6/15/2020 Update

There’s been a ton going on with work and fishing not leaving any time to post so gonna do a past few week’s combined post.

Memorial Day weekend came and went without the Cherokee in the water yet so had to bring the Tundra up to Ludington.  My crew consisted of Riley and Morgan and we got 2 quick trolls in for a couple hours each.  We ended up with 2 kings and a bonus bird visiting the boat for about 15 minutes to keep us occupied. 

Still no Cherokee in the water the following weekend, so took some time to catch some Morgan Lake blue gill with Mark Martino.  It’s always a quick bunch of “medium” sized (as my neighbor says) gills.  I can’t wait to catch some “large” ones!

Ahhh, finally the Cherokee hits the water on June 4th and I went to Ludington that evening.  We love the new dock on the end! I spent about 8 hours plus the next day cleaning and rigging getting ready for Jake and Corey to fish the next two days.  Saturday was a bust…motored out about 5 miles south and when we got to troll speed I lost the forward gear in the transmission.  We had to call for a tow and met Todd Johnson at the launch who took the boat back to Johnson’s Supreme and turned it around for us having it back at the dock by 5pm.  He always treats us great and his hard work is much appreciated.  Of course the salmon were in town Thursday through Saturday and the strong north winds moved them out for Sunday.  We ended up 1 for 2 with a nice 18 pounders Sunday morning and packed up.

The weekend of the 13th and 14th was a little more productive but we still haven’t found what we’re looking for.  Saturday I had Jake, Scotty & Dan and we headed 8 miles south and found a few in 160 FOW.  We ended up with 3 kings and a laker.  The 2 largest kings were a nice double with the largest hitting a mag DW Rasta Goose on a rigger 66 down.  The score for Saturday was 4 for 6.  Sunday brought aboard Scotty, Riley and Grace (first timer).  We went to the same spot and set our 15 lines.  Right away we hit a laker on a 200 copper burnt toast moonshine mag and Grace did a nice job getting it to the net.  It was a better start than the day before – at least quicker.  Unfortunately that was the only bite!  Around 10:30am the small chop turned to pretty darn calm and we hard a first for me…Scotty and I must have both heard something at the same time because we both looked down in the water on the port corner and seen about a 18-20 lb king swimming 6 inches below the surface.  As soon as it got past the sea bag, it spooked and darted between our port rigger cable and dipsy wire.  Perhaps we should have been running our balls at 0.5 feet (or maybe some 2 or 3 color lead!).