Ludington Fishing Report: One Coin Flip, One Budweiser and One Heck of a Tournament!

7/19/20266 min read

Yesterday's Offshore Classic got canceled because of the weather, so instead of fishing, we spent the entire day working on something just as important. Mojo.

After all, today's tournament was going to be a one-day shootout. The fish could literally be anywhere so we figured a little extra luck might help us throttle back on a school of hungry hogs…Makes perfect sense to me.

Our mojo-building Saturday looked something like this...

Sorted through a pile of old spoons and found the crown jewel...A Budweiser spoon… Yep. Right into tomorrow's opening lineup. Why wouldn't it? spoiler, it didn’t catch squat!
Dropped off Petunia Josh's custom YETI coffee mug.
Stopped by Captain Chuck's because...well...it's Captain Chuck's.
Smoked two more batches of salmon bites, bringing us to five batches for the week.
Turned the condo into a smoked salmon assembly line with Surgeon Jenn, Sister Jenn and Euge vacuum sealing nearly 30 pounds of fish before putting together care packages for seven tournament boats. Nothing says "good luck" like feeding your competition.
Then came the mission…Find the Lucky Ludington fishing coin. We struck out at the estate sales, but the hunt somehow led us to a local eBay seller who happened to have several Mason County Pierre Marquette coins. Not exactly what we were looking for...Close enough. By the time the day was over we had enough lucky coins to make us feel dangerous.

Tournament morning arrived…Our crew consisted of me, Surgeon Jenn, Sister Jenn, Euge and Nick. Big Fish Brad...Not so much. Apparently sleeping won out over fishing for ten thousand dollars. We still like him.

At the pier heads we had one big decision…North…South…Or straight out? Nobody had a clue. So Surgeon Jenn grabbed one of our newly acquired Pierre Marquette coins for the flip...

Tails...North…Decision made…We pointed the Tiara toward the same 200 FOW north of Big Sable that had treated us so well all week.

About 120 boats blasted off together before running into one of the thickest fogs I've seen all season...yuk!

Eventually we reached our water, set our spread...And...Nothing. No marks. No bites. The north wind had shoved ice-cold water into the area and I was beginning to think that coin thing was a bunch of crap!

Finally a meat rig fired…Mini king…Not exactly tournament material nor what that meat rig was designed for, but at least we weren't getting skunked. I was starting to think we'd be carrying our fish to the scales in a Meijer grocery bag instead of a cooler.

Then the diver rods woke up…King after king after king…Just like that we had ourselves seven kings worth weighing and one steelhead.

Great...Except tournament rules only allow seven fish of one species in your ten-fish box.

Now we needed two more trout…So we pulled everything and made a run straight out from Ludington to where we'd found steelhead earlier in the week.

The first setup? Nothing…That's when I looked over at Nick.

"Nick...have you cracked a Budweiser yet?"

"No."

"Well...go crack one, dude. We need to pull out all the punches."

The can cracked…Almost at the exact same moment...Steelhead! Coincidence? You decide.

We stayed with the program and eventually boxed enough fish to complete our tournament limit.

By the end of the day we finished with 17 fish on 30 bites consisting of 13 kings and 5 steelhead, giving us a tournament box of 7 kings and 3 steelhead.

Not a bad recovery after wondering if we'd catch anything at all. All credit to Surgeon Jenn, her coin, and the comment “If we’re gonna go north, we should just go to the exact same spot.”

We ended up with 105 lbs on our 10 weighed fish – no big check for us…always humbled at the weigh in.

Our 3-tournament summary:

Ludington Legends: 17th out of 83
Ladies Am: 4th out of 49
Classic Am: 9th out of 77

Hot Bites:

Prototype 8" flasher paired with a Howie Gold & Green Crinkle fly on a high diver 250 back led the way with 8 bites.
ITO 12" White paddle with Black and Green Dots on the out-down rigger 100 down took 6 bites.
Prototype 8" flasher paired with a Dreamweaver Little Boy Blue fly on a low diver 160 back took 6 bites.
Bechold 11" Kevin's Girlfriend paddle paired with a Rapture Sweet Pea fly on the out-down rigger 121 down took 4 bites.
Yeck Standard Golden Goat on 5 colors of lead core took 2 bites.
Yeck Standard Goldilocks on 5 colors of lead core took 2 bites.
Silver Streak Standard Chubster Imitation on 7 colors of lead core took 2 bites.

What I Learned Today:

Sometimes a Budweiser spoon deserves another shot at greatness. We will be determined to catch fish on it to make the blog picture…stay tuned!
Smoked salmon care packages for competing boats apparently don't hurt your mojo. Rob from Nauti Dog said “Too dry”. Dude, it’s supposed to be like jerky. Sip the beer, chew the salmon, wash it down with more beer.
Nick should probably crack his Budweiser a little earlier next tournament…maybe…I don’t know…do you let it build then crack the mojo, or just have Nick start with the opening line setting – we’ll have to play with that and report back.
Thinking Big Fish Brad's no-show probably cost us about three pounds per fish...so roughly thirty pounds total. No worries Brad...that still wouldn't have won it for us. Sleep well, my friend.
The team of Surgeon Jenn and Sister Jenn was a success. They slayed the fish, organized the boat and tackle, vacuum sealed the fish, all the things…
Shout out to Jackpot and Shining Times for all the help on the water where to go…much appreciated. There are boats out there that will not talk to me because of this blog. Oh, and thanks for the Surgeon Jenn call outs on channel 68…top part of the morning for us!

My Tournament Feedback

Overall, Ludington continues to do an outstanding job with tournament week. Our first Offshore Classic was back in 2005, and every year it seems to get a little better. I'd give this year's event a solid 9.5 out of 10.

A few thoughts...

The ladies especially love all the little nick-knack giveaways. The Kona raffle, however, wasn't my favorite. First, not everyone walked away with something. Second, and more importantly...Time. Tournament week is busy. We really don't want to spend 20 minutes listening to raffle numbers. If the raffle was intended to keep people around for awards, I actually prefer the Blue Water Classic's Mystery Weight prize. It encourages more teams to weigh fish and gives everyone a reason to stick around until the end.
Speaking of time...If something is scheduled to start at a certain time...Start it. Not early, not late, right on time! Friday we had our entire evening planned to the minute around the Captain's Meeting, only to sit there for another 20 to 25 minutes before things got rolling. Maybe the tournament committee should take a field trip to El Rancho. Those folks know how to stay on schedule.
Looking back, we probably could have fished Saturday and still made the three-hour minimum before conditions deteriorated. Easy to say now. I was perfectly fine with canceling, but if it's pretty obvious the event is going to be called, making that decision a little earlier would save everyone time...and a bunch of ice.
The biggest discussion I heard around the awards ceremony was about the Amateur Division. It reminded me of the old Blue Water Classic days when the big boats dominated and everybody wanted boundaries. Maybe it's time to revisit what qualifies as an amateur boat. Hearing that many people saying the same thing left a bad taste. Ludington doesn't need that discussion.
Finally...Pay more than five places. The Ladies Tournament paid eight spots, so naturally everyone assumed the Pro-Am would do something similar. Apparently not. We can all do the math.

So that's a wrap on one heck of a week of fishing. Thanks to everyone who followed along, commented and reached out. Trust me...There were a few people who would've preferred I kept some of these reports to myself. Too bad!

Now it's back to home home, work work and a quick trip to Orlando.

Don't worry though...I'll be flying back Friday morning, driving straight to Ludington and doing it all over again. Looking forward to fishing until 11:00 a.m. again – that 2pm stuff wore me out!