Whaler and I drove down to Michigan City to see what was happening with the MI City tourney. Visited the Team Real Deal boys, Waypoint1 (w/ Salmonhead onboard), Sea Flea, and a number of other boats.
Some folks were having a good day and others were not on the fish, after multiple days of prefishing success the wind shift changed things it seems. Team Real Deal and Waypoint1 had trouble out there finding the fish and didn't get their limits. Sea Flea fell short of their limit but was in 12th place in the Pro division so a good Sunday could get them in the money, but as was commented there are too many good boats at the top of the Pro division to make a run at winning the tournament.
I don't remember which boats and what places - but Best Chance Too, Blue Fairways, and a number of other well recognized boats were at or near the top.
Hopefully Sunday will bring good fishing and good luck - best of luck to all!!
The administrator has disabled public write access.
acording to the paper the winner had all kings and was fishing in 220fow . This is a long way out of michigan city . seems like things have changed every year its becoming a more and more off shore game ?
Actually Frank they were just off St Joe in the 120-190 area, pretty much were all the weekend guys were. Waypoint and Blue Runner were dockmates and shared info. On day two we were right next to them in visual all day. Other top boats pulled up short of st Joe a few miles and did well like Best Chance too and Hour Time. Other guys fished the NE water day one then ran to coho land for a better chance at getting 12 on day two and were right up there as well. There was a good school of fish between new buffalo and st joe all week and it moved friday night. that put a lot of boats out of fish on day 1. That's fishing.
www.salmonheadcharters.com
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Is it really true that there were only 83 boats fishing this event in both pro and am? I recall from years prior that there were always at least 100 entrants... Hopefully there will be more boats as the season progresses so that salmon tournaments can continue to increase prize money and gain additional attention/interest.
Congratulations to all the winners, very well done.
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Yep that was the boat count - I talked to Fred briefly about the numbers being down for MI City and he speculated that it might be a reflection of gas prices. Not often do you see more Pro boats then Am boats but I'm sure that a number of the more northern based Pro Charter Boats would be down there anyway running trips until the fish are in their areas.
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Wow, what an interesting tournament to fish for the first time. Talk about running. I thought I would take a quick second to update everyone on the fishing down there. We showed up Weds. and fished Thurs. thru Sunday. Thursday we decided to strictly fish for big fish knowing what they did the week before. We went a little north of New Buffalo and fished 80-120 fow. There we took fish mostly on the surface. High Lines and short cores were working the best with regular sized Fishlanders and Stingers being the best. I think we hooked into about 15 fish there. We then took off another 20 miles north and fished in front of St. Joe, where we started deck loading fish. There we did a lot better on Magnum spoons down a little deeper. We caught a very mixed bag and ended up 34-44 with 6 fish over 12lbs. That all sounds great but we were also running 15 rods trying to figure out what was working the best. The tournament rules are 7 rods so Friday prefish we limited our rod count to 9 so it was a little more realistic. There was a little bit of blow. We looked for big fish early with not near the success. No big fish, and mostly trout and coho. From there we decided we better have a decent Coho program as a backup, and went out to fish them. We ended up with about 8 Coho in a couple of hours so we felt pretty confident having that in our back pockets. Tournament day and all I can say is if things can change they will change. We fished our New Buffalo King program early and managed to get a 6lb Steel. a Coho and King we had to release because it was under 14 In. We then moved out and thought we would finish out our limit on Coho's to try to stay in the running. We sat down and caught 3 coho almost immediately and then trolled for the next 2 hours trying to find more and never did. Needless to say we sucked and was out of the tournament for Sunday except for 333 and big fish prizes and of course trying to save face. I think our total weight for 5 fish was around 13.5lbs. Sunday we knew what we needed to do. St Joe here we come to try to win the 333. This had to be the longest 30 mile boat ride in the world. Luckily our boat is running good at about 37mph. We stopped on our points in about 120 fow. We spread out our 7 rods covering as much of the water column as we could. We caught 2 fish down 96 and 120 on a rigger with a magnum coyote ugly spoon. We then started trading our higher lines for for deeper setups. 15 colors took fish as well as magnum divers on wire 260' back. We also took fish on our copper setup. We ended up with 9 fish to weighin. a 16.6 pound King and a 9 pound Laker being our biggest. We did not take first in the 333 but we did take 5th which was good enough for a new Minnkota 101lb. thrust trolling motor. I would like to congratulate Blue Runner (fellow Fishlander boys), and Manistee Mama for a job well done. Manistee Mama showed us you can place well going out and getting your Coho for 2 days straight. All in all, we had a great time fishing down there and getting into the tournament mentality. Can't wait for South Haven. Hope to see a big turn out.
Jason Team Reel Deal
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Great report Jason! Thanks for sharing. I fish out of E. Chicago IN. Where we where fishing Saturday 23+ miles from home Port, We had a bunch of MI City Tourney boats in our area. Once we started banging them they started moving are way Fish-On! Mark <t><
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Yeah We were there on Saturday. It was kind of funny you would run for about 45 min. and all of sudden there was like a city of boats in the middle of the lake. I can honestly say it was wierd seeing a west, south and east shoreline all at the same time.
The administrator has disabled public write access.
Mission Statement : Educated Angler will continue to be the premiere Great Lakes Fishing Resource, including fishing message boards, fishing reports covering Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario, Lake St. Clair, Lake Superior and tributaries, fishing chat, Great Lakes fisheries news, fishing links, and Great Lakes webcams. Membership will remain free and offer photo galleries, homepages, and a passionate community of salmon, steelhead, lake trout, walleye, bass, perch, pike, and muskie anglers.
Fish-On!
