Capt. Dave Myers of Cyndie Sue Charters reports from Holland:

Salmon fishing continued to be excellent this past week. Lots of BIG 4-year old kings with a mix of coho, steelhead & lake trout. Had to quit early one trip due to no more room in the cooler even though we were 4 fish short of our limit. Break-offs continued to be an issue as some of the kings were over 20lbs. Biggest last week was 24 ½ lbs. The coho may also be to blame as they tend to roll up in the line. Best depths were 80 to 120 FOW early, then 170 to 220 later in the day. Best baits were a variety of Moonshine & Stinger Stingrays spoons, and green/white glow Spin Doctors with a green glow fly. However, most days it didn’t matter as just about any bait put out worked. Most productive setups were full copper early, then with an added 3 oz. dive bomber in the deeper water. Down riggers set at 45, 60 & 80 in close, and 50, 70 & 90 out deep did well also. Divers set at 1 1/2, back 120’ and 12 color lead core also caught fish. Free sliders did not do well on most days.

Many of the kings are turning dark already. The eggs and sperm look loose and ready to spawn. It looks like there may be an early run at any time. All-in-all it appears we are in for a much better fall fishery than last year.

Perch fishing continues to be poor most days. There are some around, but mostly very small.

Capt. Ron Westrate of First Call 2 Charters reports from Saugatuck:

What a great week of fishing. Just about every day we would have at
least one salmon that would push or exceed 20 pounds. Today we caught a
24.5 pound, a 23.5 pound, a 19 pound and a 17 pound salmon in the 10
fish creel. The fish are located from 100 foot of water out to 160 foot
of water from the Holland piers to south of the Douglas point. Mixed in
with the chinook salmon are some coho, steelhead and lake trout.

Downriggers at 70, 80, and 100 foot down are producing with flashers and
flies. The best are the Echip (silver green, davie jones glow, glow frog
and white and silver mountain dew) with Rapture wild fern, green
hypnotist and green beaded no see um flies. We did take some salmon on
the 11 in E chip but the best was the 8 in. Our best method continues to
be the dipsy divers at 200 foot and 250 foot out with the same flashers
and flies we used on the downriggers. 300 and 450 foot of copper lines
did well also with flashers and flies on the 450’s and Stingray lures
(green dolphin, blue green dolphin and mixed veggie-all with glow backs)
on the 300’s.

For fishing information and/or charter reservations, email me at
captron@chartermichigan.com.

Capt. Dan Tebo, of D’ann Marie Charters in Grand Haven reports:

Fishing is very good in Grand Haven these days!
We are seeing large fish (in the 20 – 25 lb. range) being caught in our port and good, full boxes.

We are fishing from 75 ft. out to 120 ft. of water.
We are fishing from 35 ft. down to 50 ft.

We are mainly using a large variety of spoons: The fish seem to prefer mostly bright – colored spoons, so we try to give them what they want.
Spinnie and fly combos have also been very good:
Yellow spinnies w/ yellow flies
Green spinnies w/ green flies
White spinnies w/ white flies

There are very good catches of large kings being taken each day.
August is always an exciting time of year to see all the kings come in.
Summer is closing in fast and before we know it, Sept. will be here and gone and so will end our fishing season. So, if you get a chance to come out, don’t hesitate.

If you would like to fish with us in Sept., please feel free to contact me at: www.dannmariecharters.com

Capt. Ron Westrate of First Call 2 Charters reports from Saugatuck:

This past week was a very good week of fishing. Early in the week the
catch consisted of 80% lake trout and 20% silver fish and by the end of
the weekend we were taking 90% salmon and 10% lake trout. In addition
we were taking multiple 20+pound salmon almost ever trip. The best
depth continues to be 70 to 115 foot of water, however there were some
boats taking salmon out in 180 to 200 foot of water.

The methods that take the fish change from day to day as the conditions
and current change, however the lures and flashers remained the same.
Early in the day we were catching salmon on 150, 200 and some time on
100 foot copper with Area 51, ET, Orange Corey and glow back Mixed
Veggie Stingray. The downriggers produced at 40 ft. to 70 foot down
with Glow frog, white UV glow and Davie Jones glow E chip flashers and
Rapture no see um green beaded and green hypnotist flies. The most
consistent method continues to be the dipsy divers at 180 foot and 100
ft. with E chip flashers (Davie Jones, green side UV, silver mountain
dew and green UV) with either Rapture wild fern and no see um yellow
beaded flies.

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

Capt. Dave Myers of Cyndie Sue Charters reports from Holland:

Salmon fishing improved this past week. More fish and much more aggressive with some 4-year olds topping 20 lbs. Even had a couple of break-offs on 20lb. test line. There was also a nice mix of decent sized steelhead & lake trout. Some days, the fish were still biting well into the afternoon. Best depths were 80 to 110 FOW early, then 110 to 130 later in the day. Earlier in the week, we found a nice school of fish out in 190 to 225. Best baits were regular size Silver Streaks (green & blue chilly willies, green & blue dolphins), Stinger Stingrays (mixed veggies, blue mixed veggies, NBK, green & blue dolphins), Moonshine (flounder ponder, NBK), and green/white glow Spin Doctors with a green glow fly. One day they wanted blue, the next would be green. Some days color didn’t seem to matter. Most productive setups were lead core fished with 8, 10, & 12 colors. Dipsys set at 1 ½, 120’ back also did well, as did down riggers set at 45, 60, & 90.’ Free sliders did well on some days. Copper was the only setup that did not do very well on most days.

Also, there has been a persistent north current running between ½ & ¾ mph. Most days it was hard to get fish to bite going south. However, on Sunday we discovered how to get the south troll working. While fighting a big king for almost ½ hour, we slowed way down to 1 ½ mph per GPS. We took 3 other fish during this time. It was hard to believe as we were almost completely still, barely moving with the current. The Stinger Stingrays spoons and the Spin Doctor/fly still worked enough to get the fish to bite.

Perch fishing was good up until Sunday. They were in 30 to 35’ both north & south. Not sure where they went on Sunday. Lots of boats were out there looking, but didn’t hear of anybody finding them.

As we head into the middle of August, the fishing should only get better. Hopefully the warm weather won’t mess up the fall run like it did last year. I can be contacted at cyndiesuecharters@comcast.net for more information or to inquire about reserving a fishing trip.

Capt. Ron Westrate of First Call 2 Charters reports from Saugatuck:

This past week produced consistent fishing in the 65 to 90 foot depth with limit or near limit catches of Lake Trout and Chinook Salmon and Steelhead. We did spend Friday in front the piers and caught 14 steelhead out of about 30 hits. Saturday the water had warmed up 15 degrees and after a hour in front and catching sheephead and white bass, we moved off shore and caught 11 lake trout and 2 salmon.

The program continues to be Gold Star dodgers (white glow, yellow and silver) with green spin n glows and Repture wild fern flies on the bottom for lake trout. The salmon and steelhead came on the high divers at 180 ft. and on the 150, 200 and 300 coppers. The best combinations on the divers were the Davey Jones, UV Mountain Dew and UV green E chip flashers with Rapture no see um flies with green and yellow beads. The copper with orange crush stinger and the mixed veggie stingray were the most consistent.

The perch fishing has slowed after the Wed. blow and the influx of the cold water, however there are some decent numbers being caught out of Holland, however they were small in size. I did not get any reports on the perch to the south of Saugatuck.

With all the bait there is out in the lake, our salmon should be showing up in higher numbers that what we are seeing. I am a little concerned that we might be seeing the effect of the stocking cuts for the last few years and there just are not as many as we might expect. Regardless, the salmon that we are catching are large and we have taken many over 20 pounds and have had a few that busted off the equipment with their hits and runs. For more information or for charter reservations, email me at captron@chartermichigan.com .