What a difference a week makes. The fish that we had been fishing in 50 to 100 foot of water have moved out and we ended up fishing in 225 to 275 foot of water. The problem was that the water temperature is almost the same from top to bottom so the fish are scattered out throughout the whole water column. We caught steelhead and lake trout 20 foot down, 30 foot down and 80 foot down. The boats that fished the St. Joe tournament were fishing in 300 foot of water and fishing 200 foot down to the bottom. Today the boats out of Saugatuck fished in 250 to 275 foot of water and fished from 180 foot down to the bottom and caught a mixture of salmon and trout.
The problem is getting down to this depth and if you do you can not run many lines. Downriggers with flashers and flies and 400 and 450 foot of copper with glow stingray and stinger lures worked the best. Some boats are using wire line with 2 to 4 pounds of lead and letting out 600 to 750 foot of line. Any way you run it, it is a recipe for tangles if you run to many lines.
I think the fish are out deep because there is very little bait in shore and once the bait moves in, the fish should follow. Check back and see how the rest of the week went and where the fish ended up. For information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.