After hearing and reading many, many reports about the “Hot” bite going on for salmon up and down the entire Wisconsin Lake Michigan coast line, I decided it was time for my annual shake down salmon fishing excursion this past weekend.
Weather and NOAA websites were check repeatedly prior to the weekend and everything looked about as good as it could get.
Waves of less than one foot and no severe weather anywhere in the forcast for the entire weekend plus continued reports of fish virtually committing suicide on just about anything put in the water had me more than a little anxious for this weekend fishing trip.
Boat partners are a must for this kind of fishing so invites were extended and pretty much excepted on the spot by John Schultz and Kevin Sime. Both had been out on the big pond with me or Greybeard in years past which is always good because it takes a lot of team work and co-operation to pull off a good trip on Lake Michigan. I knew Kevin could drive the boat while John and I set and attended lines. That part of the plan worked out quite well.
Other parts of the plan though…..well, that’s why you take these “shake down” fishing trips in the first place. To learn what works, what doesn’t work and what not to do again.
On Lake Michigan you can tailor you fishing plan to target certain species. That doesn’t mean you won’t catch other species but hopefully, it does mean you will come away with more of the species your actually targeting than you would otherwise. I love catching those extremely hard fighting, tackle testing King Salmon first and foremost. The fact that they taste great on the grill or smoked is a heck of a nice bonus.
My 2nd favorite species would have to be Steelhead. They fight quite well also and taste even better on the grill followed by Coho Salmon which taste the best of all of them.
Since we were primarily targeting King’s, we pretty much planned on using flasher/fly’s on the ends of most of our lines. This technique is a long proven producer for many, many charter captains up and down the coast of Lake Michigan.
When we felt a need for something different, we went to magnum spoons and then regular spoons. I had other baits along, but none of those ever hit the water as the flasher/fly’s and spoons did there jobs quite nicely.
We fished from about 4:30 to 10:00pm on Saturday and 4:00 to 10:30am on Sunday morning boating more than 20 fish ranging in size from about one pound up to about 15 or 16lbs for our largest king. We also lost several fish, including a few big ones which tested our tackle, fish fighting skills and left us wishing our encounter would have worked out a little differently.
On both days we successfully landed triple’s but then later got our butt’s kicked by solo salmon that decided running cross ways thru our trolling spread was a good idea. It proved to be a good idea for them but didn’t work out so well for us.
All in all, it was a very successful shake down cruise and I have an excellent idea on which area’s of my arsenal need shoring up and which parts of it are working just fine.
To top it off, the three of us had a great time out on the big lake and we all went home with some very large coolers filled with fresh salmon for the grill and the smoker.
I’m pretty sure John & Kevin feel the same way about this part – I can’t wait until I get to do it again!
Yes I can’t wait to do it again. I am quite capable of setting lines too… I don’t mind being the driver of the boat. I find both jobs entertaining. When Joel calls and asks you if you want to go salmon fishing, I would recommend doing that if you are ever so lucky.
Great Job you guys !!!
This is something I will have to put on my list to do !!
Those fish look fantastic !!
Great trip and thanks for the invite Joel. And you are correct. I can’t wait to get out again. Every time I get out on the big pond, I learn a little more. I think it is time to start building my own arsenal of salmon gear.
The fresh grilled salmon and steelhead were awesome last night and the smoker will be getting a workout as well.
Nice work men! Joel – good to see you’re dialed-in out there per usual, those fish look quality too. Lot’s of fun and glad to see it went well.
Joel
Joel, great job on the trolling bite!
Were you able to get in on the early morning shallow bite? I didn’t make it back out this weekend, but the 3 to 6 am period has been hot in very skinny water 
I had one set of friends out on Friday who did well, then again with clients on Sat., then another set of friends who didn’t get their second rod grabbed out before the first one went off. Both ended up with 8 and were off by 9 a.m. Biggest were 20# laker in one boat and and over 20 brown in the other.
Randy, didn’t get a chance to try to get in touch with Paul, sorry…
And if you haven’t had the chance check out Jim Hudson’s facebook page, he has been putting some real tank lakers in the boat the last week or so…
Mark
Nice report Joel and congrats on your successful weekend!
I love salmon fishing and your report certainly fired me up to get out there and make some plans! 
We started out in 50′ of water on Sunday morning. The bite was good until the sun peaked over the eastern horizon. At that point it died for us until about 9:00am when we had another flurry of action.
It may very well be that we should have started even shallower. I certainly felt like we could have started earlier as the fish were biting the second we dropped lines in the dark hours of early morning.
most mornings that I have gotten out, by 5am the bite had slowed down and marked a lot less fish. Though, that’s 15-20 fow. By 6, marked next to nothing. I haven’t been out deeper for vertical jigging lakers yet or trolling at all. Most of my action shallow has been on 3/4oz glow cleo’s, wiggle warts, and 3/4oz gizzard shad cranks.
Awsome, glad they were still biting Sunday morning Joel,. There seems to be a lot of kings around in that 14/15 pound range.
Art
Good seeing you on Saturday night Art!
Even more so than usual since you were carrying the right size allen wrench to fix my down rigger.
Worked great on Sunday morning!
Nice job guys!!
Nice job Joel and crew. Yes, the salmon bite has been on fire. It is surprising how much the bite slows even before 6AM most days. This getting up at 1AM to get there is getting tuff on my sleep pattern.
Michael