When we moved from Lake Huron (Lexington) to Ludington we were told that our collection of Silver Streaks were not goign to work on Lake Michigan. Well they do seem to work - I still use them even against advice, but I have made significant purchases of DW, NK, Fishlanders, Flintstones (?), Yecks, Pro Kings, etc...
How much do you think the lure design matters? Do fish hit what they see more often? Just wondering.
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I used to fish Huron a lot and still do early in the spring but I heard the same think about lure colors. Had to have more oranges and greens on Lake Mich than I had . I found out a lot of guys run lighter/brighter colors on Mich but my old darker Huron spoons still take fish on Lake Mich , good ones for me have be pink alwivfe , skunk , kervorkian , plum crazy , and others. I still run the traditional lighter/brighter colors on Lake Mich. most of the time but I also am not afraid to put the darker colors down and it has saved many a day. I am not so sure color has as much of a factor as lure action on some days with most fish , though steelhead I have found definatly prefer orange/red/blue combinations most of the time. It is kind of funny how some spoons that were hot a few years ago we have forgotten about and they never see the water now , but if we would run them again they would still take fish. We get confidence in a few certain lures and those are the ones that we catch all the fish on because they are the ones in the water all the time , hard to catch fish on a lure when its still in the tackle box. I try to run all the same brand or action spoons at first and work out a color combination and then start changing lures to try to find a action they like . I want to try to represent a school affect of bait if I can and draw fish into the lures , so normally I have all the same brand or size spoons to start and then go to mags. or minis or a heavier or lighter spoon to see if I can make something happen. I will run an attractor/fly with spoons to draw fish in also , normanlly set deep and closer to the boat so if fish come in to check out the attractor/fly and then shy away they will turn right into the rest of my setup coming at them or if they turn out they run into my dipsey and lead core program. I try to have my riggers all set with in 10 feet of each other and a fixed slider on 3 of them and free slide on the other and all the same leads within a few feet with the exception of the attractor which is deeper and alittle closer to the ball. Then I run a wire/low diver set deep and close to the boat and then a high/power-pro dipsey set out and back a bit and then 1 or 2 lead core on inline boards outside of my divers , just have to make sure the core isn't running deeper than outside diver or tangles will happen. That is when I run 1/2 cores and 7 colors on the boards and then a full core or double core down the middle. The lead core program varys depending on the day and depth we are fishing and boat traffic but it leaves me with several different opportunities to try to target fish with. When we get an idea of what is the right set up for the day we start pulling some of the unproductive stuff to keep things a little simpler. Fishing kings/coho is a different program than steelhead or browns or even lake trout although we have caught a lot suspended lake trout the past few years when fishing kings and sometimes we will target steelhead and set a rigger s little deeper and pull kings below the steelhead action.This isn't from any scientific study this is just my opinion from past experience. Sorry for the long winded response but spring is a long way off and I already have cabin fever. I am supposed to go to Wis. and fish browns and kings in Dec. so that will make things a little easier for awhile.
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long winded is good I agree that there are lots of spoons that haven't seen the water in some time - that's probably a mistake on my part. When we got our first boat it came rigged with lots of spoons from the previous owner who fished Lake Michigan alot. I've been comtemplating breaking out those spoons from years gone by - maybe I should just do it.
It's funny how the color pallette has changed since being on Lake Michigan primarily. You can't have enough orange, green, and blue. Wart frog, double orange crush, pink and blue alewives, blue easter egg, and bloody nose. Ofcourse fly and spin doctors and hootchies were hot too.
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Being a long time walleye fisher (I live on the western shore of lake erie) I don't know any better than to try some of the things that work on erie for salmon. This may sound really weird, but I have had very good luck with a wire nite-crawler harness tipped with 2 nite crawlers while fishing for the silver fish. Willow blades in watermelon color and yellow seem to work. Quite honestly, I started fishing lake huron for salmon and didn't change a thing when we moved over to lake MI. My belief is that these fish are predators and if excited enough they will look/strike/eat anything that is run within a reasonable distance of their cruise zone. Hence, one of the features of the Ridgebacks is to stimulate the predatory instincts in these fish to the point of lashing out at the bait, even if they don't feel like eating. So far it seems to work. Anyone else out there use weird science to catch the silver fish??? Just my 2 cents worth.....don't throw away any spoons!!! If your arsenal doesn't include flys yet, it should too.....they were great producers this year also, and color didn't seem to matter either. Go figure..... Best, Chip
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I agree that there are lots of spoons that haven't seen the water in some time - that's probably a mistake on my part. When we got our first boat it came rigged with lots of spoons from the previous owner who fished Lake Michigan alot. I've been comtemplating breaking out those spoons from years gone by - maybe I should just do it.
