Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sheboygan Salmon Still Slammin!

With light winds, partly cloudy skies, and temperatures in the low 80's it seemed like the perfect night to head out on Lake Michigan with a 16' boat! Heading out was picture perfect, with a slight chop from the south, we chose to run south out of Sheboygan and set up in 100 fow just south of the power plant.




By 5:45 we had all of our lines in, and by 6:00 we had our first hit, likely a Rainbow on an orange spoon 300' behind a planer board. Within 10 seconds the fish jumped 3 times and spit the spoon! This would be a common theme over the next 2 hours as we started the trip off going 0 for 3!


Our luck would eventually change as we found an active area of fish and managed 3 fish in 1 pass, with one being a Rainbow, the next a King, and the last a Coho! As the sun crept closer to the horizon our spoon bite faded and the dipsies 90' back with green flasher/flies started to produce! This proved to be the rod of choice, as we caught 3 of our 6 fish on it!


Once the sun set we brought all of our stuff up and glowed in hopes of catching a couple Salmon right before dark. I also replaced one of our orange spoons on the surface with a glow J-Plug.


While all the other rods went quiet, all of a sudden the flat line out the back with the J-Plug started screaming drag! This fish ended up being our biggest of the trip, and surprisingly a Rainbow!



Fishing out of a 16' boat without downriggers is a bit more challenging than fishing off of a 30'er, but it makes me remember how I started out and also that you really don't need all that fancy equipment and large boats to catch a few fish on the Great Lakes!