Fishing Report, Whitney Charters

Happy Mothers Day to any mothers that might be reading this and consider it a reminder to my fellow fisherman if that may have slipped your mind.

The forecast has improved and the fishing has too. As it's Mothers Day I need to keep this short to avoid trouble so here goes.

Lake Michigan is improving for salmon in our area. Yesterday was our first fun trip of the season and it was succesful. After a couple hours We found a handfull of kings in the 8 - 14 lb class in 45 - 75 ft of water. The fish hit Blue Mixed Veggies, Natural Born Killers, and Hello Darlin Stinger spoons fished on short lead cores of 3 and 5 colores and on downriggers set between 15 and 25 ft. For those of you not familiar with these baits the best color combos blue, green and orange on silver blades. Other boats did well with the regular Mixed veggies spoon also which is green, orange and yellow on silver.

Perch fishing was going on but perch catching was not. "Plenty of gobies" was the standard catch.

Pike fishing has been good this week on Muskegon Lake and this is probably true for White Lake as well. Try trolling blue/silver and black/silver Bombers or Rapalas in 8 - 12 ft of water near weed lines and dropoffs for the best success. Bluegill fishing should do nothing but improve with the additional sunshine and and warm weather. Fish will be moving into the 3 -8 ft depths as the prepare for the upcoming spawning season and they should be plenty aggressive. The wax worm and teardrop combo will continue to take fish but I like to go to leaf or red worms for a bit and then change to poppers and spiders on the surface when the bigger fish make it into the shallows. Crappie are also showing up around area marina's and can be caught with minnows and small spinners like beetle spins.

Now that spring weather has arrived try to get outside and enjoy it!

Matt Whitney