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.

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

Fishing continues to improve after a couple weeks of low catches in our area. This is very normal for June. We eagerly await July and August.

We had an excellent catch today! We caught our fish in 250 ft. of water.
The guys in our area are fishing from 120 ft. out to… “as far as you are willing to go”.

We caught fish from 60 ft. down to 90 ft.
We used a real variety of baits: Mixed Veggie, and Blue and Green Dolphins were very good for us.
Our Steelhead really liked a variety of Oranges today.

We caught Coho, Kings, Steelhead, and also Lake Trout today.

If you would like to book a trip with us, please call us at: 616-846-3700 or visit our website : www.dannmariecharters.com for further info.

Captain Ron Westrate of CoHooker Charters reports from Saugatuck:

Another interesting week of fishing out of Saugatuck. Early in the week
we fished 80 to 90 foot of water with good catches of Lake Trout and a
couple of Chinook Salmon. Water temperature was 41 degrees on the bottom
and bait suspended in 65 to 70 foot of water. Wednesday the bottom water
temperature increase to 51 degrees and after the blow on Thursday the
bottom temperature was 61 degrees. On Saturday the temperature was back
in the low 50’s and we went back to pounding the bottom in 90 to 100
foot of water. Saturday we took 12 fish, 10 legal Lake Trout, 1 18 in.
Lake Trout and one 13 pound Chinook Salmon.

The best methods included metal (silver and white) flashers with the
green hypnotist Rapture Fly and spin and glows on the downriggers
pounding bottom. The Salmon were caught a little higher in the water
column on the dipsy diver at 150 and 180 foot of line out with blue
wiggle and silver mountain dew Hot Chip flasher and the Rapture blue
bubble fly. We also had some action on the 450 coppers with a silver
blue Hot Chip Flasher and Rapture mirage fly, however the 95% of the
activity was on the downriggers and and dipsy divers.

On Saturday we ventured out to 160 foot of water and the bait was
unbelievable suspended out in this water. It was so thick that it would
error out the graph for 100 feet or more. There were fish marked and
caught out in this water, however, most of the action was in the 90 to
100 foot depth. With all the bait off shore, I have to believe that the
salmon are going to find them and then it should get interesting.

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

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

We did not fish out of Holland last week as we were in Marathon, Florida on vacation.

Fished off-shore Monday (6-20) trying to find the steelhead. Set up in 265 FOW, fished our way out to 350 FOW. The water looked very good. Lots of slicks, bugs and cottonwood fuzz. Water temperature went from 62 to 56. Surprisingly, the fish were scattered. Ended up going 8 for 12 with most fish taken on high dipsey’s & board lines in the top 10 feet on a variety of orange/gold spoons.

Reports from other boats fishing near-shore for salmon & lake trout have not been very good. Also, the perch have not come in yet. They still seem to be scattered in 55 to 75 FOW.

Apparently, all the recent east winds have scattered all the fish. Hopefully, the winds will switch back to the west soon and school the fish closer in. I can be contacted at cyndiesuecharters@comcast.net for more information or to inquire about reserving a fishing trip.

Captain Ron Westrate of CoHooker Charters reports from Saugatuck:

It has been an interesting week for fishing with rain, high winds, rough
water but some very good fishing if you can handle the conditions. The
best fishing during the week was in the 80 to 100 foot depth with about
50% of the catch consisting of salmon and the rest lake trout. Today we
set lines in 75 foot of water and while we trolled out to 135 foot of
water we expertly missed the first 3 fish and then followed that by
loosing the next 4 fish we had on. We ended going 7 for 18 or 20 with 6
salmon and 1 lake trout. .

The hits were scattered around the boat including 150, 200 and 300
copper, downrigger and dipsy divers. The Stingray Orange Corey had 2
hits on the 150 copper and the 200 copper with the glow wonderbread
Stingray had 3 hits. The downrigger at 40 foot with the Stinger bloody
nose produced 2 hits and the Stinger fruit cocktail, on the add a line,
had 1 hit. The other downrigger was run at 50 foot and the gold Stinger
watermelon on the add a line was hit twice. The rest of the hits were
distributed around the boat with Stingrays on the copper lines and
Stingers lures on the downrigger and high divers.(at 200 and 180 foot
out). Only one hit on a flasher and fly and we missed that. This week
is the first week that we had bait in the stomachs of the salmon with
adult alewife in most of them.

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

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

Fishing continues to be very good this week here in Grand Haven.
The fish report for this week is basically a copy cat report from last week.
Nothing has changed.

We are still finding our fish from 120 ft. out to 160 ft.
We are fishing the top 60 ft. of water.

Only one boat from our dock went out yesterday and he came back with 6 salmon, fishing the same waters.

The hot color continues to be orange and also green and blue for spoons.
It should be interesting to see what the water temperature changes will produce this weekend.