Ludington Fishing Report: Found: An A-Bomb and a King
Wow! What an emotional rollercoaster yesterday turned out to be. No good fish all morning, then one big king saves the day and spirits soar. Take over first place in the Big King Bonanza and life is good. Logan sends the text jinx, eyebrows immediately cock. Hmm. Then while happily typing up the report for all of you so you know exactly what to do or not to do, I watch a bigger king get weighed in Manistee. A few minutes later Logan sends me a picture of the leaderboard showing me sitting in second place. WTF!
Just like getting beat in the lake trout division by 0.3 pounds, getting knocked out of first by 0.35 pounds is only going to make me and my crew work harder moving forward. Thanks for the motivation, better fisher-people!
So today's plan was simple. Go find that Big King Bonanza steelhead…and a king bigger than 20.5 lbs.
The crew was exactly as planned: me, Morgan, BF Mike, Kert and BF Owen. The plan was to leave the condo at 4:40am. All four of them were standing outside waiting for me at 4:38am. Apparently my 91 sleep score inspired me to reward myself with a 1.5-mile run before fishing. Somehow I had everything timed perfectly to the minute.
We left the dock and headed south as promised. We set up just south of the project nets in 75 FOW. Whoa! Marks on the screen immediately. Perfect!
Morgan and I worked on getting our 15-rod spread set and basically caught nothing until a mini king slammed the 3-color. No skunk. Everything was fine.
We played around in 75 to 110 FOW for a while with nothing hot and heavy happening, then pointed the boat west and eventually made it all the way out to 175 FOW.
The marks were actually pretty decent. Way better than yesterday. We swapped spoons, changed presentations and generally did all the things fishermen do when they have no clue what the fish actually want. We just couldn't establish any sort of pattern.
The boat produced six kings on nine bites.
But we actually ended up with seven fish…huh?
A high diver back 222 in 170 FOW suddenly started peeling drag. Exactly like when you're lake trout fishing in 50 FOW and your diver gets snagged on bottom.
I walked over and put a little pressure on the reel to see if something would give. Somehow we had a player…The thing was jumping way back there. Everything about it was weird.
Morgan fought it for about thirty minutes and as the fish got closer the load on the rod started getting lighter. I could see the flasher. Then I could see the fly…Wait…There wasn't a fish.
There was a giant wad of what appeared to be copper line…Naturally I assumed the fish had somehow pulled a Houdini and traded itself for my inside copper.
We reeled in both copper rods…Nope…Not mine. Wait...what? Turns out it was weighted steel…I don't even own weighted steel.
We eventually handlined a decent king to the boat that was attached to somebody else's weighted steel setup. The fish still had plenty of life in it and had a standard A-Bomb spoon in its mouth. Had to have been hooked that morning. One of the strangest fish catches I've ever been involved in.
I won't include it in the bite list because, honestly, I have no clue who should get credit for it. If you read this and want your spoon back – hit me up.
Hot Bites:
Moonshine Mini Non-Glow Green Slice on a slider 66 down – 2 bites
Dreamweaver 8" Blue Bubble Spindoctor paired with a Dreamweaver Blue Bubble fly on a high diver 100 back – 2 bites
Mr. Chrome 8" Hulk flasher paired with a Rapture Sweet Pea fly on a high diver 125 back – 2 bites
Mr. Chrome 8" Hulk flasher paired with a Rapture Sweet Pea fly on a high diver 222 back – 2 bites
Michigan Stinger Standard Modified Carmel Dolphin on 3 colors of lead core – 1 bite
Yeck Standard Chubster on 3 colors of lead core – 1 bite
Moonshine Mini Non-Glow Green Slice on the out-down rigger 66 down – 1 bite
What I Learned Today:
After talking with a few others, I was perfectly content with our bite this morning. Had to be the combination of El Rancho and the morning run.
Morgan and crew did an excellent job changing spoons all morning. I'm convinced the fish simply didn't want spoons because we showed them every single one in the boat.
The days of 40 to 50 bites and 30-plus fish seem like a long, long time ago. I kind of miss them.
Handlining fish is an interesting experience when half the crew doesn't know what a diver is.
Good to see Owen pick up on the Polish shuffle on his first time out – like a pro. Must have been the Costa’s Morgan!
That's a wrap for this beautiful Saturday. I've got a few special treats waiting for me. Yep, sourdough pizza with caraway seeds and dukkah crust. You probably guessed that one.
Tomorrow we've got Charlie Daniels, no surprise there, but also cousin Pat! Can't wait to get an update on Pat. Then we've got some Ludington finance dude I've never heard of.
I'm calling it right now…Tomorrow I'm heading straight out, setting up in the "Dump Box" on my GPS, somewhere around 65 FOW, and staying on a west troll.
Tomorrow will produce a Captain Chuck's Big King Bonanza fish.
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