All last week I was hearing report after report of a great bite going on near shore, up and down the entire Wisconsin coast line of Lake Michigan. I was determined to get over there this past weekend but was being stymied by the fact that my efforts to find a crew were coming up empty.
Finally, I hooked up with Art Green and he brought along his brother-in-law Mike to fill out a 3-man crew for my 18′ lund. Never having launched from the Port Washington harbor, this ended up working out quite well since both Art and Mike have fished here before. It never hurts to have people along who have experience in how a particular port is laid out. Especially when you plan on returning to said port in the dark!
We all arrived and met in the parking lot of the Port Washington harbor and got busy rigging up the boat. We launched around 3:30pm and promptly headed out to see what was in store for us.
Unfortunately, the afternoon bite was slowwww….and several hours went by with no action what-so-ever. Finally I made the decision to pull lines and move elsewhere. We ran south several miles and dropped lines for a 2nd time. By now, afternoon was over and we were only and hour or so away from sunset when we finally got our first bite which turned out to be a decent size king salmon. It hit one of our flasher/fly setups and probably weighed around 8-9lbs.
That was it for daylight action though. It was well after sunset when a bigger fish finally smacked one of our wire dipsy lines. Mike was battling that fish for a good 15 minutes when another fish hit the closest port side board line. Shortly after, another fish smacked one of the board lines on the starboard side of the boat and just like that we had a triple on our hands.
We managed to land all three fish but that was pretty much it for our action on this night.
We pulled lines and headed back to the harbor at 10:00pm to clean fish and catch a few zzz’s before O-dark thirty the following morning.
Sunday morning we launched a little before 3:00am, ran out to 45′ of water and set lines. It seems a bit surprising now but we actually got our typical 8 line spread completely set before our first bite. (2 riggers, 2 wire dipsys, 4 board lines) After that though, it was game on!
It seems a little surprising now because normally on mornings like this you get hit repeatedly before you can finally get all your spread set.
Eight different fish made there way into the boat before sunrise with our best baits being magnum glow spoons. Our board lines got hit the most but we also caught at least one fish each on a rigger and wire dipsy rod.
Each time the bite slowed a little, we slid out to slightly deeper water and managed to find a few more active fish. By 9:00am we pulled our final fish from 110′ of water. A 3-man, 15 fish limit in the box, we pulled lines and made our way back to the harbor.
There are very few harbors along the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan that I have not fished out of. Port Washington will be an easy one to remember and I’m already looking forward to visiting again soon!
Port Washington only has 13 hooks on their board. One small king was left out of this picture of Mike and Art Green with our Sunday morning catch.
Nice work Joel. Hankering to get out and troll for some salmon in the next few months. Hopefully the bite holds!
Joel
Nice job on the big water Joel
Looking at the background I might have even been able to take it out there. I have been sick 3 out of 5 times on Lake Michigan. I’ll leave that kind of fishing to you guys without equilibriums
Nice job Joel!
Bret – something for you to try.
Over the counter Ginger Root. Buy it at the local Walgreens.
Take a couple (2) the night before and 2 more just before heading out on the water. One of our crew coughed up his cookies last year. He went with us again the following week in even rougher conditions, only this time he took the ginger root and felt fine with no problems what-so-ever.
That was a tip we took advantage of last year from Grey Beard. Those ex-pharmaceutical guys know there stuff!
Way to go Joel!
Your Lake Michigan reports want me to hook up the boat up and make a trip out there!
Joel, great job on keeping up with and applying those trolling tactics. Sure can tell your having a ball with those kings!
Nice work Joel. Wish I could have gone but it just didn’t work out. At least I got my boat sold so the weekend wasn’t a total loss.
Great report! Thanks so much. Great job
I’ve been outta Port W 5 times….nice area.
I’m trying to get a few guys together to get over there.
Hope that bite continues to hold. Worried that all this heat may drive them ‘way’ out and deep.
Where did you stay over there? I’m always on the lookout for a good room deal.
Do you mind sharing your GPS speed? I do not have a depth raider, so GPS is it for me….
Nice work. PW is a great port. Very nice, clean small town. And its great that you can be in 100 fow + in a hurry right out of the harbor mouth. Great guys around that area, too. Lots of fishermen around willing to share what’s working….
We did well a month ago, and it looks like the action continues! Hoping for a good week of west winds before my next return trip…
I slept on an air mattress in the back of my truck. By the time we get done cleaning fish it doesn’t hardly pay to go anywhere as we always launch around 3:00am anyway.
I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to gps speed. The most important speed for me is at the ball.
Typically, we pull spoons at 1.9 to 2.2mph on the probe. If your trolling north, that usually puts your gps speed at about .8mph greater than at the ball.
Going south, you would be going even faster as the currents down by the ball pretty much always run from the northeast to the southwest.
When we run flasher/fly’s, we stay between 1.7 and 1.9mph.
I typically run all spoons in the dark. Come the first sign of daylight though, I always drop a flasher/fly down on one rigger and one dipsy as they seem to consistently take bigger fish for us.
Hope that helps!
trouble finding a crew…
John, that 3lb bullhead didn’t make your week? 
Just too vouch for Port Washington. The guy I’m working for, his brother and two others just got back yesterday afternoon and brought back 80 lbs. of fillets. Dave had a plastic sack that weighed atleast 50 lbs. of salmon and another big sack of trout. He said some of the salmon were 15 to 20 lbs. and all the trout were nice at about 5 lbs. and above, all the trout were nice fillets. All were caught Monday and Tuesday morning. I got lucky and Dave gave me about 15 lbs. of mostly salmon and a few rainbows and said when I get done eating that let him know and he’ll give me some more. He said it took about 5 hrs. both days for the 4 of them to limit out. They each spent $300 a piece and that included the motel stay and everything for the boat. He said as of yesterday morning when they got most the salmon the fishing is really good and hes definately going again. He also said his right wrist is sore and he had a big bruise at his beltline from the end of the pole.