Ludington Fishing Report: Surgeon Jenn's PB Pike Saved the Day!
Today was the bonus PM Lake troll. If I'm gonna haul this boat three hours, I sure better use it! Strong south winds would keep us off Lake Michigan. No problem. This would be another round, three I think now, where Logan was gonna show us how to troll PM Lake.
We left the Tundra yesterday with 1, 2 and 3 colors of leadcore and some slide divers, ready to go. A simple spread, a simple plan, and all we needed was one fish to eliminate the skunk.
Normally, I would be confident, but it's me against PM Lake, and so far, PM Lake seems to win every time.
We had a one-hour delay from yesterday's start time. Meet at the boat launch at 7:30am. I went running beforehand and had a little rain hit me. We checked the radar, and there was some patchy green stuff rolling in and out, looking to be done around 8am.
Wait, what? A text from Logan: "Not going to make it…catch up on sleep…"
Now we had an easy decision. Clean some stuff in the condo and fish after the rain was completely gone.
Surgeon Jenn and I launched like bass pros and were trolling the channel toward PM Lake at 8:30am. The wind sucked! Thank God that Minn Kota is perfectly perfect and kept us on course.
We had two goals…First, we needed to switch the 1- and 2-color leadcore leaders from the salmon-ready 25# test with #2 swivels back to the normal walleye 15# test with #1 swivels. This required a new level of leader organization. When we originally switched to the 25# leaders, we wrapped the 15# leaders around a custom swim noodle, swivels and all. Now we just needed to reverse the process. And who better to do this in record time than Willis Knot expert Surgeon Jenn?
Second, we just needed one fish. Didn't care about the species.First choice: salmon. Second choice: fish.
It wasn't looking good, but then a 3-color with a small Yeck spoon went off, and we boated a medium-sized pike with what looked like some nasty growths.
We had to swap out some rods so Jenn could continue replacing leaders, and I snuck out a couple of Bandits. BAM! A Bandit got absolutely slobbered! Jenn grabbed that rod, and we soon had her personal-best pike sitting right at 32 inches!
That was it…Mission complete! Two fish on two bites and six leaders re-tied.
Hot Bites:
Spoon | Yeck Mini Copper Mixed Veggie Kinda | Lead Core 3 Colors | 1 bite
Plug | Pink/Purple Bandit | Mono Rod 45 Feet Behind Board | 1 bite
What I Learned Today
I'm learning Logan has a limit on how many fish he can be involved with before his body crashes. Four days in a row and involved in probably 125 bites, Logan sleepy! If I were going to miss a trip, ahh, it would totally be the PM Lake troll. Sleep sound, my friend.
Look at my pike! Some of these PM Lake fish have the bad chemical juju worse than the Lake Erie Fermi walleye. Yuck!
It's way, way better to do leader maintenance on the water with a chance to catch a fish than sitting in the condo.
I'll be reversing the boat tow now. Back to Norton Shores, then home home so I can post some school stuff and get back to work work.
We have a busy week with some souper important stuff…Soup Club is on Tuesday. A Halloween party on Friday. A 5K on Saturday. And if the weather cooperates, perhaps the Tundra makes another trip with us!
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