# St. Mary's Area June 29 - July 3rd



## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

I have never fished here before. I am going up with a couple buddies and we have access only to a small aluminum boat. We are camping up there and hoping to go fishing for a wide variety of fish. Any tips or pms would be greatly appreciated.

We have gear for salmon, eyes, bass, and other smaller fish. Any tips on where to go or what to use (no down riggers or anything like that) would be greatly appreciated.


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## Fowlersduckhunter (Oct 28, 2011)

Trolling the shipping channels with 3 or 4 oz bottom bouncers with crawler harnesses is your best bet for eyes..can also drift or troll around munuscong or brimley bay for eyes too..before warned, if the channel looks like its gonna get rough, GET OFF IT!, it can get dangerous in small boats. Salmon, hook up to the powerhouse and whip mayflies or waxworms or artificial flies into the turbines and let it wash back. should be loaded with atlantics and cohos then. Can also troll rapalas, thundersticks, etc. in the river between the sugar island ferry and the bottom of the locks. this is how most people will be fishing. perch, anchor pretty much anywhere and fish crappie rigs. bass, never purposely fished for em, youll probably hook into some while fishing eyes.


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## littleron (Apr 6, 2012)

Still till early I hope any info would be a blessing..


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## Fowlersduckhunter (Oct 28, 2011)

littleron said:


> Still till early I hope any info would be a blessing..


havent heard anything yet. im itchin to get out after em too. never caught one. been trying for a few years but cant ever connect. ill let ya know as soon as i get any news on em. should be comin up pretty quick.


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

Yeah I am pretty pumped to be heading up there. I like that there is such a wide variety of fish to go for. Thanks for the tip fowlers. Hopefully as it gets closer to that date some people will have some fishing reports of what is working. 

I have actually never caught a Herring. What do people use for them? Is that going to be the right time of year for it?

I think we want to focus mostly on fish we can eat as we are camping up there and would like fish dinners every night..  Is the perch fishing pretty good? That is good to hear that the coho and atlantics should be in at that time. Any species of fish we should focus more on during that time? Any other tips are greatly appreciated.


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## Fowlersduckhunter (Oct 28, 2011)

the herring ya catch out in the shipping channels, usually mostly in raber, with a flyrod or light rod and twitch a teardrop with a waxie, mayfly, or an artificial fly right near the bottom. their super good to eat. should be prime time for em.

perch is hit and miss, mostly anywheres off shore you can catch em using just basic gear bobber and worm. rockbass as well.

if you can make it to the powerhouse pier, you should be able to get into some atlantics. use little rapalas, little cleos, flys, mayflies.

should be almost guaranteed to get on some panfish while your there and catching 10-12 usually makes for an awesome dinner.

happy to help. if ya need anything else just holler.


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

I am sure we will try the powerhouse for salmon at least one of the days and probably another day trolling bottom bouncers for walleye. Is there any good places to try for herring near that area? Or is it worth the drive down to raber?


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## Fowlersduckhunter (Oct 28, 2011)

raber is your best bet for herring. lime island docks is where the hot action is.


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## jleix89 (Jan 17, 2012)

Do what the guy said in the first post. Big fish in the channel. They could be eyes, pike, or even suckers. Caught more if you go down stream towards Barbeau Point. For salmon go towards Edison Hydroelectric Plant. Most people use spoons. The only luck so far this year I've had is with a gold walleye diver. Got one Atlantic and lost one. Here's a link that might help.

http://www.saultstemarie.com/st.-marys-river-fishing-experience-28/


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

Thanks for the link. Any advice is always helpful. We are hoping to have a good fish fry every night at camp and targeting a wide variety of fish.


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

Any updates as to the hatch or what lures are working well currently? We are heading up on friday.


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

Here is an update for everyone that helped us out and gave us tips.

The herring started when we got up there. We did very well with the herring and hit our 3 man limit nearly every day we fished for them. Early on we mostly only caught herring, but as our time up there progressed it moved to an even split of herring and whitefish. It was our first time every fishing for herring and I didn't realize how well they fought for their size. I also laughed every time you caught one and they croaked at you.

We didn't have a lot of luck with the atlantics. A few guys were getting them but they seemed privy to a couple holes we didn't know about. Since we were doing so well with the herring and whitefish, we didn't spend as much time trying to figure out the atlantics.

We did decent on walleye but had to sort through a LOT of small ones. In fact we had a few laughs watching another boat trolling near us. Every time they caught a walleye that was too small (quite often) we would watch the captain angrily chuck the walleye as far as he could.

We hooked into LOTS of pike tossing spinner baits near any weed beds or trolling with stick baits when fishing for walleye. We also did fairly well on perch when we wanted to relax a bit and just drop some perch rigs. Most of the perch were small, but they were delicious.

Also the night before we left (monday night) the hatch finally started in full force! Mayflies were out in full force EVERYWHERE. 

Thanks for all the tips and information everyone gave. We had a great weekend and a lot of fun fishing. My freezer and smoker have a lot of fish and I am slightly burnt, but all three of us had a lot of fun.


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## Fowlersduckhunter (Oct 28, 2011)

sounds like ya had an awesome trip. we never could figure the atlantics out either, but we did manage to limit on herring 3 days, also pulling a stellie 25 1/2" the first day. gotta love bonus fish 

good news on the eyes and pike too.


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## Gyro (Aug 19, 2009)

Yeah the herring were a lot of fun to catch. I am smoking up a whole bunch tonight. I eager to see how they taste all smoked up.


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## Robert Holmes (Oct 13, 2008)

I would say the skunk got out of your boat real fast. The atlantics are tough to catch sometimes. They sure are tastey if you can get into them. Try downriggers 12 feet down 100 feet behind the ball and use small spoons. That might help


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## Flyguide7 (Jun 30, 2012)

I haven't fished the atlantics in the St. Mary's in several years but when I did I did extremely well. I would run my boat up the river to the powerhouse between the lock and the rapids and drift down stream casting yozuri pins minnows at the rip rap shoreline when you get out of the current run back up and do it again. My best afternoon caught and released 15. The atlantics eat salmon parr and smelt and they often are very selective. I used the brown trout color scheme on the Yozuris. Cheers


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## kenais (Apr 22, 2010)

I was up there during the same period. A few Atlantics, a bright steelhead and some small walleye that had to be picked through to find a legal one. It was slow for us, the weather and mayflys didn't help our cause. Didn't try for herring but saw some old timers using a secret technique behind Edison to clean up on them. By all reports they pounded the herring at Raber. 

Here's my report- the West Pier burger took first place with a very tasty and perfect sized burger, they should give lessons to my local drive-in. When your regular burger is 1/2lb your doing a lot of things right. A close second was the Big C at Clyde's, another great burger but was missing a little something to beat West Pier. Also the Lumberjack burger at the Lumberjack Tavern in Strong's Junction was tasty, the addition of ham, bacon and 2 patties was a treat. This would be a superb burger in a typical contest, the competition was tough though so it ended up 3rd.


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