I needed daily naps to keep up the pace of fishing both ends of the day except for the blessing of bad weather on Thursday so I could sleep in. I had a great time fishing with lots of different friends over the course of the Salmon A Rama tourney. Didn’t fare as well as I hoped in the Super Sweepstake and Two On A Boat. Super sweeps boated around 30 fish and still had 4 smaller fish as part of our 12 fish weight placing 23rd. The next day for Two in A Boat only had 9 bites and 5 fish. Where do they go and why???? Just one of those throwbacks from Sat would have us cashing a check! We did have some Lake Trout luck getting the fish of the day and ending up 7th. Also placed 9th in the highly prized Master Angler.
Everyone seemed to like the new cash only prize format and the way Salmon A Rama was run having been taken over by the Salmon Unlimited Club of Racine. No more TVs and outboard motors. The participation for both Super Sweeps Stakes and Two On A Boat were up quite nicely and ticket sales and sponsors supported all the cash prizes and the $10,000 first prize to Roger Hellen for his record breaking brown trout of 41.5#. I fished the area he caught it many times that week and wonder how close I might have come to that monster.
We had some crazy wild times and some long times between bites. As usual the before sun up was the best and #4 glow Js or glow spoons on mono, 2, 3 and 4 color were very productive along with shallow dipsys 30-45loc with a variety of glow spoons and occasionally glow flasher/fly. Riggers with SWR worked better than normal all day long taking would you believe, 14 bites one rod on a Shamrock Brad’s Cut Plug SWR down 24 in 35-50fow on Sat.
On bright days Brads Jack Pot on rigger and 3 color, Pink Magic on 5 Color and Lady Bug on 4 color. Overall Wonderbread worked best wherever I put it but mainly SWR, Dispy and 8 Color. Red Hook spoons that worked best early AM were no surprise with reg and mag Green Tiger, Broken Nose reg and mag and pink Tiger where ever I placed them. One surprise was reg Broken nose got hit so many times that I left it on my 6 color and worked well all day some days. The reg dbl purple spook on 5-8 colors still produces. Sister Sledge reg and mag worked in both bright and overcast daytime action. We didn’t have a lot of luck on Js after sun up so stuck to Brads cut Plugs and spoons. The cut plugs with roasted garlic tuna in oil seemed to take more bites after the morning flurry was over.
I love it when the fish are in less than 50fow. However, some days despite good temp and lots of bait present, fish either moved or not biting. Sure wish I could figure out why!! Good fishing in one area was no guarantee that the fish would be there the next low light outing. Most of the time trolled 2-2.2 on the Depth Raider. However, had some good fish hit when slowed to 1.4-1.6 fighting fish. The temps were all over the map this week with wind changes. If there was a little bit of water in the mid 50s near bottom you could expect to find salmon all over the water column in low light.
Despite that many days on the water I’m not fished out. My wife says “you’re definitely certified” and she could be right.
Tight lines and full coolers,
Grey Beard
Great effort for sure Michael!
Now go get some sleep.
Excellent report – love to hear about all the different setups you’re running. Thanks!
Joel
I was recently in Alaska fishing, got a 25+ king. I’m now fighting those darn bugs that get us fisherman from time to time. Since this is one of the closest fisheries to hit, I’m wondering about the fish. Are the great lakes self sustaining now or is there a large stocking effort each year? I’m curious if there are ladder stations for catching the dieing fish to utilize the eggs for stocking purposes across the US?
Thanks for any help you can offer!
John
I’m not sure about all the great lakes but Lake Michigan is not self sustaining. The Lake Michigan salmon fishery is pretty much a put & take system. Several states plant salmon, Wisconsin, Michigan for sure. Not sure about Indiana.
The WDNR collects eggs from mature female King Salmon each fall as they run up Strawberry Creek which is a tributary that runs into Sturgeon Bay, Door County.
Great report Grey Beard. I really want to make a salmon trip out your way in the next couple of years.
One of the problems encountered on Lake Michigan was dramatic fall in the alewife abundance. Many factors are in play but one came as a surprise. Some of the state of Michigan rivers have the water quality necessary for salmon to successfully spawn. There was little to no data re how many. They have tried to determine the number of naturals vs plants by using the antibiotic oxytetracycline. They put this in the food in the hatchery raised fish and it gets into the bones and when placed under a black light it phosphoresces.
They determined that a substantial number of naturals come from Michigan waters thus when they decreased the number of fish planted to protect alewife abundance, Michigan had to give up the largest number of hatchery raised fish of the Great Lake States.
Alewive biomass is still quite low and we will need to continue the reduced salmon plant. One of the alewife food sources diaporea has also crashed thus the fat content of the alewife and that reduces salmon growth rates. They are trying to track Michigan’s natural reproduction to see if further reduction in hatchery raised fish will be needed. Yes, the average weight of salmon has decreased by not their spunk.
In the good old days of many 25lbers back in the 80s and 90s we typically only needed downriggers and dipsys and the fish made huge runs. Now cleaner water has us running all the leadcore and copper lines and I think those 25lbers would destroy a lot of our spread. It might be worth it. My biggest this yr is 19.5 and only 2 fish over 17#. A 23# fish won the 9 day Salmon A Rama contest and only 4 over 20# in the top 10. One yr you had to have one in the 30# class to get into the top 10.
There is some chinook natural reproduction on Lake Superior. I think the coho is now totally self sustaining but don’t know much of what’s going on in Lake Superior.
Great stuff. The reason I asked. Chinook’s were stocked in Lake Oahe back in the 80’s. In 1997 the lake hit and all time high, but just a few short years later the lake was “empty”. The GF&P stopped the stocking efforts for several years. However, the chinooks were still being caught. It wasn’t uncommon to catch upper teen fish. In my days fishing there, a 10lb fish was a big fish.
Anyway, great info! I hope the rest of your summer goes as well as this trip.
John