Thursday I had to go to town with some kids and spent the night, so by Saturday morning, I was having with-drawl symptoms, like shakes, nervous twitches and talking to myself.
In order to rid myself of the fever, I set out early with me, myself and I on Saturday morning, so I was only able to set 3 lines. (once again, I couldn’t convince anyone else to fish) In order to increase my number of hooks, I used stationery (clip-on) sliders 10 feet above the balls on 2 down-riggers, so I was effectively fishing with 5 lures. Actually 2 of them were orange herring dodgers with small Howie flies, which the coho seem to prefer. Lately, I’ve caught most of my fish on a small pink fly with a 6 inch Luhr Jensen herring dodger. It was a fun morning as I landed 3 Coho Salmon… 2 of them on a dipsy diver and one on a down-rigger. One came on a pink FinnAction Lure with a pink prism stripe, one on a green spoon with glow tape on the back and one on the dodger set-up mentioned above. Surface temps still running 67 degrees, so the fish are not right on the surface, but I was seeing a sharp temp break on my sonar about 30 to 60 feet down. At the end of my trolling, I snagged into an abandoned gill net, just about ¼ mile or less out from the mouth of the Montreal River. See me for coordinates if trolling in that area. I marked it well with a white jug and will have the GLIF pull it next time the come.
Here are the fillets from the coho along with the contents of the stomach. The fish on the table almost look like lakers, but were fat coho salmon.
This evening, my son Dan, daughter-in-law Heidi and granddaughter, Amy fished for an hour or so before dark near Bear Bluff again and scored with a nice coho and a lake trout. The orange dodger and pink fly brought in the coho, while the laker was taken on a pink FinnAction Lure.
I’m ready for color tours/cruises. Plan your sightseeing excursions now so you don’t miss out on Keweenaw’s most beautiful season and come to the Copper Country for a drive through Houghton County and a boat ride along the Lake Superior shoreline. I’m still fishing for trout and salmon at least into October too, so come on U.P!
Brian Helminen
