Salmon run to start soon.

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

For the last part of August and the first part of September this year we had warm water from the surface of about 68 degrees and the temperature was about 64 degrees 80 feet down. This warmer water mass slowed kings from going up into the river anytime they want and they were staging in the lake. This changed in a big way with the huge northwest winds we had on Tuesday September 10. This brought cold water from the bottom of Lake Michigan into shore and the pier heads and pushed the wall of warm water out deep into the lake again. This along with the full moon on September 9 and the inch or so of rain we had Tuesday is what I call the perfect combination for a king run. Pere Marquette Lake should have a lot of fish in it now after the northwest blow.

Since the lake was so cold overall this summer we are still catching chrome 4-year-old kings in over 200 feet of water out in the lake. The rest of the adults not entering the river now may wait until October 8 on the next full moon to run the river, until then we will continue to have a trickle of fish going upstream to spawn. We are catching salmon throughout the Pere Marquette and Manistee river systems but we do not have any great numbers yet, this should be changing now. The Manistee River has the best numbers of kings so far and has been busy with angler traffic. The best fishing on the Manistee is currently below the cooler water influences of Bear and Pine creeks.

The DNR says that there are not a lot of adult 4-years-olds in Lake Michigan. Time will tell. The Pere Marquette has some of the best natural reproduction for king salmon in the lake. Despite stocking numbers being cut by nearly 50% over the last several years the PM will have an annual run of kings, we just do not know how many yet.

Catching kings on the lake still remains decent but not as good as recent years. The kings we were catching near shore are turning darker that were staging in the warmer water, or you may catch a chrome adult that just came in from the deeper colder water where we think most of the adult kings are still at. Some anglers were catching the adult 4-year-old kings in the warmer 64 degree water at first and last light on plugs and meat rigs. The problem we had with the warmer water is that the fish do not seem to feed for very long. After the morning bite, you had to head to deeper, cooler water. This cold water is now close to shore making finding them and catching  them easier. Cohos, steelhead, lake trout and all year classes of kings are still being caught offshore. Pay attention to your temperature probe as you head west, it will drop to about 49 degrees about 75 feet down. Fishing has been good just before the down temperature gets colder.

Top Lures for kings have been Captain’s Choice Plugs in a Natural Glow Color along with 6-inch Ace High Plugs in a Green Spatterback or Lucky Charm Glow.  If you go out to deeper water Meat Rigs are working well along with Spoons on Lead Core Lines for steelhead.  For the Rivers — Thundersticks work well in the morning then switch to skein under bobbers.