The kings are coming

For the Love of Fishing is written by Sean McDonald and brought to you by Dreamweaver Lures, www.dreamweaverlures.com.

We continue to see more adult king salmon showing up in our area of Lake Michigan. The kings are still very chrome from living in cold water all summer. They have finally began staging in closer to normal numbers from Manistee to Little Sable Point. This is about a month behind a normal schedule. At this point in August we should have much warmer- near 70 degree surface water and kings changing to a brownish bronze color while in the lake. The surface temp is currently about 55 degrees.

A small amount of kings continue to trickle into Pere Marquette Lake and then are going up the river. Some decent fishing has been done in the last week in PM Lake and near the pier heads. Any north wind (which we have had a lot of) will draw more of them to the piers and into the river system.

Tips for catching kings this week have been adding plugs to your spread of lures. Downriggers have started working better as well. Because the water is still cold we are concentrating fishing the top  50 feet of the water column despite what depth you are fishing. Dreamweaver’s Captains Choice Natural Glow Plug has been great not only on downriggers but also short copper lines and lead cores. Spin Doctors on divers with meat rigs have continued to catch fish as well. My top producer has been a Chrome Killer with a UV Green Gasoline meat rig. Steelhead and lake trout have been caught much further offshore, but with kings around closer to shore not many boats are fishing them.

River fishermen have been doing OK between Custer and the lake. Thundersticks and other body baits are the best choice for early kings. Skein drifted under a bobber is also working. For casting Thundersticks I prefer to use 20-25 #braided line. Change the hooks and split rings out of your Thundersticks, the factory ones are made for walleye and Mr. Salmon will bend the factory hooks. For skein and bobber fishing I use level wind reels with 25# main line and 17# fluorocarbon leaders. Cure your skeins with either a mix of Kosher Salt and 20 Mule Team Borax or you can buy a pre made Mix like Pro-Cure Wizard Egg Cure or Pautzke’s Bor X O Fire. I like the double neon red or orange colors if using the pre mixed cures. You can add sugar free Jello to your own mix to give the skeins some color.  If you do not like having pink or orange fingers bring along a pair of latex gloves for baiting your hook. Rains are expected for the next week and we will see more kings each day enter the river.

Fall is near, waterfowl hunters are preparing and scouting early Canada Goose season and a new experimental teal season both starting on September 1.  The early teal season is seven days long and the DNR will evaluate the season after three years. This is the first early teal season in Michigan in nearly 50 years.