What a great week of fishing off of Holland and Saugatuck. The creels ranged from 10 to 20 fish per trip with lake trout exceeding 20 pounds and Chinook reaching the mid 20 pound range. In addition to the Chinook salmon and lake trout there were steelhead up to 12 pounds and coho pushing 10 pounds. Every day we had kings hit our lures run from 30 foot down to the bottom, however we did not catch the kings every day. A 20+ pound king will take off 600 foot (or more) of line with the initial hit and were it goes is anybodies guess, however you can bet that it will be into other lines producing tangles and often lost fish and gear.
 

The salmon, as I said will hit 150 foot copper to 350 foot of copper with spoons and flashers and flies and they also hit on the flashers and flies that we ran on the bottom for lake trout. So basically you fish from 30 foot to 110 foot and what hits is often a surprise—often lake trout but some time steelhead, king salmon or coho salmon.
 

Silver and UV flashers and dodgers with mirage flies and spin n glos behind downriggers, dipsy divers and long copper lines worked well for lake trout and salmon. Orange glow and blue glow spoons on the shorter coppers produced some nice steelhead, however we also caught steelhead off the bottom on flashers and flies.
 

There was some good reports on the perch this week with limit catches being reported out of South Haven. Nothing on the perch in Holland or Saugatuck however. The pier fishermen are catching sheephead and catfish in large numbers. We also some some nice small mouth bass taken by boats jigging along the Saugatuck piers.
 

With no change in the weather forecast, I think we should see continued success in the near shore fishing. For information or to make a charter reservation email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.
 

Captain Ron Westrate
captron@chartermichigan.com
Tel: 616-335-2076
Cell: 616-836-2748