A great week of fishing out of Holland and Saugatuck. Creels numbers ran from 10 to 20 fish consisting of 70% lake trout and 30% king salmon, coho and steelhead. The kings are weighing in from mid teens to the mid 20 pounds. Although there we are not catching large numbers of salmon, they are running larger than in past years. This past week also produced some very nice coho that weighed up to 12 pounds. The lake trout averaged 10 to 12 pounds with one over 22 pounds. Though out the week, one or two steelhead often showed up in the creels and these high jumping fish are something to watch.
The best time for the kings and coho are early in the morning or at dusk. Flashers and flies and magnum lures that are run at the thermocline on the dipsy divers and downriggers produced well. The best are flashers and lures that have glow tape or have a body that glows along with mirage or glow flies. Once again the lake trout are hitting silver flashers and mirage flies or spin n glos run on or close to the bottom. Steelhead are primarily hitting silver and orange magnum spoons run on 150 and 200 copper, however, we have also take some right off the bottom with our lake trout rigs.
Some good reports on the perch. There were some limit catches reported for a couple of days on the clay bottom between Saugatuck and South Haven. A couple of days of good catches and then the fishing slowed. Hopefully they are moving north. Pier fishermen are catching large numbers of sheephead and catfish in Holland and Saugatuck.
With not change in the near forecast, I would expect the fishing to continue to improve as the kings start showing up in larger numbers as they begin to stage for the fall run. For more information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.
Captain Ron Westrate
captron@chartermichigan.com
Tel: 616-335-2076
Cell: 616-836-2748
