Big salmon being caught in Saugatuck

This past week produced some very good chinook salmon catches of 6 to 8 fish with some pushing 20 pounds. The fish are coming in 80 to 140 foot of water and from 20 foot down to the bottom. Friday and Saturday all of the bait in the stomachs of the salmon were 4 to 6 in long, however on Monday they were feeding on a different year class that went from 3 to 4 in in length. This would explain why we had the best luck with Stingray and magnum Stingers last week but regular size Stingers worked best on Monday. There were some reports of fish being caught out to 180 foot, however the best fishing was in 90 to 130 foot of water in the morning and then we had to go out deeper (180 foot of water) and fish deeper (90 to 160 foot down in the afternoon. What appeared to work best was meat at the deeper depths, however for us, it was slower fishing in the deeper depths.

The chinook salmon are coming from 20 to 60 foot down on 100, 200 and 300 copper with orange crush, UV blue dolphin and green dolphins. The down riggers were run at 50 and 65 foot down with the center downrigger just off the bottom. Green dolphin and bloody nose Stingrays on the out downs and either a green/glow Protroll 11 in flasher and Rapture last supper fly or a glow frog Stingray run down the shoot produced fairly consistently. Dipsy divers were run at 140 foot out to 220 foot with a variety of lures and flashers and flies and nothing proved to go more than once a trip. It seemed that if we caught a fish on a particular lure and color we should take it off and try something else, since it would not go again.

No reports on the perch fishing either from South Haven, Holland or Saugatuck.

For more information about the fishing conditions or to make a charter reservation, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com.