Salmon still inside 100 foot of water in Saugatuck

We set lines in 100 foot of water and had planned on working out to 140 to 180 foot of water since the fishing had been fairly good in that depth the last couple of days. When we got to 130 foot of water and had not lifted a rod and the boats that were already out in 200 foot of water reported very slow action, we turn back in and decided to fish the 90 foot depth we did well in tha first part of the week. We started out slow with a couple of small lake trout and then another that had to be returned but then we started to catch some Chinook salmon in the upper part of the water column. The Chinook ranged from 10 to 14 pounds and a majority of them came in the top 50 foot. We ended up 12 for about 25 hits and we lost a lake trout at the net at the end of the trip that would have pushed 20 pounds.

Downriggers at 80 foot with a 11 in silver Pro Chip UV flasher and a Rapture UV fly produced at least 5 hits and the other downriggers with metal dodgers and spin n glows on the bottom produced most of the lake trout hits. 150 and 200 foot copper with regular Stinger and Stingray lures (mixed veggie, coyote ugly, orange crush) and the 300 copper with silver flashers and green hypnotist flies are produced multiple times. The low wire dipsy divers at 150 foot with 11 in Pro Chip (silver/green and silver/mountain dew) with green hypnotist flies produced some nice salmon but the best diver was the high diver at 100 foot with a regular size NBK stinger and it got hit at least 6 times.

There are some perch being caught out of Saugatuck. Wednesday evening we went out looking for perch and started drifting in 45 foot of water and moved on out to 75 foot of water. We found the perch in the 72 to 75 foot depth and during the approximate 1 hour of fishing we had left we caught and kept about 18 perch and tossed many under 6 in. back.

For information about salmon and lake trout fishing email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.