Labor Day Weekend

Fished with Captain Dan. Temperature this morning was 58 degrees and when we quit fishing it was in the upper 80s. The wind was light out of the Northeast with waves less than a foot. Just a great day to be fishing.
Started fishing where we left off on Friday and the fish are still there. The size of the fish were a little smaller but they are plentiful. After 1 1/2 hours of fishing Captain Dan wanted to try by the pack of boats by the Turnaround Buoy so we headed there. We drove through the pack of boats and did not see a whole lot of action but we anchored anyways. Fished for about 20 minutes and caught 1 keeper and a couple of dinks so we headed back to our honey hole and finished out the morning there. We kept 42 perch between 8 and 11 inches with most of them in the 9 inch range. After we cleaned the fish we went to Trappers and had them fry up a nice mess of perch. A good way to end a great fishing trip.

Perch Season Again.

Fished with Captain Daryl. Temperature was in the lower 60s with a little sprinkle when we started and the rest of the day was overcast with temps in the middle 70s. The wind was light out of the South with waves less than a foot.
We were going to start at the E-Buoy but the water was dirty so we went 1 mile east of the E-Buoy and fished for 20 minutes with out any bites. Decided to go back to our hot spot from last year 41 51 900 / 083 11 070 and we started to catch some fish. The only problem was that we caught Sheephead ( a couple close to 10 lbs ), white perch, silver bass and smallmouth bass. The perch that we caught were nice size so we just stayed at this location. Another problem is the weather is making it hard to get shiners so the ones that we had were pretty large for perch jerking, but at least we had shiners. Kept 44 perch between 8 and 11 inches for the day.

Salmon Fever !!!

Fished Manistee from 8-16 through 8-23 with Joe and John H. We also had Captain Daryl's boat, the Lucky Strike with Dwayne and Mark, Captain John's boat, the Laura Cristina with Gale, Pete, Pat and Little John. The weather cooperated for most of the week except for Friday night and Saturday morning which had high winds and thunderstorms.
We fished the whole area, from the skinny water of 10 feet to the shelf and beyond out to 175 feet. Most of the fish were caught in water of 20 feet or less running J-Plugs off the in line boards and off the downriggers from 2 to 4 feet down. This year the best J-plugs were the Superman and the Gray Ghost. The fishing was tough for the first couple of days because the lake was changing over but once we had the East wind, fishing started to pick up. Our biggest fish was 18 pounds with the average around 14 pounds. The best trip only produced 4 fish, not very good for this time of year. Every one had a great time even though we did not get very much sleep. The plan was to update the blog every day but the motels WiFi did not work, maybe next year. We kept 24 salmon for the week.

On Our Merry Way

The boat is ready and the fishermen are ready! John and I are leaving on 08-16-08 and Joe will meet us on 08-17-08. We will be fishing Manistee again this year, staying at the same location as last year. We will be coming home on 08-23-08.

Almost Time For Salmon!

No trips planned on Lake Erie this week. I'll be bringing the boat home from Toledo Beach Marina on Saturday, August 9, to get it ready for salmon fishing on Lake Michigan.

Plan on leaving for Manistee on August 16, 2008.