Lake Michigan – shakedown salmon cruise

After having made a few trips to Lake Michigan with friends over the last couple years to fish for salmon, I decided last year it was time to start adding gear so I could start chasing them with my own boat. After I went to a bigger boat last fall, I accelerated my original plan and started compiling gear over the winter. Multiple e-bay purchases later, I had enough gear to get started. My initial spread consists of 2 downriggers, 2 wire line dispey diver rods, and a mix of different leadcore setups from 3 color to 8 color. I still need to add a couple full cores but need to acquire some more rods and reels first. Thanks to my good friend Joel Ballweg and his wicked machining skills, I had some downrigger mounts that utilized the existing rails on my boat and I was ready to chase some salmon. Friday July 5th was tabbed as the day for my first excursion to the big pond for a shakedown cruise. I had a crew lined up and we decided on a 6:00 departure from the harbor, which is a little later than one should hit the water, but I didn’t want to set gear in the dark as I expected there to be some issues. This was in essence a shakedown cruise more than a fishing trip. We headed out to 95 FOW and started to set gear on a NNE troll. Surprisingly, only a couple minor issues were had, most of which were my inexperience. The first two times I dropped a rigger down, I managed to try to get too much slack out of the line and caused it to release and had to immediately bring back up the 15# rigger ball, but the third time was the charm. We got both wire line rods set, one rigger out, and two leadcore board rods out when the first fish hit on one of the wire line dispey rods set at 135 LOC with a white flasher and Little Boy Blue fly. It seemed like a heavy fish, but didn’t make any big runs and felt somewhat sluggish. At that point, I realized I was not only fighting a small salmon, but a dipsey that wouldn’t release. As I was fighting that fish, the other wire line rod set at 160 LOC with a green flasher and Naughty Leprechaun fly picked up a fish that pulled drag for 200 feet before settling down.

I went on a shakedown cruise and fishing trip happened. I never expected a double right out of the gate, but nobody complained. As was the case with my small Coho, the dipsey was set too tight on the other rod as well, so Steve got to battle a nice king and an unreleased dispey. After what was most likely a longer than necessary battle, the first nice king found its way to my boat. Please ignore the John Gillespie reverse gill plate hold. The picture with the fish held the right way didn’t turn out. We continued setting the rest of the gear, adjusted the dispey diver release tension on both and got them back in the water, and got the gear squared away.

After about a 10 minute break, one of the downriggers rods fired and Jake (IDOer Chamberschamps) got his turn on a fish. After a good battle, another nice king found the net and the day was shaping up great. That fish came on a downrigger set 90 feet down in 120 FOW with a SWR rig, white flasher and LBB fly. We worked our way slowly deeper looking for colder water and more consistent bait and fish. We picked up a lake trout on a wire dipsey rod and then lost a fish on a wire rod, before settling in the 140 FOW range for a while as we were seeing decent bait and a fair amount of hooks in the 100 to 60 foot range. With the 15# rigger balls I was running, I was able to see the ball on the Lowrance on the rigger set 70 feet down. I saw a big hook at about the 75 foot range on the locator and commented to the guys that I couldn’t believe he didn’t hit anything that went by, and wouldn’t you know it, the high rigger went off and Jake was up again. The drag screamed for a while and the battle was on with our biggest king of the day. Certainly not the biggest king in the lake but so far the biggest to come to my boat.

We continued on a northerly troll for a while and eventually turned to head back south after about 7 miles. As we headed south the wind began to pick up and we were dealing with a trailing current. Not sure if that had an impact on our hooking percentage but we had the next three fish come unbuttoned. As the wind continued to strengthen, we started taking some waves over the bow and started having problems keeping our trolling line. We had to make a decision to either turn back north or call it a day. Seeing as it was a 6+ mile ride back to port, we decided to pull gear and head in. As we were pulling rods, one more fish decided to hit so we finished the day in style with another good fish to close. We ended the day going 8 for 12, boating 4 coho, 3 kings, and a lake trout. The trip far exceeded my expectations. Many thanks to Greybeard and Joel Ballweg for answering all my questions over the last year, helping with gear recommendations, and letting me spend time in their boats learning a small bit of the vast knowledge those two have compiled on lake Michigan. Also a thank you to Steve for joining me for the shakedown cruise and helping me to get my gear running well.

The best color for us was Little Boy Blue, but we caught fish on every fly color we ran. Naughty Leprechaun was probably the second best color, with aqua patterns producing as well. I can’t wait to get out and give it another go. Hard to beat the explosive 200 foot drag screaming runs of an angry salmon, expect for maybe enjoying it on the grill right after getting home.