Fishing Report

Silver fish start showing up in Saugatuck (Jul-31-2011)

We found out this past week that we are not use to fighting salmon after weeks of lake trout fights. Getting 6 to 10 salmon and steelhead hits on a trip resulted in1 to 4 silver fish in the creel with copper breaking or fish just being lost because of the drag being to tight or too much slack in the line. We have gotten lazy fighting the trout. The catch was still good with 10 to 20 fish per trip, however the lake trout numbers still dominated the catch. The silver fish are coming on the 150, 200 and 300 copper with orange crush, green dolphin and sunburst stingrays. They are also hitting the high divers at 150 and 180 foot with white slick glow E chip and davey jones E chip with a rapture no see um fly with yellow beads. The lake trout continue to come on gold star dodgers (silver and yellow) with white, yellow and green spin n glows and rapture green hypnotist flies. Perch fishing has been fair to excellent, depending on your location. Limit catches are being reported from 10 miles south of the Saugatuck piers to just south of the Douglas Point in 25 to 40 foot of water. Decent catches of perch were also reported from the Holland piers to south of Castle Park in 30 to 40 foot of water. I saw one catch today (from south of the point) that consisted of over 100 perch with the smallest being 9 in and the largest pushing 14 in. For move fishing information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Lake Trout with a few silver fish in Saugatuck (Jul-24-2011)

If you like lake trout fishing, you would love the fishing this past week. 80 to 90 percent of the creel consisted of lake trout with the rest made up of chinook and steelhead. The best fishing continues to be in 70 to 100 foot of water, however there were some boats that fished all the way out to 300 foot of water for the silver fish. We are fishing the downriggers on the bottom with Silver Horde Gold Star Flashers and green Rapture Flies (wild fern and green hypnotist) and yellow and green spin n glows. The dipsy divers were run at 180 foot on the high divers and 160 foot or more on the low divers with silver Pro Troll flashers (silver UV, Davey Jones and silver prism) and Rapture flies (no see um with yellow beads). The 150 foot and 200 foot copper produced some silver fish with stingray lures (NBK, carmel dolphin and blue veggie) while the 300 copper produced some chinook with silver and silver mountain dew flashers and no see um yellow beaded flies. There was some good reports on the perch, however you may have to run to get there. The last part of the week produced some limit catches 9 miles south of the Saugatuck piers in 20 to 30 foot of water. Morning fishing is much more productive than mid day. Today the boat J Bird caught their limit of 70 fish that ranged from 8 to 14 in. I did talk to one boat that caught some perch north of the piers off the state park in 40 foot, but boats that fished there today did not fare well. For fishing information or to book a charter, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Steelhead at the piers (Jul-17-2011)

A good week of fishing that started out in 250 foot of water and ended in 15 foot of water. The first part of the week found us 9 miles out in 250 foot of water fishing Coho, Chinook Salmon and Steelhead. Creel numbers varied from 8 to 15 fish per trip however strong north, north east and north west wind during the week produced some rough conditions and ultimately cooler water. By Friday the surface temperature had dropped into the low 50 degrees and bait and steelhead had collected at the pier heads. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we fished 10 to 20 foot of water and caught 8 to 13 steelhead per trip with an occasional Chinook salmon thrown in. Out deep the pattern was flashers and flies on 200, 300 and 450 foot of copper, dipsy divers and downriggers. The best combinations included Hot Chip flashers (silver and silver and mountain dew) with Rapture flies (green mirage and oceana). Once we move inshore, the pattern was all spoons on 2 color and 3 color lead core, and dipsy divers and downriggers. Any spoon would work as long as it had silver and orange on it and was the size of the stinger lures. The best lures for us were the stinger fruit cocktail, double orange crush and jaw breaker. On Friday we were 11 for 35, on Saturday we were 6 for 24 and today we were 13 for 26. On Saturday, fishermen were walking off the South Saugatuck pier with stingers full of steelhead. New report on the perch fishing: Limit catches of perch were reported Saturday evening and Sunday morning. The problem is that the location is 9 miles south of the Saugatuck piers off of Glenn. I talked to boats that caught 75+ perch last night and got their limit again today and the perch were running 7 to 12 in. in length. I think that the shallow water pier fishing is probably going to end soon with the wind and current now out of the south and the water temp beginning to increase. I suspect we will be moving out into deeper water and hopefully the salmon will begin to stage in the 60 to 120 foot depth were they have that last couple of years. For information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Salmon showing up in deep water. (Jul-11-2011)

Another good week of fishing in Saugatuck with good catches of Lake Trout in 100 foot of water and some salmon and steelhead showing up in 180 to 240 foot of water. The lake trout fishing is still good but not as consistent as in the last few weeks, with catches of 10 to 18 fish per trip with some more salmon showing up in the catch. The silver fish are showing up in the deeper water with some very good catches of up to 20 fish. This fishing is not consistent and you catch them one day and then struggle the next. If you are planning on fishing the 100 foot depth, go with the Silver Horde metal flashers (silver and yellow) with Green Dude Rapture flies and green spin n glows on the downriggers and low divers. We ran silver Pro Troll flashers and Rapture Oceana, Blue Fern and Wild Fern on the high divers and on the 400 copper and these produced the silver fish along with more Lake Trout. In the deeper water the fish were in the top 60 foot of water consisting of 8-23 lb. salmon and steelhead up to 14 lbs. 200 FOW to 275 FOW. Lots of blue: blue veggie, flying dutchman, blue thunder, dr. hook stinger and stingray sizes. This is the first plug bite with chart. with blue splatter back Ace-Hi. Other boats caught fish on no-see-um flies behind chart. with glow flashers. Hopefully these are the salmon and steelhead we´ve been waiting for, now moving in from middle of the lake. If you have questions or wish to make charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.

Oceana Fly Hot in Saugatuck (Jul-04-2011)

This past week has been excellent with limit catches of 15 to 20 fish almost every day within 2 to 4 hours. The main species has been lake trout with a few salmon and an occasional steelhead in the creel. The best depth continues to be 80 to 110 foot of water with the lake trout hitting throughout the day and the most of the salmon coming early in the morning. The bait in the stomachs of the fish consist of all age classes of alewife from 2 in to 6 in in length, so lures from the regular stinger size to stingray and magnum sizes on the 300 and 400 foot copper have produced but not one size predominates. What was consistent was the Rapture Oceana fly. We ran this on the 450 copper behind silver flashers, on the downriggers and dipsy divers, behind silver and white Silver Horde metal flashers, and behind silver/green and silver blue bubble Hot Chip flashers. We would start with a variety of flies and spin and glows on the downriggers and dipsy divers and ultimately end up with the Oceana on almost every set up latter in the day. It is possible that in the green tinted water we were fishing, that other Rapture mirage flies would also work, however we pulled the Oceana and the Oceana glow. I think that once the water warms a little more the lake trout will move out of this depth and we will have to locate and target the salmon. There were boats fishing from 70 foot out to 270 foot looking for the silver fish and there were no concentrations of salmon reported ( at least from the boat I talked to). The perch fishing has been very poor with 2 to 6 perch per boat reported off of Saugatuck and Holland. The perch report from South Haven has also been spotty at best from 40 to 80 foot of water. If anyone has information on the perch fishing, feel free to email me so I can put this in future fishing reports. For information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.