FISH REPORT 2024
Link to HOME, OLDER FISH REPORTS
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Family is up
Mike had his boat up. Bruce fished with him and Kris and Kam fished with me on the Kala Moiakka. There were two footers from the Northeast when we cleared the breakwall. We were heading out to where Kris and I saw lots of bait the day before and figured that the trout and salmon would be hitting there. We got to our spot in 135 feet of water and the trout and bait were gone. We messed around out there for a few hours and did manage to get three trout. We went out to some near by humps and did manage to snag a cannon ball in the rocks. It turned into a mess as we got all our lines and tangled up. In the end we blew two fuses, lost a cannon ball, and also lost two lures. Quite a mess. All this messing around got Kris a little seasick so we headed in
Mike and Bruce caught 4 trout so our total was 7 fish for the day.
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Bruce caught a King
A nice dead calm morning so I went over and joined Bruce on the Roamer. I had marked a lot of baitfish when coming in the day before so we decided to try there. We set up in 130 feet of water and fished out to 160. Our lines were only set at 40, 50, and 80. The trout were there and we started to catch some. Then a big king hit the deeper line and the fight was on. Bruce fought the king while I pulled other lines in. Finally after many runs the fish came to the boat. We netted it and it was 16 pounds. We also picked up a coho and that came on the deep line and not the shallow ones. Another good day on the lake.
Bruce with a 16 pound king
Need a bigger cooler
Nice catch
Saturday, July 6, 2024
My old deckhand
Zach, my old deckhand, his wife Bree, and dad Troy wanted to go put before Zach and Bree head back downstate. I had some things to do so we didn't get to leave the dock till around 11:30. We ran out about 3 miles and set up in 90 feet of water. It didn't take long to find a few fish. They were in just a small spot on the side of a reef. That makes for hard fishy so we went looking for last weeks fish. They weren't there but Bruce called and said to try farther out. He had limited out by the time we hit the water. Lines came up and we followed his advice and went out deeper.
We didn't have any fish on the fish finder but we hit a triple. That was exciting. The fish were there and they were biting. We ended up with 12 in the box and headed in at 2:30. Zach, Bree, and Troy will have lots of good trout to eat.
Zach and Bree with a nice catch.
Gene with some nice trout
Sunday, June 30
Fish above the bait
The crew was Gene and Bruce. We headed out at 9:00 to a nice calm sea. The lines went down in 90 feet of water where the fish were last trip. Bruce had picked five there yesterday. We did find a few schools of trout but not in the numbers that they were. A few fish hit the "black and white" but the "usual" did not produce. It was retired for another black and white. There were a couple of lines set at 40 and 55 too.
The reef we were on produced a few fish but not what we expected so we went exploring. There were clouds of bait out in 160 foot of water and soon the shallow line tripped at 55 feet, then the 40 foot line went off. This was the pattern for the rest of the day with most fish coming on the shallow lines. We ended up with 10 in the box.
Bruce grabbed one line and he had his hands full. The line just started to peel off the reel. He fought the fish, (a king?) for a while till the line broke at a splice I had in the line. It looks like I need to upgrade my tackle if we are going to start catching some 20 pound kings.
Monday, June 24, 2024
Bait gone?
Bruce came over at 9:00 and we took the Kala Moiakka out for our first trolling trip. We went out where Bruce had fished yesterday. He said that the bottom was full of bait, today they were almost gone. The schools of trout went with them. We lucked out and hit one nice school in 90 feet of water. Because we were only running two lines we could make tight turns and stay on the fish. Things went well and we only lost a few fish. Our limit of ten fish came before 11:30 with a nice double. The sun was out and the seas's were calm, another great day on the lake.
Lucy checks out the cooler of fish
Nice calm seas
Wednesday, June 18, 2024
Big swells
Lac La Belle was calm and even though the forecast was for wind I couldn't stand it. Down I go to get the red boat ready. I fueled it up and got some bait out. It was about 10:30 when I left the dock.
The channel was boiling at the end of the channel. There were two foot whitecaps where the outgoing current met the oncoming swells. I powered out through them and got to calmer water. It was sticky calm but there were some two to three footers rolling in, just big swells so I decided to head out. My top speed was 5 to 6 miles per hour. About out by the green can I still wasn't sure wether to keep going or turn around and head back. I looked at the water out farther and it still looked slicky calm so out I go.
My plan was to fish the same spot that Bruce and I fished a few days earlier. I found the spot and down went the line into 200 feet of water. I fished for 45 minutes without catching a fish. I did feel a couple of strange bumps on the line so I pulled the lure up, it was tangled. No wonder I couldn't hook a fish. The lure was straightened out and down it went. It didn't take long to catch the first fish, then it was fish after fish and I had my limit of 5 in less then a half an hour.
The trip in went a lot faster as I was able to go with the swells. I was even able to surf the waves for a little while. The boat was back at the dock before noon. A very successful day.
Wednesday, June 18, 2024
Big swells
Lac La Belle was calm and even though the forecast was for wind I couldn't stand it. Down I go to get the red boat ready. I fueled it up and got some bait out. It was about 10:30 when I left the dock.
The channel was boiling at the end of the channel. There were two foot whitecaps where the outgoing current met the oncoming swells. I powered out through them and got to calmer water. It was sticky calm but there were some two to three footers rolling in, just big swells so I decided to head out. My top speed was 5 to 6 miles per hour. About out by the green can I still wasn't sure wether to keep going or turn around and head back. I looked at the water out farther and it still looked slicky calm so out I go.
My plan was to fish the same spot that Bruce and I fished a few days earlier. I found the spot and down went the line into 200 feet of water. I fished for 45 minutes without catching a fish. I did feel a couple of strange bumps on the line so I pulled the lure up, it was tangled. No wonder I couldn't hook a fish. The lure was straightened out and down it went. It didn't take long to catch the first fish, then it was fish after fish and I had my limit of 5 in less then a half an hour.
The trip in went a lot faster as I was able to go with the swells. I was even able to surf the waves for a little while. The boat was back at the dock before noon. A very successful day.
10 trout from Bruce's boat, first trip
Monday, June 10, 2024
Red Boat trip
Bruce came by at 9:30 and we headed down Lac La Belle. There was a brisk
NE wind that actually was pushing the bow as we crossed the lake. We didn't think that the big lake would be fishable in the 16 foot boat.
The big lake was a mess. Swells from the south, swells from the south east and chop from the north east. It was slow going out to where the fish were last week. The spot lock was lowered and we started bobbing. No bites so we moved into 150 feet of water, still no fish. Out came the downriggers and we started trolling. It didn't take long and we put a couple of fish in the box. Then Bruce got snagged, it turned out to be an abandoned net. We raised the net about 40 foot off the bottom before our line broke, time for a big move.
It had calmed down so it was easy to motor out to a 200 foot bobbing hole. The fish were there and it didn't take long and Bruce caught a fish. We had a couple of doubles and finally we filled our box with 10 nice trout.
Thursday, May 24
Calm finally
Steve Gruenberg had a job in the UP and was in the area on Thursday. He came down to camp on Wednesday and the plan was to fish Thursday. The lake was calm so we took the Namaycush out. We spot locked the boat near some rock piles and Steve put his line down. He jigged twice and then had a fish on. It turned out to be a nice 22 inch eater. The spot turned out to not be real good so we decided to to troll to see where the fish were. We must have been close because we hit a couple of doubles and one triple in a little while. The plan was to jig so we pulled our trolling lines up and started to jig. We filled our limit of ten by 11:30. A very good day
.
Calm day on Bete Griese
Steve and Lucy
Me with fish
Steve with some fish
Saturday, May 25
We did get out.
Fred, Bruce and I did get the Kala Moiakka out for one day. We went to our fishing hole and there was one boat there already. It was calm (finally) and we did a couple of drifts. Bruce and Fred each caught a fish. We moved to spot 2 and started fishing there. We did manage to pick up 3 more fish. While we were there 6 other boats came out to the first spot we fished. They didn't catch much there so they came out to where we were fishing. Not much happened so we quit with 5 fish in the box. A far cry to the years we would catch 40 in a day.
May 22, 23, 24
Memorial Day 2024
Wind, wind, wind and no fishing. We did drive up to Copper Harbor and try for some whitefish but the water was low and we didn't have a bite. That didn't stop us from having a good time at camp. Lots of salads ( Blody Mary's) and beer. We did kill a couple of fine boxes of dinner wine too..
Note the beer chaser. If you can't fish you might as well drink.
May 21, 2024
Shakedown Cruise
Dave Rittenhouse came up early for Memorial Day fishing. We were working on the dock when two boats went by and didn't come back. They must be fishing. We couldn't stand it so we decided to take the Red Boat out. It turned into a typical shakedown cruise.
Problem one, little motor wouldn't start. Took a lot of pulling. But we got it going.
It was calm so we ignored the Gale Warning and headed out.
Problem two, We got about half way down Lac La Belle and the motor started missing, then OK, then missing. Bad gas? It was old gas so we turned around and headed back to the dock and put a tank with fresh gas on the boat. This worked great until we got to the end of the channel. The boat would not come up to speed , finally it seemed to clear up and we headed out fishing.
Problem three: We fished our favorite fishing hole but only got two trout in two hours fishing. It looked like the wind was going to pick up so we pulled lines and headed in. The only problem was that the big motor started but wouldn't come up to speed. We had a slow ride in at 10 miles per hour. At the dock we changed out the plugs and that must have been the problem. It ran fine after that. The gale force winds never did show up. NEVER CANCEL A TRIP BASED ON A WEATHER FORCAST.
Really rough today, don't believe the weatherman