-plug on DR set 15 ft. down, and yet another unseen fish. Fog lifted about 4 pm, and that was it for our action. Winds picked up even more, so we called it quits at 6pm. Guys fishing from rocks seemed to be doing ok.