Ludington Fishing Report: 20.15 Pounds of Mission Complete!
It is June 26, 2026 and Segment One of the Big King Bonanza is winding down fast. The final day is July 3rd, basically next Friday. I've got three days this weekend and then next Friday to make something happen. The weather is supposed to be excellent for this three-day stretch, so we'd better make hay while the sun's shining. No telling what next Friday will look like.
Going into today, I've got lots of little birdies flying around in my head. I'm pretty confident we can go out and get bites again, but we haven't been able to boat anything bigger than 15 pounds. I won't have Logan with me, which is bad because the dude is a fish magnet. On the flip side, it gives me carte blanche on all three riggers...like I actually know what I'm doing.
Logan likes each rigger running its own thing. Bill Saiff III is all about running riggers in unison. I snuck the naked meat head down on Sunday and it took a good bite, so my opening lineup was going to be a 12-inch fish paddle meat rig on the chute, 15 feet back and 75 down. The out-down riggers would each get naked meat heads 30 feet back and ten feet above the chute, so 60 down, with spoons free-sliding above them. The theory was simple. Big kings come in to investigate the paddle on the chute and if they lose interest, they get intercepted by a meat head. Perfect. I'd round things out with two more meat rigs on divers for a total five-strip meat presentation. Hammer hunting people!
My crew this morning was small but mighty: me, Charlie Daniels, niece Morgan and her squeeze, Mike. This was Morgan's 2026 debut and Mike's lifetime debut. Morgan is usually good for a hog/hammer or two. I just needed one.
Now where were we going? My gut was saying south of the projects. Locals were telling me to stick with Big Point. Well, there's always straight out, right? Wait...I woke up and saw a nice Free Style report from north on the bank. Sounds like another pierhead decision.
So we got to the pierheads and turned right. We ran five miles and set up just north of the tribal nets. We had half the spread set and hadn't marked a single fish. Hmm. There were a bunch of boats around. WTF?
Eventually we had 12 lines and 14 lures out and still nothing. I looked at the probe temperature and it was 40 degrees down 60 feet. Now, I'm not a salmon, but if I was, I don't think I'd enjoy 40-degree water. Too much shrinkage. Surface temp was 61, so we worked our way toward 50 FOW to see what was going on. Then the big meat rig on the chute fired and produced a small king. That's not exactly how the program was supposed to work, but at least we weren't getting skunked.
We marked absolutely nothing shallow, so at 6:20am we pulled lines and went searching for different water. Well, same water, different location. We slid a little farther north and a little deeper. Still nothing...except more wind and waves than I ordered. So we put the waves at our back and headed west, eventually working all the way out to 410 FOW. We picked away at some minis and eventually worked our way back in to 220 FOW.
At one point we were sitting on six fish on seven bites. Easily our worst trip of the year from a production standpoint. Our biggest fish at that point was a coho on a flasher/fly. We also lost a really nice king on another flasher/fly setup. Morgan then called for two more flasher/fly presentations on the out-down riggers.
The port out-down got a big Charlie Special paddle paired with a custom-tied Sweet Pea fly and we sent it down to 140. That rod eventually fired and produced a 20.15-pound king…our biggest fish of the year…and currently good enough for first place in the Big King Bonanza (at least when I started typing this)…Mission complete.Not exactly how we drew it up, but it never is.
We ended up with one coho and six kings on eight bites.
Hot Bites:
Moonshine Mini Green Slice (non-glow) on 7 colors of lead core – 1 bite
Ito 12" Ito Do Dee paddle on the chute rigger 75 down – 1 bite
Yeck Standard Fireball on 5 colors of lead core – 1 bite
Dreamweaver 8" Blue Bubble Spindoctor paired with a Dreamweaver Blue Bubble fly on a high diver 130 back – 1 bite
Mr. Chrome 8" Hulk flasher paired with a KRW Riverside fly on a high diver 135 back – 1 bite
Michigan Stinger Magnum Blue Mixed Veggie RV on copper – 1 bite
Dreamweaver 11" Charlie Special paddle paired with a Rapture Sweet Pea fly on the out-down rigger 140 down – 1 bite
Silver Streak Standard Chubster Imitation on 3 colors of lead core – 1 bite
What I Learned Today:
Morgan maintains complete control of her fish...right up until crunch time. Thinking some new sunglasses might be in order so she can actually see.
Just when I think I've got this whole metacognition thing figured out, I scoop too early without Morgan in sync. Thank God for Charlie Daniels. When we reviewed the video, he hand-lined the hammer and absolutely saved the day. Posting the video to embarrass myself and work harder on my execution tomorrow.
Unfortunately Logan immediately jinxed me by saying the fish wouldn't hold first. He did say it would stay Top 3, so thanks for allowing that buddy ol' pal. As I'm typing this, Fishin' Finnatics just weighed a 20.30-pound fish in the Manistee tournament. Not wishing bad juju on anybody, but I'm hoping that thing loses two-tenths before it gets to Captain Chuck's scale.
Morgan does not have the same happy smile as her dad with a bottle of Fireball - just saying!
Tomorrow Morgan and Mike will be joined by more Ferris Staters, Kert and Kert's dude. We'll have a solid five-person crew and should get a picture-perfect weather morning. WE ARE GOING SOUTH! ALL CAPS!
I'm thinking about targeting an 11-pound steelhead…because we caught soooo many of those today.
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