Perch Fishing at it's Worst

Fished with Captain Daryl and Mark. Temperature this morning was in the lower 60s and when we quit fishing it was in the lower 70s. The wind in the morning was out of the south southeast 20 to 25 knots with waves 2 to 4 feet with the occasional 5 footer. Around 9:30 am the wind was letting up and the waves were laying down to 2 footers. Not the best day to be perch fishing. The water temp is 75 degrees. With the bad weather we thought we would fish in close by the C-buoy but we did not mark any fish, so we headed to the E-buoy. Dropped anchor here and fished but we only caught little perch and little sheep head. Made another move in this same area and had the same results. By this time the lake was settling down so we made the move out to McDonald's. We set up on the Michigan side and started catching small perch and small sheep head. Made a little move in this area and we caught the same thing, small perch and small sheep head. Moved to the Ohio side of McDonald's and had the same results. Pulled anchor and moved to the Ohio dumping grounds and caught the same thing, small perch and small sheep head. Made one last move to the S-buoy and caught the same thing, little perch and little sheep head. Came home with no fish and I know Daryl will be tired tonight from pulling the anchor so many times in rough water.

First Perch Fishing Trip of the Year

Fished with Joe and Daryl. Temperature this morning was in the lower 70s and when we quit fishing it was in the middle 80s. The wind was out of the southeast less than 10 knots with waves less than a foot. The water temp is 74 degrees. Started fishing at Huey's old spot and we caught nothing so we moved out to McDonalds and fished on the Michigan side. The catching was pretty slow but we just stayed here and picked away at the perch. Not a lot of junk fish but we caught quite a few large sheephead. Called it quits before it got too hot out. Kept 36 perch with the largest one measuring 12 inches. Most of the fish were in the 8 to 8 1/2 inch range.

Salmon Fishing 2014

Salmon fished with Joe and John out of Manistee, Michigan from 8-16 to 8-23. The weather was good for most of the week. Only had rain for 1 trip and that was light and fishable. Temps ranged from the lower 50s to the lower 70s. The lake was calm except for one trip and that day the waves were 1 to 3 feet.

The fishing report was pretty bad so we did not have very high hopes of catching a lot of fish. When we arrived at port on Saturday the waves were 2 to 4 feet so we said we would not go fishing that night. When we came back from the bait store the wind switched and the lake laid down so away we went. We fished the shallow water (30 feet ) north of the harbor and caught the two kings in the picture. We were pumped and ready for the rest of the week.

Sunday the weather was perfect and the lake was flat. We fished both north and south of the harbor and we never had a hit, I can't recall this ever happening before. Monday we caught 2 kings in the morning and that was it. Tuesday we had a rip off the dipsy that we lost and that was it for the day. Things were not looking very good.

Wednesday we went south of the harbor and we caught 5 kings with the largest one weighing 18 lb. Thursday we fished south again and we only caught 3 fish.

Then came Friday, our last day to fish before we headed for home. The day started a little foggy and dark and we fished south again. We set up on a south troll at the 11 line in 80 feet of water and we never left this area. We were on the fish right out of the gate and the catching never quit. We went 10 for 14 in the morning session and when we took the boat out in the afternoon to clean it up and start to put things away we caught 2 more fish. Friday saved our trip.

Over all we caught 24 fish for the trip with the smallest fish weighing 5 lb. and the largest fish weighing 18 lb. We caught 24 fish out of 33 hits. The 24 fish weighed 265 lb. which gave us an average of 11.04 lb. per fish. We never saw a 20 lb. plus fish at any cleaning station, which is not a good sign.

Lots of Weeds Again

Fished with Captain Daryl. Temperature this morning was in the lower 60s and when we quit fishing it was in the middle 70s. The wind in the morning was out of the north northeast 14 to 17 knots with waves 2 to 3 feet. After a couple of hours the wind laid down and so did the waves. The water temp is 72 degrees. We headed towards Brest Bay (right into the waves) looking for some fish. Once we were past the River Raisin channel the lake was full of floating weeds. We kept heading northeast hoping to get past all the weeds but they were every where. We headed back to the E-Buoy and set lines with wiggle warts and hot and tots set at 75 feet behind the boards. We caught the first fish in the Michigan Dumping grounds. Made another pass through the same area and we caught 1 more walleye. We made one more pass through the same area and caught only a couple of silver bass so we called it a day. Kept 2 walleye.

Lot's of Weeds

Fished with Daryl. Temperature this morning was in the lower 60s and when we quit fishing it was in the upper 70s. The wind was out of the southwest in the morning around 10 knots with waves about 1 foot. As the day went on the wind laid down and then there were no waves. We lost our good walleye chop. The water temp is 72 degrees. Started fishing by the water intake (41 43 150 / 083 13 450) trolling with wiggle warts set at 100 feet on one side of the boat and hot and tots set at 115 feet on the other side of the boat. Caught the first walleye off the hot and tot pretty quick and then the weeds started to get on the lures. We spent most of the day cleaning the weeds off the lures. We just stayed in this area catching a few walleye and very few junk fish. When the wind quit blowing and the lake went flat the walleye catching came to a halt. Kept 5 walleye on a weedy day so we were pretty happy.