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Check out our fishing reports to find out if the walleye, king (Chinook) salmon, steelhead, brown trout, lake trout or Atlantic salmon are biting where Trophy Specialist is running fishing charters. These fishing reports will cover the ports of Au Gres (AuGres) on Saginaw Bay, Rogers City on Lake Huron, Manistee on Lake Michigan and Monroe and the Western Basin of Lake Erie. We will try to update the fishing report regularly during the open water charter fishing season. -------------------------------------- 5/21/10 Despite a rather stiff, east wind this morning, we still limited out on trout and salmon in short order. Yesterday though we started out with very good action in the first few hours of the morning, but then the wind died and the fishing slowed a lot. We still had a decent catch though with only one fish short limits for my customers. This spring fishing at Rogers City is nothing short of phenomenal overall and the fishing pressure here is next to non-existent as most days I've had only one of two other boats within miles of me. We are still fishing in waters 35-60' deep and attractors like cowbells and dodgers off the riggers are taking lots of fish. Yesterday we took most of our fish though off the planer boards on spoons trolled about 30-35' down. Today the riggers were best. I've got two more days of fishing left here at Rogers City before I head to Au Gres and it looks like the weather will be cooperating as I should get both of them in. I've had a nearly two week stretch of being able to fish every day without any blow days, so this spring is turning out to be very good indeed for my charter business and my customers as well. 5/19/10 I've been fishing every day this week and saw the fishing change big time with this fast warm up we've experienced. We were hammering the fish in shallow water until the two dead calm, sunny, warm days skyrocketed the water temp up to the point where the fish mostly moved deeper. The last three days we've been fish in 35-60' of water. We took 18 fish today, which was outstanding fishing in anyone's book. Yesterday was slow though, but Monday was easy limits with fantastic fishing. We've been limiting out about 2/3 of the the time here in Rogers City. Basically the dead calm days are not good while a little wind has been getting the fish bitting more. We took about half our fish today on spoons off the Church Walleye Boards. I'm adding 4-5 ounces of weight with Church Clip Weights to get the lures into the fish. My best spoons have been ones I painted myself that are green/golden yellow with green glow tape diagonally across the spoon. We took the other half of our fish off the downriggers. Productive rigger rigs were Moonshine Moonbells on one rigger and a Lure Jensen Dodger on the other both fished within 10' of the bottom. I'm using peanuts and spin glows as lures on those rigs. I've got five more days on the water here in Rogers City before I move my boat to Au Gres for some walleye action. So far this has been one of the best springs for fishing that I've experienced in at least a decade. I've heard they are hammering the walleyes at Au Gres already, so I can't wait to get there. 5/13/10 We only only got to fish for a few hour today before the big East wind came up forcing us to vacate the lake curtailing the charter. Even with the bad weather, we still managed to catch just one fish short of limits. We started out trolling in shallow water and the fishing was somewhat slow as we only caught three fish in the first couple hours. Then we moved deeper to 50 feet of water and started getting better action, however the wind came up before we could top off the cooler with the last fish. The weather is predicted to stabilize by the weekend and the next week after that is looking real promising for some outstanding fishing here at Rogers City. I filled my last open slot here, so I don't have any more openings for Rogers City May trips, however I'm already booking these trips for 2011. These spring mixed bag trips are extremely popular with my customers as we almost always take good catches of trout and salmon. We mostly fish close to shore too, so you get to see some nice scenery up close as you fish. 5/12/10 We finally got out on a charter at Rogers City today. Yesterday the wind blew like crazy from the east, which is bad for Rogers City, so I was forced to cancel. At day break today, the wind was still blowing up waves that looked like five footers, which were too big for us to fish with any degree of fun. So we waiting a few hours and the winds finally died down. We hit the water at noon and by 1:00 we had 10 fish in the box. Then the wind switched to the SE the action died down for a couple hours. The fish began biting hot and heavy again later though and we ended up with a great limit catch of trout and salmon. We fished shallow water trolling a mixture of spoons, body baits and I even ran a cowbell too witch took a couple fish. We were primarily targeting Atlantic salmon, brown trout and lakers, but we also caught a bonus king and a beautiful steelhead to really round out a true mixed bag. We didn't take any huge fish today, however none of the fish we caught were small either. They ran for 5 to 10 pounds. My customers had a great time enjoying a beautiful afternoon on Lake Huron and said it was the best fishing they had ever experienced. The best part is that they get to do it all over again tomorrow, weather permitting. 5/9/10 Sorry for not posting any reports the last couple weeks as I have been extremely busy working on my new place I just bought up in Au Gres. I've also been running some charters too. My last two charters at Monroe were canceled due to bad weather, so I'm now done on Lake Erie and will be moving my boat to Rogers City for a two week stint after a mixed bag of primarily brown trout, Atlantic Salmon and Lakers. I only have one opening at Rogers City for May charters, so book fast for that one. After Rogers City I will be moving my boat to Au Gres for some Saginaw Bay walleye action, which I'm really looking forward to as that fishery is absolutely the best walleye fishing I've ever seen. Back to the fishing reports: My last trips on Erie were somewhat tough because of the unstable weather patterns we had over the last two weeks. Our fishing was what I would call decent meaning that we limited out (or came close to limiting out) but we really had to work to catch them and all those charters took the fully allotted time to get the job done. We fished off Bolles Harbor, but had to run way out in deeper water (Ohio) to find bigger fish. We took most of our walleyes on crawler presented close to the bottom, but I did run a combination trolling spread that included crankbaits and on some of those trips, the take was about an even mix taken on crawlers and cranks. Shad Raps were the best crankbait and I caught walleyes no every pattern of spinner harness I tried, so that was not as important as the correct trolling speed and an accurate presentation. The best fishing on Erie is now behind us, so I'll be focusing my walleye fishing efforts on Saginaw Bay for the rest of the season where the catch rates will be much higher and the average size of the fish a log bigger. 4/19/10 The last few days on Lake Erie were simply phenomenal. We took limit catches of high quality walleyes on all charters. The fish consisted of walleyes ranging in size from 17" to 29". We are trolling out of Bolles Harbor and the hottest bait by far has been Shad Raps. I did run some crawlers today and we had a few takers on them as well, but the white perch managed to steel those crawlers a lot making them a lot more of a hassle. The crank bait bite will continue for another couple weeks and should produce bumper catches through mid-May. This has been the best spring walleye action I've seen on Erie in many years and I still have some opening left if you want to take advantage of this tremendous bite. 4/12/10 Caulk up another banner walleye fishing outing on Lake Erie today. We fished out of Bolles Harbor and managed to troll up limits once again of some really nice walleyes. We even caught a 4 pound smallmouth bass today as a bonus fish too. Our walleyes ranged from 3 to 9 pounds with our top five fish (for you tournament guys) weighing about 40 pounds. We trolled with crank baits and Shad Raps were the top producer. We pulled them about 10-12' down for suspended fish. I've caught more walleyes on Lake Erie on Shad Raps than on any other bait bar none and I have decades of experiences fishing on Erie with them too. Shad Raps are simply my top, post spawn walleye producer and they work great typically from early April through early May. I decided to cancel my scheduled trip for tomorrow (Tues.) due to the predicted high winds. I'll let the lake settle down a bit and then his it again later in the week. The Lake Erie jigging bite typically peaks out during the middle of April, so I'll be torn this weekend between trolling and jigging for our catch then. Both are super fun ways to spend a day on the water and both should also be very productive this week. 4/11/10 We had another fantastic day on Lake Erie today taking limits of very nice sized walleyes. We fished out of Bolles Harbor and most of our fish were 4-6 pounds with some bigger and only one smaller than four pounds. We caught most of our fish on Shad Raps, be we also had some luck with Rouges. We tried jigging today for the first time this year and only had marginal success and only stayed at the jigging technique for perhaps 10 minutes before going back to our productive trolling presentations that have been working so well for us this year. Trolling typically takes much larger sized walleyes than jigging does, however jigging is fun when the action is fast paced, which it was not today. Jigging typically peaks during mid-April, but this year the tolling bite has been so red hot with jumbo sized walleyes, that I've not had much impetus to go after the walleyes on the reefs with jigs. This year is serving up some of the best trolling walleye bite for trophy sized fish than we've seen a several years. I'll be out there again tomorrow and with the predicted week long, stabile weather forecast, the fishing should be even better as the week goes on. 4/6/10
4/5/10 More Lake Erie walleye magic today. We limited out in four hours on walleyes that ranges from 4 to 10+ pounds. We took three walleyes that were 31" that I didn't weigh and a bunch of other trophy class fish too. We had lots of fun today and I had my first ladies out on the water for the season. Everyone did fantastic though catching almost all the fish we hooked. Our catch today filled my 30 gallon well to the top with solid walleyes. Here's my tip of the day, if you fish now bring a very big cooler. My customers brought along a 40 quart cooler to bring their fish home with but it only was able to hold about 1/3 of their catch, so if you book a trip, bring along a big enough cooler to take you're haul home with. Here's a photo of a couple of the nice walleyes we caught today.
The walleye fishing on Lake Erie was fantastic once again. We had a big wind blow through with a cold front yesterday, but even though the water riled up some, the walleyes were still hitting good today anyway. We took limit catches of big walleyes that ranged from 5 to 10 pounds for an average wight of 7 to 8 pounds. This fishing is some of the best trophy walleye fishing for true lunker eyes' you'll find anywhere in the world. The action has been hot and heavy all week. Today we were limited out in less than three hours and customers can also catch and release fish too if they really want to fight big fish until your arms hurt. Here's a photo to the left of a couple dandy walleyes from today.
4/3/10 We took limit catches again today of big walleyes ranging from 4 to 10 pounds. The winds came up at about 1:00 p.m. but we had limited out before noon. We trolled in a variety of areas and managed to catch fish where ever we went. The bite was excellent all morning with most of the fish weighing over 7 pounds. Here's a photos to the right of a couple fish taken by a classy young man that turned out to be a very good fisherman as well. 4/2/10 The fishing was awesome again today on Lake Erie. We took limit trolling very close to Bolles Harbor. Rouges and Thundersticks were the hot baits. The fish were ran big again today with only a couple under five pounds and a bunch over seven pounds with some true lunkers as well. We caught 25 fish total and threw back some of the biggest ones. This is some outstanding fishing and it will likely stay good for at least another 10 days too with the mild weather forecast predicted. I still have some openings over the next week, so contact me if you want to catch a bunch of big walleyes.
4/1/10 We've been fishing the last two days on Lake Erie and have been taking decent numbers of fish with most being true trophy class fish. The best fishing has been off Bolles Harbor trolling with stick baits. Today we took 14 walleyes and yesterday we had a similar bite rate. Most of the fish have been over 5 pounds with about half being over 8 pounds. and some much bigger yet. This is the time of the year when trophy class fish are staging prior to the spawn and the biggest walleyes of the year are taken on Lake Erie. I run these charters from an "on-call:" list. The next week of fishing promises some awesome fishing with the predicted mild, stabile weather forecast. At this point, the on-call list still has room to fit in some more charters during this hot bite so call now if interested. This photo to the right is from yesterday. Unfortunately, my camera lense got a water drop on it and my photos from 4/1/10 were not of good quality. We caught some impressive fish both days.
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Trophy Specialists Fishing Charters Homepage copyright 1998 |
I finished
up my first stay at Monroe with style limiting out on walleyes that weighed
up to and over 10 pounds. My customers limited out before noon on mostly
big fish with a couple smaller ones thrown in for good measure. We
trolled off Bolles Harbor again today and for the charter we caught walleyes
on crank baits. We had some action on Shad Raps, Deep Husky Jerk Baits,
Deep Thundersticks and Deep Rouges. I'll be taking a few days off to
take care of some other business and then hitting the water again after this
predicted cold front blows through Michigan. With the predicted nice,
stabile weather forecast for next week, we should be taking limit catches
of jumbo walleyes once again. This is proving to be a world class spring
walleye fishery and I have a couple openings left so don't miss out.
Here's a photo of a hog walleye from today.
4/4/10
