Labor Day Door County Advice

  • fredbart
    St. Paul
    Posts: 372
    July 27, 2012 at 6:25 pm #1321647

    Good Afternoon:

    I will be spending Labor Day weekend in Door County and could use some prefishing smallmout advice. I have fished Door county over Memorial day twice, fishing this calendar period is completly new.

    I was thinking of taking a day and fish the northern part of the county, the other fishing Stugion Bay. How should I approach fishing during this time, depth,lure types, etc. Any suggestions about launches. I have a 40 horse Yamaha, would it be to much of a steatch to head up to Washington Island?

    So much to learn! So little time!

    Randy Wieland
    Lebanon. WI
    Posts: 13651
    July 27, 2012 at 8:57 pm #1087842

    Wind direction is probably the most determining factor in which bay I fish; or launch from. Rawleys, Sister, Ephrim all have some great deeper water structure that make them perfect for holding quality fish.
    Generic rigging I start with:
    Lipless baits
    white spinner baits (willow blades)
    Drop-shot with a goby
    5″ K-grub in pearl/pepper
    Chug in chrome/blue or firetiger
    Cover water looking for points/reefs/shoals with bait fish. Where there’s bait, you’ll find numbers of smallies.
    BTW – don’t be afraid to burn spinner baits over 30 fow. Late Aug into Sept I’ve run into a lot of schooling smallies on feeding frenzies “in the middle of nowhere”

    fredbart
    St. Paul
    Posts: 372
    July 28, 2012 at 1:08 am #1087893

    Great suggestions. I am however not sure what a Goby looks like? Thanks.

    riverrat63
    Posts: 15
    July 29, 2012 at 2:10 pm #1088058

    Gobys are a small look minnow type fish with a big head and small body they are a brownish in color and they can swim far off the bottom dont worry u will prob catch one, and look out for sheep head to there is some monsters out there

    riverrat63
    Posts: 15
    July 29, 2012 at 2:11 pm #1088059

    Opps they cant swim far off the bottom

    Randy Wieland
    Lebanon. WI
    Posts: 13651
    July 29, 2012 at 5:15 pm #1088094

    My favorite Goby baits are a discontinued Culprit product. When they closed them out, I bought about 80 bags of them. Down to about 20 now . As mentioned, larger head and thinner body/tail. Each part of the Great Lakes now has them. Interesting that the color variations are different in Erie, Lake MI, Green Bay, St Clair….

    I do better with a mid-tone color and Gold w/Purple fleck. For some reason I have about 15 bags of Poor Boy’s Mango Gobies in my boat specifically for DC

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