Lake Michigan Salmon Fishing Revisited

Here we go again.

Went out this morning to the same area and ended up trolling through the same GPS waypoints off the filter tower area. Started in 70 feet of water trolled to 85 and back. Marked fish on the bottom.

Here is the story and I am sticking to it.

I got lines in at 400 and put out two dodger and flys on dipseys with 100 ft LOC in 70 FOW. One was a clear flasher with prizm tape and echip with a glow LBB fly. The other was a white with blue on one side and prizm on the other with green and blue fly. Put out a green and silver ladder back spoon on the home made snap weight rig.

Needless to say, the first hit was on the green and blue fly at about 430. Huge hit and gone. Check rig. GONE. WTF!! Entire rig. Don’t know if huge fish just bull dogged it and the knot just busted at the swivel. Put out mt dew and sliver spin doctor with same fly.

About 30 mins later the other dipsey goes. The same thing. Smash hit and then lost rig behind dipsey. I know I did not hit bottom so I can only blame my knots? But they were good slam hits

I changed the spoon on my snap weight rig to silver and blue. Then about 5 minutes later I hear the clicker go and I thought I had a drive by. Soon to realize later I had a shaker on for about 15 minutes. Reset the rig and then shortly after SCREAMER. About 20 minutes later about a 15 pounder. I was tired.

Went in at 7 as the west wind picked up and the 1 foot waves started to quickly build. Others were heading in as well.

If you have any tips on not loosing the rigs I would appreciate it. New to the salmon trolling. I guess I have to triple check knots and loosen drag up more.

D

Diesel,

I’ve had similar experiences over the years. It seems that the dipsy strikes are overly violent…

I hope this doesn’t come across as patronizing…but…are you running snubbers on your dipsy? If not, that is your problem. Assuming you are then…I find it terribly important to make sure that your dipsy rods have full spools and that when deployed the drag is set sufficiently loose that they slowly leak out line while riding the waves. Hope that helps…I run Palomar knots and they typically don’t fail. Good quality mono leader and quality snubber is just as important too…Actually, without a snubber you’ll lose almost all larger fish because of the violent strikes…

D, What are you running for line. I am assuming it is not wire? We are set up with 30-40# power pro for dipsies.
-Mark

Thanks for tips guys and not patronizing at all. I appreciate it as I am learning a lot here (mostly from mistakes though:).

Not running snubbers, yet . Think I am going to have to get some of those.

I run mono 10 to 16 mono with varying leaders depending on conditions.

Being new to this and times are tight on funds right now. So this is not the ideal setup up but for now it is what I have to go with for now.

D

Diesel,

Here is the breakdown of a typical setup:

8-10foot dipsy rod
high capacity line counting reel
30-40 braid or wire (to full capacity)
dipsy diver
snubber attached (luer side) of diver
8-12 feet of 17-25lb mono
quality swivel
luer (flasher/dodger, fly, spoon, J-plug, etc)

Deploy

Set drag so that line leaks out of real at a slow pace

Wait for the “screamer”

D, think of it like this…

I would really reccomend the line upgrades with full spools too. Kings will easilly rip of more line than you can shake a stick at. I will almost guarantee that you will lose more tackle if you do not upgrade. Think of the cost of a swivel, dipsie, flasher and fly. That is $30+ alone. spool of 30# pp and some 40# mono backer is around $20 per rod. That is cheaper than losing the tackle. And you will put more fish in the boat too which is saving grocerie $$$, unless you become a fishing addict like me. Then all bets are off and you will spend more on tackle than than anyone can possibley use in a lifetime.

Check out http://www.glangler.com It is a great site, tons of info, helpful ppl and i will bet you will find some fishing partners there too. Its kinda like IDO of the great lakes.
-Mark

Thanks I hear ya.

Kinda like a buddy of mine telling me “ya don’t go bear hunting with a switch.”

At least the fishing has been interesting.

Forget the snubbers. There really not needed. I know some of you are going to disagree with this but I’ve never run snubbers and I’ve also never had a fish rip my entire rig off. My line is 30# braid.
The reason these fish are ripping you’re entire rig off is because you’re line is way to light for this type of fishing.

I do however agree with full spools and drags set to slightly slip with the waves on dipsy’s.

No snubbers will definitely correlate directly to more bites & more fish.

A note on the dipsey set up. If the flasher is breaking off between the dipsey, use 40lb flourocarbon for the violent hits. If you have heavy line line on already, you maybe moving to fast. When the flasher spins out it will tear off. If all the line is good, maybe the fish were just that big. The fish have been running on the larger size for this time of year. Good Luck.

Yes the break was behind the dipsey. Was running about 1.8 to 2 mph (GPS) today.

Speeds not the problem. Probably increase the leader line weight. A salmon hits a lure at 3 times its body weight of thrust. Thats what the lure people tell me, so a 15lb fish will hit a lure at 45lb’s of thrust. Having a lighter line maybe more stealthy to get more hits, but the heavier lead line will keep them hooked up and not break off.