Two Rivers / Manitowoc 7/20

Spent a few days up in Two Rivers and Manitowoc over the weekend. Fishing was tough for me. Having never been out of either of those ports, I wasn’t really sure where to go or what to do. Fished a couple hours Friday night, and then half days both Saturday and Sunday a.m. with pretty dismal results in my opinion, ending with a 1 for 2 performance on Sunday morning when I was finally able to locate a spot holding some good sized kings. The one we boated was just over 20# and the one we lost was probably better. We did get some really nice rainbows the first couple trips including one pushing 14#.

As everyone is aware, the water is cold, really cold. We had 39 down 20 feet in some spots and I never saw a surface temp above 56. When we finally found some kings, they were porpoising around on the surface and you would see them scatter away from the boat. I was already focusing on the top 40 feet of water, but at that point I started moving gear even shallower. The king in the picture came on a rigger down 18 feet with a flasher / fly 40 feet behind the ball, and the one we lost hit a wire dipsy on a 3 setting out 35 LOC.

If I had a little more time up there I think I could have dialed in some better numbers, but who knows. I guess you can’t kill them every trip. Sometimes the fish get to win.

Looking forward to Milwaukee and more familiar water this weekend.

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Thanks for the info, John. This type of report will be invaluable to guys like me that plan to attend the Slammin Salmon GTG this weekend!

John, your results aren’t much different from a number of guys I talked to that fished Salmon a rama. 50’s surface and bone chilling water a short distance down. Since we don’t have big thermoclines set up in the pond, fiah are pretyy scattered.

On a side note for the breeching chins and steelhead. Years ago, a great trick was to kill the motor, pull gear, and start casting spoons with the noodle rods while adrift. Had many awesome days out in 300+ fow hammering fish on the surface while guys trolling closer in struggled.

Unfortunately Randy, I didn’t have any casting rods with me. If I did, we most likely would have stopped and started casting. It looked more like the harbor in september than 4 miles off shore.

Thanks for the report John! Always interesting fishing out of new ports and I’d say you did pretty well for your first time up there and the tough conditions. Rigger down 18… Still love that!