Captain Ron Westrate of CoHooker Charters reports from Saugatuck:

Oceana Fly Is Hot In Saugatuck

This past week has been excellent with limit catches of 15 to 20 fish
almost every day within 2 to 4 hours. The main species has been lake
trout with a few salmon and an occasional steelhead in the creel. The
best depth continues to be 80 to 110 foot of water with the lake trout
hitting throughout the day and the most of the salmon coming early in
the morning.

The bait in the stomachs of the fish consist of all age classes of
alewife from 2 in to 6 in in length, so lures from the regular stinger
size to stingray and magnum sizes on the 300 and 400 foot copper have
produced but not one size predominates. What was consistent was the
Rapture Oceana fly. We ran this on the 450 copper behind silver
flashers, on the downriggers and dipsy divers, behind silver and white
Silver Horde metal flashers, and behind silver/green and silver blue
bubble Hot Chip flashers. We would start with a variety of flies and
spin and glows on the downriggers and dipsy divers and ultimately end up
with the Oceana on almost every set up latter in the day. It is possible
that in the green tinted water we were fishing, that other Rapture
mirage flies would also work, however we pulled the Oceana and the
Oceana glow.

I think that once the water warms a little more the lake trout will move
out of this depth and we will have to locate and target the salmon.
There were boats fishing from 70 foot out to 270 foot looking for the
silver fish and there were no concentrations of salmon reported ( at
least from the boat I talked to). The perch fishing has been very poor
with 2 to 6 perch per boat reported off of Saugatuck and Holland. The
perch report from South Haven has also been spotty at best from 40 to 80
foot of water. If anyone has information on the perch fishing, feel free
to email me so I can put this in future fishing reports.

For information or for charter reservations, email me at
captron@chartermichigan.com.

Captain Ed Stowe of Stowaway Charters reports from Ludington:

Hola, Back from the Mayan Resort and Spa 100 miles south of Cancun. My daughter got married in a destination ceremony and Sue and I vacationed for a week. Went out on a charter and caught my first Sailfish, 9 1/2 ft and 95 lbs. Very exciting and lots of fun.

The fishing has slowed considerably in the last week. The salmon are elusive and on the smaller side. The temperature at the point is 62 on the surface and 48 down 95 ft. The fish are spread all over the water column. Meat rigs are the baits of choice, with the old Lake Trout favorites producing as well. Best fishing is from the brine well up to the three bears in from 80 ft out to the 4400 numbers. It is a bitter pill to swallow when you have to run 25 miles out to catch fish, especially with gas prices as high as they have ever been. We have to add a gas surcharge for those long runs.

Good Fishin…..Capt Ed