BIg King Show Up
This week marked the arrival of the big kings around Saugatuck. The bait and fish are setting up in 85-130 feet of water, with some fish being caught out to 160 FOW. For the first time this year a sharp thermocline has developed. The temperature break of 10 degrees moved up and down a little day to day, but generally was around the 55'-65' depth. Catches throughout the week include a few steelhead and lake trout, but the catch was dominated by salmon. Thirteen to 17 pound kings were common and some kings over 20 pounds were caught.
Fish were caught from 20-100 feet down. The downriggers produced best fished 55-85 feet down with 8 inch ProTroll flashers and Rapture flies. Flashers and flies were also taking fish on the wire divers pulled 130-250 feet back. The best combinations were: a white blade mountain dew with a HItman no-se-um fly, chrome blade with bright green bubble tape and a green beaded no-see-um fly; white glow with a oceana fly, glow frog with a hypnotist fly, super frog with a green no-see-um and a chrome doulbe glow with a wild fern fly.
Stingray spoons and Ace Hi plugs produced on the 200' and 300' coppers. The best spoons were the green dolphin, silver orange tip, and nitro dolphin. Green glow ladderback and pearl glow Ace Hi were active on the 200s.
For the first time this year we pulled some cut bait. Herring behind 8 inch ProTrolls and Rapture teaser rigs produced activity on Friday.
Salmon fIshing should continue to improve and the thermal barrier stablizes and bait continues to move in toward shore.
Perch fishing was slow during the beginning of the week, but was good on Friday with many limit catches caught in 35 FOW just south of the Saugatuck piers.