Muskegon And Grand haven Michigan

[Last]

Salmon fishing in lake Michigan out of Muskegon and Grand Haven Michigan countinues to be good to great. In addition to the main action out in the big lake people jigging and casting off from the channel walls in Muskegon are getting a few early fish that are trying to make the move. Muskegon Lake continues to be excellent for Walleyes after dark. Long line trolling the breaks is the way to go. People that really know the lake will stop after finding fish trolling and cast pockets of fish to take there limits. Fish are averaging 3 to 5 pounds with one here and there in the 7 to 8 pound class

[Eric Haataja]

Great report Ernie! Ernie is a charter captain (Last Cast Charters) 231-557-9582 in lower Mi for salmon, steelhead and big eyes and all those other fish! I met him about 7-8 years ago and since became good friends with him. Thanks for the fishing reports buddy!

[Last]

Muskegon Salmon are all over the place. Muskegon Lake just inside from the channel mouth is producing a few fish on riggers. They are just starting to show up in the lake itself. Green Scale jplugs are always the best once the fish get into Muskegon lake. The fish are being caught here in there through out the channel walls but the main school of fish are still holding off. Boats from the channel all the way out to 100 feet of water are catching fish. The boats focusing on 120 to 140 feet of water are the guys that are producing limits up into the double digit. Low light hours in the morning or in the evening are best. Jplugs and fly combos are taking most of the fish .I've actually been fooling around with 6 inch turbo shads made by Bass Assassin . The fish can't get enough of them. Muskegon lake Walleye fishing has been slow with all of the fronts moving through. The last two trips this week produced smaller fish and the numbers were also down from what it has been. Here are a few pictures of the fish we caught using the 6 inch Bass Assassin plastics . If you look at the one still in the water it has the 6 inch bait completely inhaled.

Last Cast Charters
Catain Ernest Miller
http://www.michiganfishguide.com
231-557-9582

[Last]

Salmon fishing in both ports is on fire. Muskegon lake is producing good numbers of fish. Guys jigging just inside Muskegon lake are having a great time. With all this warm weather we are having, the fish that are in the lake are holding and not all going up the river. Fish that haven't come in have gone out a bit. Salmon fisherman in lake Michigan out of Muskegon and Grand Haven have had to follow the fish back out but staying on them hasn't been much of a problem. Her is an average fish from last night. Jigging with 5 inch plastics.

[Last]

Manistee river is full of fish. Slamon in almost every hole. Large skein balls under floats is picking up both Salmon and a few steelhead. Casting relatively any type of deap diver from Shad Raps and Tail Dancers to M-2 Flatfish and storm thunderstick JR's ar eworking as well. Colors in white and firetiger seam to be working best. For the Muskegon River and White river the low water level are effecting the runs of fish. You can find evidence of fish just about everywhere. However the fish haven't made their big runs. The fish are moving all the time and limited to certain area of the rivers.A good indication of the fish yet to come is that Muskegon Lake and White lake are still producing good number of fish at the mouths of the rivers. Jigging spons and twister tails seams to be most effective. Casting crank baits is the ticket as you enter the lower parts of the rivers.

Ernest Miller
Last Cast Charters
http://www.michiganfishguide.com
231-557-9582

[Last]

It's amazing the low water and warm weather have held the main runs of Salmon off until now. With a week of normall temps and some rain the lower stretches of the rivers are fianaly loaded . We have been picking off fish for the last several weeks using indicators and #14 single egg patterns but it's been work to find any numbers. Yesterday we must have seen 200 fish in 2 miles of the lower Muskegon River. We ended up landing 4 steelhead and 5 Salmon. Walleyes on Muskegon lake are better than average in numbers but still not seeing many big fish yet.

Last Cast Charters
231-557-9582
http://www.michiganfishguide.com

[bossman]

Me and a couple buddys hit one of our favorite sw michigan lakes that connect with the big pond on friday night and we wound up going 9 for 11 on the walley's with the biggest being 10 1/2 lbs and the smallest was a hair under 3 lbs. We caught all of our fish trolling in 13 to 15 foot of water longlining glass husky jerks 55 to 70 feet back! The fishing is only get better as the water was only 48 degrees and you can get these fish and much bigger one's right up to ice up in January!

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u249/bossman41_photos/Walleye003.jpg

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u249/bossman41_photos/Walleye005-1.jpg

[Eric Haataja]

Awesome string of eyes looks like a lot of fun! Thanks for the great report and pics!!!!!

Eric

[Last]

Muskegon River is doing well with chrome Steelhead showing up every day. Fishing is limited to the upper stretches as the lower Muskegon is full or ice. Muskegon lake is frozen with a few anglers getting out. Grand River near Grand Rapids Michigan is now plugged with Ice. Just before the ice james took over we have a good number of Coho show up.

Last Cast Charters
www.michiganfishguide.com
231.557.9582

[Eric Haataja]

Nice fish Ernie and great fishing report!

Eric

[Last]

Everythings a mess this afternoon. Who know's what's going to happen this week. Warm down poors today and thunder storms tomorrow. Sunday Ice was in Pretty good shape. Hit a few of the smaller lakes yesterday. Caught several good specs and a good mess of good gills . Ended up with a limit of 9 to 9.5 inchers. Hit the Muskegon river today before all the rain. Ended up with several nice Steelhead and a few 17 inch rainbows. We expect to get a new batch of fish with all the run off. Fish were scattered. Best bet is to start up by Croton Dam and cover as much water as possible to pull the active fish.

Last Cast Charters
http://www.michiganfishguide.com
231.557.9582

[Last]

Pier heads at Muskegon and Grand Haven are producing good numbers of Steelhead. The big numbers of fish are just showing up. The Muskegon River had been slow before the 3 inches of rain but the Grand near Grand Rapids was producing good numbers of Steelhead and suckers. Both Rivers are high and almost unfishable . Mid next week should be good on both rivers. WHite river near whithall is doing well. The white river is in good shape overall but the upper stretches are only holding a small number of fish. Fishing spawn has ben nmost productive.

Last Cast Charters
231-557-9582
www.michiganfishguide.com

[Last]

Good numers of fish are being taken in the little Manistee but lots of people around doesn't seem to matter where you go. Detroit River is high but not to Mudddy so verticle jigging near metro park is fair to good. Muskegon river Steelhead action took off today. Many fish shot straight up to the Croton dam area. Crank baits produced good numbers today with the dirty water. Grand River from 6th street to Weathy street is fishable but the fish are holding in weird placed due to high water. People covering water with very large bags under floats were pulling good numbers most of the morning.

Last Cast Charters
www.michiganfishguide.com

[Last]

6/2/08 Grand Haven Salmon fishing is starting to pick up . Water is still cold so the warmer weather is going to help. Grand Haven fishing for walleyes is picking up as well. Several large fish over the last week have been taken in the Grand River. We ended up with a few walleye over ten pounds this last week. The best walleye bite is yet to come. Trolling Crank baits and drifting live bait have both been working.
Fishing Muskegon is been productive for bass and perch over the last week . A few northern pike as well. Walleye fishing is starting to slow down in the Muskegon Channel. Night Walleye fishing is still producing a few fish but the bait is beginning to arrive. White lake in Montague is producing a few walleye’s during the day. Not many but all in the 4 to 6 pound range. Will send pictures later. File sizes are to large.

Ernest Miller
Last Cast Charters
http://www.michiganfishguide.com

[Bigfisherman]

First post on the site although I have checked it out often never posted before. I have fished your WI waters of SEWI with Eric and always had a great time and caught lots of nice fish. Met Eric long ago when I lived up in the UP fishing our lakes up there. I used to have an ice shack near his dad's and we would BS during the midday none bite times. Since then I try to get out with him anytime I visit the in-laws (they live over near you guys).

Well fishing on the MI side has been good as of late for steelhead in most of the major rivers most techniques have been producing fish with your more finesse techniques producing much better due to the low water of the this year. So have no fear you will get steelhead on your side of the pond this year just a few weeks later than normal. I was just curious if you guys experienced the same thing we did on our side of the pond for Salmon this year.

We had a pretty good july for salmon and then fishing was pretty slow or spotty most of August and Sept even in the big ports like Manistee, Frankfort, and Ludington. The runs seemed to be down in the river quite a bit as well with less fish in the Big Manistee, PM, and Little Manistee seemed to be way down. The Cohos never really showed up very good either. And we never get the browns like you guys do any more but I only know a few caught in the river all fall. The up side is the Steelhead seem to be in good number and very fat and healthy. I am just curiuos how you guys season was over here and if you guys have any theories. Also curious how much bait you guys are seeing out on the big lake.

[Eric Haataja]

Ah it is great to have one of the best steelheaders in the midwest visiting the site.

Carl Hansen and his Dad are world class center pinners (sp?) and awsome fisherman in general and these guys that fish on the Michigan side catch sick amounts of fish and Karls is as good as they come! Heck these guys actually engineered their own centerpin reels the "hansen reels" which were awesome reels still are ! So thanks for coming on board and no my butt kissing from me. :-))

I pretty much noticed the same thing except for the fact that we had a good fall Sept- October for kings coho's were down but the bait was good still as from what I was told late in the year here even as far as last week that there were pods of bait a 1/2 mile long in 60-80 feet of water so that's good news.

The steelies are stacked up for us now in there normal places and if we get more rain they will really pile into the rivers.

My two cents for now and welcome aboard!

[Bigfisherman]

Thanks for the kind words.

I am glad to hear about some big bait pods over there. We have had a weird year for bait sometimes you wonder if your graph is working because you cann't mark much at all then other times your screen is covered with bait good news seems to be that there is more now than last year and that we may have had a decent year for bait. I am not sure if the lower salmon numbers are due to less stocking or something going on out in the big lake that is hurting the returns.

On another note we are getting pounded over here with snow so looks like not too much longer and we may have some ice to play with...

[walleyewackr]

i did notice this year and 4 years ago we caught several kings off of our pier heads in sheboygan that were marked by the michigan dnr, that little yellow die spot on the belly of the fish indicates that, we actually caught more michigan fish this year then others-and as far as bait goes, i cant speak for any other ports but we had a huge hatch of alewives this year



Scott S Goldapske
Fond du Lac, WI

[Eric Haataja]

If that's the case with the yellow dots then i caught a ridculas amount of those fish this fall, I figured they were WI fish. Are you certain those are all Michigan fish?

Eric

[walleyewackr]

100% positive, captain dan welsch from dumper dans told me this


Scott S Goldapske
Fond du Lac, Wi

[Sig and Gus Hanson]

Looking for opinions among my fellow fisherman.....I'm looking into purchasing a boat of my own, something simple 16-17 ft, 50 horse with all the amenities.....I fish out of Captain Sig's 18ft lund so I know what that is like....what are the major differences fishing out of a bass boat?? I'm told they are as stable if not more than a v-hull, true/not true?? Will typically have 2 of us in the boat at a time, occassionally 3 guys, but mostly two...

Would not be fishing Lake Michigan or Winnebego, strictly inland waters that you can't see from space.

Any opinion or thoughts would be greatly welcomed.