# Making the most of my salmon experience at the PM



## alclark2 (Sep 7, 2017)

Let me start this off letting you know I'm a member of the sister site of Indiana. 1000+ poster

I'm venturing north on Friday... Again. We got skunked in the heat wave a few weeks ago. I witnessed one king legitimately caught in the mouth all weekend. It was 80+ the entire time. Brutal.

I'm a first timer... so I'm trying to make the most of my second attempt at catching a salmon. I'm thinking the weather should make for a bang up weekend with fish running up the river. I'm bringing two boxes of Rapala/Storm hard baits. Anything from 0-2 ft, 5-12, and deeper divers. I also have a handful of Hot n Tots at the recommendation of the locals. We went to the bait shop in Ludington and we told to float eggs under a slip bobber through the holes. I tried this toward the outside, middle and inside edges of holes. Anywhere from dragging the bottom to higher in the water column. Nada. I'm not going to floss these fish. Is there some other technique or something I'm missing here... How do two guys put in 50 man hours of fishing and come home skunked?

I know spots to fish, where to camp, who to taxi us up river in the kayaks, etc.. I just don't know what we could've been doing wrong. Anyway, after watching a dozens of 15+ pound fish jump out of the water.. I'm ready to attack them again. Any advice on making the most of the trip?


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## Thirty pointer (Jan 1, 2015)

Things should improve when our weather patterns return to normal


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## Outdoor2daCore (Nov 8, 2010)

To me, what you described is river salmon fishing to a T. Extremely frustrating with extremely few biters. I do know drifting skein will work at times and I have friends that fly fish for em, but they are usually just flossing them. Honestly, if they are caught in the mouth that's all I really care about. To spend all those hours to catch a salmon to me is not worth it one bit. To get a big black king salmon that is rotting with soft white flesh, no thanks. I'll take the tender, chrome 3-5lb cohos, but again very hard to catch in the rivers or maybe I am just really really bad at it. I prefer catching em jigging or trolling out in the lake when they actually bite and are usually much cleaner fish.


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## Floater (Feb 8, 2003)

Do yourself a big favor and book a guide to take you for a half day trip. You are driving a long way and what you learn in a few hours with a guide will shorten your learning curve way down. Book for the first morning of your trip and use what you learn for the rest of your trip. General concepts are fine but the subtle nuances you learn from a guide really make the difference in putting fish on the bank. I fish without a guide often but book at least one trip a year from a different guide each year. Each of them will show you something you never thought of before. Look on this site. Lots of great guides here!


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

Go back up and repeat your first trip. You simply had bad timing with the hot spell. Cast your raps in the early morning/evenings, and fish your skein late morning through the afternoon.


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

ausable_steelhead said:


> Go back up and repeat your first trip. You simply had bad timing with the hot spell. Cast your raps in the early morning/evenings, and fish your skein late morning through the afternoon.




Early morning = dark. Evenings = til after dark. You might want to consider a couple other rivers, just a bit further up the road. They are worth at least considering.


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## alclark2 (Sep 7, 2017)

Thank you all for the advise. I hope this cool weather gets them moving.


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## fisheater (Nov 14, 2010)

Fishndude said:


> Early morning = dark. Evenings = til after dark. You might want to consider a couple other rivers, just a bit further up the road. They are worth at least considering.


I had a couple of friends (kayak anglers) whom fished Platte Bay and Betsie Lake last week. They know Pere Marquette Lake well. They were very pleased with their decision to go north. Consider this another recommendation to go north, from a guy that usually would think PM first


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## slightofhand (Jul 21, 2010)

Agree with guys above. You are on the right track and had bad timing. You might want to try on the rogue or the platte which are having decent coho runs. Coho are fairly willing biters on black and purple spinners. Commend you for not caving and flossing with a fly rod or snagging. Nothing better than a float dropping on a 20 lb king. Most guys let them go anyway it’s not about the meat


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## mdj (Oct 1, 2005)

alclark2 said:


> Thank you all for the advise. I hope this cool weather gets them moving.


 A lot of times "getting them moving" is not really what you want. I personally have had some of my worst days when I "see fish moving" all day, IE big wakes moving upstream.
Don't confuse "moving" with "splashers". Often times, you'll see fish jumping and splashing, but not really moving upstream. I agree with some of the others, you really hit a really bad time
to go fishing during that heat wave. It happens, hard to hit it perfect.


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## salmon_slayer06 (Mar 19, 2006)

get some eggs put in the freezer go enjoy the rest of summer/fall and get ready for November December steelhead. Going to be some brutes. Please please release these big guys. I don't care wild or not we need more big steelhead.


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## Outdoor2daCore (Nov 8, 2010)

Well, did you make it out? Any better results?


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## alclark2 (Sep 7, 2017)

Outdoor2daCore said:


> Well, did you make it out? Any better results?


My buddy from work managed to catch a 16lb king. They went crazy jumping out of the water just after dark. I watched a 13 yo kid catch his first. A handful of people were trying to snag them. I'll come back next year for the big run and get on them. I'm not giving up that easy  We thought the heat was holding back a big run of fish but the owner of the bait shop said we were a month late. There were definitely a handful of fish coming up river together. Just not the big run.


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## Outdoor2daCore (Nov 8, 2010)

Feel free to PM me, I'm from traverse but can give ya any info I have and will offer to take ya salmon jigging if you'd like, glad ya had some action


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## FISHINGcuresALL (Jun 26, 2016)

To cautch king's this time of year.You gotta Chuck n duck and Hope you hook one in the mouth.Anyone fly fishing right now is flossing. Wether they admit it to them selves or not.


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