Ludington Fishing Report: Scout Salmon Saved the Morning
Today’s Lake Michigan Ludington salmon fishing plan was simple. Keep in mind, we just caught a completely ridiculous amount of fish. Me, and basically everyone I know, now has enough salmon and lake trout to survive several winters.
We were NOT “limit fishing” today people. We were hog/hammer hunting.
Looking at both the May leaderboard and the Big King Bonanza leaderboard at Chuck’s, we already have the lake trout and steelhead categories covered. What we needed was a 22 pound king salmon and a 10 pound brown trout…Two fish…That’s it.
Problem number one…I would be completely guessing on how to target the brown trout. Maybe fish super shallow? No clue. Better get the king first and worry about the brown trout later.
Problem number two, because of real life stuff instead of fantasy fishing stuff, we have to pull lines at 9am.
Problem number three, about an hour after setting lines we learned the fish were absolutely NOT in our area.
Today’s crew was me, Surgeon Jenn, Tim and Euge. Yep, Euge officially completed his goal of fishing four straight days in a row. Also, I was reminded several times that Euge officially lost ZERO fish over those four days, which technically gives him a perfect 2025 and 2026 hook-to-kill ratio.
Simple plan. Run straight to 50 FOW. Troll south on the 50-55 line. Pop the 22 pound king. Pull lines. Run into 10 FOW and look for the needle-in-the-haystack 10 pound brown trout.
12 lines were set by 5:40am, all with proven fish-catching stuff. Remember, we had 107 bites over the previous three days. We were feeling pretty confident in the spread…At least until 6am hit…No bites…6:15am…Still no bites…WTF?
We were literally preparing to pull lines at 6:20am and leave the area when two scout salmon apparently overheard the conversation and sacrificed themselves to save the other thousand salmon in the lake. Basically, keeping us fishing the 50-55 line for way too long. Always stick with the plan!
We eventually passed the Project tribal nets and slid west, winding up in 110 FOW before pointing back toward the harbor with much bigger-than-predicted waves at our backs.
Never got the biggun…But we did manage to rustle up 10 fish on 15 bites.
This may or may not help anyone, but after catching so many fish lately, the radio was either off or nobody cared. Big thanks to Surgeon Jenn for reminding me to turn it on. Big thanks to me for forgetting it was Monday and accidentally putting the soft station on The Bridge. Big thanks to The Bridge for playing The Jackson Five “I’ll Be There.” And biggest thanks to Tim for recognizing Michael Jackson was singing, quietly holding up the Silver Streak Michael Jackson spoon, and immediately producing three bites basically at the same time…A true team effort…And somehow it also gave us our biggest king.
We ended up with 8 kings and 2 lake trout. Technically about 5½ of the kings were minis.
Final tally: 10 fish on 15 bites.
Memorial Day Weekend Total: 106 fish on 122 bites. That works out to an 87% land ratio. No doubt slightly helped by all the suicidal mini kings. I’ll absolutely take it.
Hot Bites:
11” Crush White Paddle with Riverside Fly – 3 bites
Dreamweaver SS Hot Tamale on 7 color – 2 bites
Yeck Fireball silver back on 5 color – 1 bite
Stinger Charlie Special looking spoon on 5 color – 3 bites
Yeck starburst looking thing on out down – 1 bite
Moonshine green/blue Flounder mini half moon on free slider – 2 bites
Moonshine green/blue Flounder standard half moon on out down – 1 bite
New standard Silver Streak on free slider – 1 bite
Stinger Blonde Tangerine on 3 color – 1 bite
What I Learned:
I need a better strategy for throwing mini kings back. I don’t want to keep them, but they keep floating up belly-first looking completely offended. We did have two successfully swim away today though.
Tim is still a little rusty on popping rigger releases and staying tight on spring kings. Improving though. Still room for development.
As we hit the pierheads, I watched Clocked Out and Bear with Me both turn right and run north. Scratched my head for a second because those boys are usually pretty dialed in. Next time I may at least just flip a quarter to follow them or not.
Everybody who tried the cayenne pepper BoatMeal™ loved it. Me, Charlie Daniels and Euge all approved. If you haven’t tried it, highly recommended. Trust me…I’m basically a Soup Master…Kind of.
Now what? Ugh.I just got home and have about 45 minutes before bed. Need to get back to the gym and running because I was an absolute disaster for four straight days. Need to get work work done. Need to get house work done. UWGB starts this week…Don’t panic though…Only one class…Still gotta somehow wedge that into life. Oh, and it’s freaking Monday, which means I’ve got two days before Thursday afternoon rolls around and I’m heading right back to Ludington.
This upcoming weekend should be special. Surgeon Jenn’s mom, dad and brother are joining the crew and I’ve not met any of them. We officially need good weather for mom…And I’m currently working on recruiting Logan plus his magical witchy fishing wand to make sure everybody stays busy.
400 W. Filer St., C1, Ludington, MI 49431 | Phone: 248-534-9202 | PullHardFishing@outlook.com
