Lake Michigan trout and salmon report 7-7-07

Now for my report on the rest on my weekend. My dad and I fished Lake Michigan July 5th thru July 8th out of the Manitowoc/Two Rivers area. We have fished this area for many years with a good friend Dick. Having bought a 20’+ boat last year, I decided to rig it up with the option to run down riggers. We arrived Thursday evening to rain and lightning, so we did not make it on the water. We spent our time rigging rods with a mix of dodger/fly combos and spoons. Friday morning we were on the water at 4:30am out of Two Rivers. We headed north and set up in 60′. The lake was as calm as I have seen it, which was nice so we could get everything set. We started with 2 down riggers set at 30′ and 45′. Surface temp was 62, but at 30′ it varied from 44 to 57. We also had 4 dipseys out. Not long into the day we actually saw fish surfacing like a dolphin. We pulled in 2 dipseys and reset orange spoons 150′ behind my walleye boards. We proceeded to catch a good number of rainbows on the high lines and the shallow down rigger. As luck would have, we never lost a fish.

We came in for lunch and a nap and were back out at 5pm in the same area. Dick helped us make a couple adjustments to our speed getting up to 2.5-2.75 mph vs. the 2 we were doing earlier and that seemed to trigger the kings. We ran 2 riggers, 2 dipseys, and 2 high lines. The majority of all our fish in the afternoon came on a green dodger/glow & blue or green fly combo. We weren’t as lucky as in the morning as we did loose 4 fish, but by days end we nice a nice cooler of fish to clean.

Sat we did much the same, but the fish ran a little smaller and fewer. Most other boats saw the same. Sat afternoon the wind started picking up making it tougher to fish, and by Sunday they were calling for 20-30 mph winds with small craft advisories, so we slept in and came home. I would consider it a very successful weekend being the first time running this set up and only had 1 small tangle from making too sharp a turn while fighting a fish.

This picture shows what we were looking for while trolling. Having the Sub Troll on the down rigger is nice as it tells you the speed and temp at your ball. I was amazed how much of a difference there can be in temp, speed and direction of under water currents. For those that have never experienced Lake Michigan fishing, I would suggest giving it a try. We were there in 5.5 hours from Minneapolis driving 4 lane highways the whole way. Without the boat in tow it would have been less than 5. There are plenty of good captains in that area and the fish will only get bigger and better from here out. I plan to make at least 3 more trips out there this year!