Ludington Fishing Report: 57th Birthday Week...20 Fish & Another Limit!
September 16th was my 57th birthday, and I feel like I took a page out of my daughters’ birthday playbook and turned this into a birthday week. Well, they used to somehow convince my mom into making it a birthday month, so I’ll gladly settle for the week…and maybe it’s still happening.
My big highlight was a nice, thoughtful handwritten letter that I woke up to from daughter Riley on Wednesday. There were a few close seconds, including not one, but two Mexican birthday dinners complete with fireworks and sombreros. You see, it just so happens Surgeon Jenn’s birthday is September 15th…how convenient. And yes, the restaurants will bring multiple birthday treats and sing multiple times if so desired. I also was gifted some very cool item from Sister Jenn/Tim, Euge, and Surgeon Jenn!
Unfortunately for me and the Ludington people, Surgeon Jenn is on day call for an entire week starting yesterday. This is only good news for the Muskegon unhealthy and accident-prone people, along with the Ludington salmon population.
So my crew today was me, Logan, Logan’s Uncle Doug and Logan’s cousin Sean. I felt blessed to even be able to make it out after watching horrible wind and wave reports all week.
How Logan and I seem to work the opening lineup is a little sloppy, but I can’t complain about the results all year. My boat is averaging 5.5 bites per hour and 3.9 fish per hour with Logan. Here’s how it works…Logan does fishy stuff all week, then sends me a text saying he’s running plugs, flashers/fly, meat…all deep. Like 300, 350 and 400 coppers and divers 250+ back. I shrug my shoulders and decide I’m running spoons on 5 and 7 colors and divers 125 back. We then see what happens.
We left the dock at what felt late, like 5:30am, and ran north in the pitch dark. Pitch dark = there was not one boat light heading down the channel toward the pierheads and not one light running north toward the bank. It kinda made me feel dizzy!
We set lines in 105 FOW on a totally empty bank. There were marks all over the place, but no bites on the set…or after the set. We also had a very strong east wind crabbing the heck out of the Tiara. Thankfully, the first three boats we saw buzzed past us and set up right in front of us. Perfect! Like I really needed someone to follow.
We were sitting on seven or eight fish in the 05’s when we decided to turn around. The plan was to turn and hit that exact same line again…Never happened.
We hit 175 FOW during the turn and picked up six bites pretty quickly. Okay then! We stayed deeper, eventually turned again, got back on a north troll and boated our 20th fish to hit another Lake Michigan limit.
We ended the morning with 19 kings and 1 coho on 26 bites…20 for 26!
Hot Bites:
Flasher/Fly | Prototype 8 Inch Chrome Howie Green Gold Crinkle | High Diver 125 back | 7 bites
Meat Rig | Dreamweaver Spin Doctor 8 Inch Dreamweaver Punisher | High Diver 250 back | 4 bites
Flasher/Fly | Pro Troll 8 Inch Green Dreamweaver Pickled Sunshine | Out Down 150 down | 3 bites
Spoon | Yeck Standard Malort | Lead Core 5 Colors | 3 bites
Spoon | Michigan Stinger Magnum Modified Coyote | Lead Core 7 Colors | 2 bites
Flasher/Fly | Bechold 11 Inch Kevin's Girlfriend Rapture Sweet Pea | Chute Rigger 139 down | 2 bites
Plug | Silver Horde 5 Inch Sea Hawk | Copper 350 Feet | 1 bite
Plug | Dreamweaver 4 Inch Soda | Out Down 78 down | 1 bite
Spoon | Moonshine Standard Papa Georgio | Copper 200 Feet | 1 bite
Spoon | Northeast Troller Standard Black Eye Peas | Out Down 54 down | 1 bite
Spoon | Northeast Troller Standard Amanda's Angry Alewife | Slider 54 down | 1 bite
What I Learned Today:
Apparently Sean doesn’t fish much…at least not compared to Logan’s fishy-as-all-hell family. Whatever they all have must be genetic, because Sean made every one of those fish his bitch. He was awesome on the rods.
Uncle Doug and Sean both seemed to be fans of the BoatMeal™ and After Fishing Mint™ program. Oh, and we didn’t earn two mints for Logan today. I don’t think that’s a thing anymore. Logan also somehow sucked AND chewed his mint. I don’t know what that means.
Diversity on a trolling boat is imperative. I really didn’t want to run a bunch of high spoons in warm water, but I also couldn’t see running the entire spread the same. The result? Sorry Logan, this is totally educational and not competitive…9 bites on Logan’s port side and 17 bites on my starboard side. Purely educational information, people.
Logan isn’t just a great fisherman, he’s also a mighty fine fishing coach. He successfully coached Uncle Doug on fighting fish, netting fish, the whole enchilada! I think Uncle Doug may have even graduated by the end of the morning.
I checked my sheet and today marked the 72nd person I’ve fished with this year. That’s pretty damn cool. Tomorrow is slated for a quick 5:30am-9:30am troll with me, Logan and Souper Fan Kelly. Hit me up soon if you want to be our fourth…No birthday presents though…At some point this birthday week has to end before I officially consider myself a spoiled brat!
PS: Everyone missed you Surgeon Jenn…oh, drink green juice!
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