Fishing Reports

Fishing Report

Captain Andy's Fishing Report

Updated Thursday, 08/06/10

Hi There Fellow Fisherman, Captain Andy here with this week's Fishing Report

With all the warm water, Walleye action has slowed down for the past few weeks. Most of what I’m hearing is Au gres around the Charities and Alpena. For those of you who want to make a trip, the ports on the east side of the thumb have been producing better numbers. Don’t forget about the pan fish this time of year, Crappies and bluegill are in full swing on your inland lakes. The good news is the Perch are back in the bay! Lot’s of guy’s are getting in on the action around both spark plugs! We have a large supply of the freshest minnows around, so stop in while the bite is on!

Salmon action is hot over in Lake Michigan at all of the major ports. With the high water temps, the fish have been fairly deep! If you haven’t fished copper yet, now might be the time. For you lead core fisherman, try a 4 ounce dive bomb to get your set up down another 20 feet! If you have the right set up you’ll get the hookup! The bite has been hot on meat rigs. We have premium herring strips in stock, so don’t miss out! Fishing should be productive for the rest of the summer so get out there and take advantage of it.

From Captain Andy and the crew at Frank’s, Good Luck And Good Fishing!

E-mail Captain Andy at CaptainAndy@FranksGreatOutdoors.com

Captain Dan's Fishing Report

Updated 08/12/10

Hey Everybody,

Ya....I know, I know, how come so long between reports. Truth of the matter is there hasn't been much to report for over 2 weeks now. The fishing went from slow, starting in late July, to dead in the last 2 weeks. Oh the majority of the fish didn't really go anywhere IMO, they simply quit biting. I prove that almost every time I go out with the graph full of both big and small baitfish with nothing biting anything I put down. (See Pictures)I think the culpret is partially because of the warmer then usual water temps. This is not a new phenomina on the bay, we just kind of avoided it the last 2 years, so we forgot about the anual August Fishing Funk. The good news is that things will change back for the better, but the when question depends on the weather patterns IMO. Personally, I have canceled a few fishing charters and turned down a few more during this time. Asking the clients to call back in a week or two to check on recent results. Being Skunked or having a few trips with only 2 or 3 fish to show for it is not good return buisiness sense.

I have had some fishing success though in waters a little SE of us. I took a jiog fishing trip down to the St.Claire river, Port Huron last Tuesday night 8-10-10. I've included pictures of that trip at the end of this report. I really learned a few things about (what I'd call) extreme deep water verticle jigging down there. I've done some whippin down near Marine City on the St.Claire over the years, so I knew the current was going to be challenge to stay verticle. But all the whippin I've done is done on the channel edges, anywhere from 18 to 24 FOW. So those drifts straight down the middle of the channel in water over 50' really tests a mans jigging skills. Even when using a 5/8 ounce jig head, I think I only truly felt one of the fish I caught Tuesday night take the jig, the rest were just there when I went to lift. I tried a heavier 3/4 ounce jig, stayed more verticle with better bottom feel, but was catching fewer fish then the ohters so switched back.

Thinking a rod with more backbone for deep water hook sets along with a fast tip would work better then a more limber one, my rod choice was the (stiff action) 6' BP Extremes I have. But unless your in perfect sinc with the drift current speed in the boat in waters this deep, you get a bow in your line no matter what with the varying upper and lower currents in this river. So after this trip, I think I'd also take along and use either one of my (medium action) 7' Loomis rods, simply more for their sensitivity and being able to feel the jig thump bottom better, keeping me more verticle and not dragging bottom. Another thing that popped into my head was how some lead core might work along these channel edges. As arnold always say's "I'll be bock". That is until the Bay bite kicks back in.

And as always, stay safe, fish smart and tight lines. Capt. Dan.

Fishing Report brought to you by: Captain Dan Manyen from Walleye Express

To Contact or book a charter with Capt. Dan

E-mail CaptDan@walleye-express.com
Or Visit the website Walleye-Express Charters

Ed Clements Fishing Report

Updated 08/10/10

Fishing on Inner Saginaw Bay continues to be tough, but outer Saginaw Bay/Lake Huron walleye action is pretty good. I I do not have much to report on inner Saginaw Bay in the Linwood, Pinconning, Standish, Quanicassee, Sebewaing, or Bay City area as I have not fished these waters in three weeks. Reports I am getting from my contacts is that fishing is very tough; a usual trip over the last couple of weeks has consisted of two or three walleyes, a couple of catfish, and a few drum. I am hearing reports of some perch action out near buoys 1 & 2. A friend of mine and his neighbor caught their limit of 9-12 inch perch over the last weekend using perch rigs and Frank's super shiners.

Fishing on outer Saginaw Bay/Lake Huron has been pretty good over the last couple of weeks as I have spent quite a bit of time in the Augres and Tawas areas. There are a lot of fish between Alabaster and Tawas Point in 55-75 foot of water. This sounds like a longs ways out, but it is not too far to run out of Tawas, there are two nice ramps in Tawas and the productive waters are only 5-7 miles off shore. This is a fairly large area to cover, to locate fish troll crawler harnesses a little bit faster than usual; 1.3 to 1.7 mph. Water temperatures are in the 73-74 degree range so the fish are pretty aggressive when they decide to bite. The fish are roaming all over chasing schools of smelt, the faster trolling speeds are not necessarily triggering bites, but will cover more water and go over more fish to potentially catch. When we found pods and pockets of fish we slowed down our trolling speeds and did very well. The morning bite has been the best, the fish will bite for an hour and then slow down and then pick back up again. On most days the fishing really fell off around 1pm, when it gets slow time to crank up the speed a bit and change depths and colors. Best tactics to use are crawler harnesses using silver or gold blades based on weather conditions, blades with some purple in them also worked well; fish your crawler harnesses behind 2 ounce inline weights, and using inline planer boards to get the lures away from the boat. The Church Tackle Walleye Board really handles a 2 ounce weight nice, much better than other boards I have tried that really sag and pull hard from the added weight. The fish are all over the water column, we caught most of our fish 40 to 50 feet behind the board, with some coming as far back as 75 feet. While trolling faster willow and hatchet blades worked well too.

There are also some fish located around the Charity Islands northeast of Augres. The fish are relating to structure so it is important to have a good GPS mapping unit to locate humps, reefs, and depth changes. Fish right over the top of structure using crawler harnesses, and some anglers are using livebait rigs and slow death hooks to target these bottom hugging walleyes.

I have included some photos of recent trips, as you can see there are some nice fish in the outer bay right now. We caught numerous fish over 20 inches and a couple 24-25 inch fish each trip. We finished 15 in the MWC tournament out of 71 boats, bringing in 17lbs for our 5 fish limit each day.