Captain Ron Dohm Jr. from Sport Fish Michigan gives us his latest Michigan fishing report for July 15th, 2024.
Michigan Fishing Report: 7-15-24
Overall the fishing has been awesome all across Michigan. The salmon bite on Lake Michigan has been heating up along with a variety of other species. Anglers are having lots of success targeting lake trout, walleye, and smallmouth bass.
Michigan Fishing Report: Salmon
The king salmon bite has been great and really picked up this last week. While the fishing has been good we have also dealt with some big winds. It pays to cover water, watch your graphs, and take notice of water temps. Big wind will shuffle the fish and water temps up moving the salmon up or down in the water column. This makes each day different. North Manitou Island, Manistee, Frankfurt, Glen Harbor ports have all been catching fish.
Fish have been hitting smaller spoons and flasher/fly combos the best. Magnum spoons have not been working yet and fish are keyed on smaller patterns as the forage size hasn’t gotten quite that big yet. Meat rigs have also been catching fish down deeper off of down riggers.
11 color and 13 color lead core has been the top producers off of the planer boards. The early morning bite before day break has been the best. As the sun comes up move out to deeper water to find bites. Make sure you get out early for the best action.
Michigan Fishing Report: Lake trout
Lake trout jigging bite has remained good. The key is to find the alewives. If you can find the bait you will find the fish. With warmer temps the fish have moved a bit deeper into 100-150 feet of water. If you are struggling to find the alewives look for structure and fish off the bottom. Some lake trout are feeding heavily on golbies. Heavy hair or plastic jigs are working well. The best colors have been white and silver or white and blue. Running a main braid line with a fluorocarbon leader to help you get down faster and have more sensitivity when jigging deep.
Michigan Fishing Report: Smallmouth bass
As we enter midsummer smallmouth bass are all done with the spawn and have moved off to deeper structure. Look for rock walls, rock piles, and deeper piers. Smaller swimbaits/paddle tails, tubes, heavy ned rigs, and drop shots are all great options to throw this time off year. Inland lakes have been having good action on topwater fish in the evenings and early mornings.
