Ludington Report – A.K.A. “The Great Chubster Chase”

Had myself a proper real-deal trolling adventure out of Ludington today with Tim, Todd “Jackpot” Reed, Charlie, and rookie-of-the-year Kaedin. Kicked things off at the ungodly hour of 3:30am with a 2-mile run—because, obviously, running in the dark is how you summon the Fish Gods.

We shoved off shortly after 5am, headed south—but like, way south for us—and set up in 105 FOW right off Silver Lake. Marked basically nothing but a few confused baitfish who looked as disappointed as we were. Slid into 60-65 FOW to try our luck. Nada. Zilch. So we did the only logical thing: pointed west and caught ourselves one heck of a sunrise. Still no fish, but at least the sky was poppin'.

Things turned around eventually—we went 8 for 8! No monster salmon, but snagged a decent steelhead and a whole lotta good vibes.

Now let’s talk gear:
The MVP spoon? A Yeck “Chubster” (pictured to the right, in all its glory). That bad boy was running on a 3-color and brought in two little kings and a couple respectable steelhead. The rest of the hits came from:

• Black slick on the chute rigger at 115 down

• RV JJ Mac on a 3-color

• RV green flounder on a free slider (mainline down 112 on the outdown)

• And that flashy blue/orange SS on a 200 copper doing copper things.

Shoutout to Kaedin—he’s new to the big lake game but already making waves. Started hanging out on the boat late last year, and today he bagged the big steelhead of the day. Took it to Chuck’s to get a weight, and boom—he made the board! Way to go, dude. Fish karma is strong with this one.

All in all: good crew, good weather, great sunrise, and even a fish or eight. Not a bad way to spend a morning pretending we knew exactly what we were doing.