Today's Update & Fishing Report
  
9/8/08  Capt. Chris Bonner from Happy Hooker Outfitters says fishing in the Pere Marquette River for river run Kings has been decent,  if the fish have been holding in the river from Scottville down.  Chris shared there were plenty of fish inside of Ludington, MI's harbor this past Saturday and Sunday. Click PM 9/6/08 river-run King
        I've started on a new article that will debut Thanksgiving Day 2008.  The focus of this piece on catching Salmon during the off-peak, mid-day time frame.  My mental notes from 2008 adds up to not much ...of an early bite.  Best time catch times aboard my boat were past 9am.  The only exception this season took place 7/31/08 where John J and I boated and released 10 Kings by starting early (7am to 9am).
        Here's a tip for you that will pay dividends for the later morning thru the mid-day time periods.  Take an old off-colored diver, ...that never seems to work and spray paint it black on the top and bottom.  Color coding your newly painted diver is recommended to eliminate confusion when first dropping lines.  Click for proof this works

9/7/08  51 pounds of Kings in 2 fish is a plus 25lb average!  Our featured photo of day is from Lake Ontario and these fish were caught in the last week of August 2008.  My thanks goes to Ed C for sharing this picture.  Silver Bullet BTIs with green meat rigs did the damage on these two very impressive Kings. Click 51 lbs of Lk. O King Salmon
         Don't have much info from Manistee, but the harbor was very crowed yesterday morning.  There were some immature, or juvenile Kings being taken in the deeper water on the shelf.  These fish were going from 5 to 10 pounds.  Best depth was said to be down to 110 feet over 120' to 200' of water.  
        Those that did fish Manistee's harbor this past Thursday ....when the lake first turned cold, cleaned house on adult Kings from 15 to 20 pounds.

9/6/08  This season Mother Nature threw all Central Lk. Michigan a curveball in August.  For 21 days we had cold inshore, on the beach water temperatures (55 or less).  While it's not unusual for the lake to roll over to the cold side, never in my almost 40 years has this happened for such an extended ...uninterrupted amount of time.  
        Is the solar engine that drives the big lake broke from ever clearing waters?  Clear water does not absorb heat when compared to stained, or off colored water. 
        The past Labor Day was early. The first Monday in September is set aside for this holiday and it won't come this soon again for 6 years.  This shortened the season drastically as today's featured photo clearly shows.  Last Tuesday (9/2/08) there were hardly any boats fishing.  Most all charter boats were tied to the dock and hardly, any of the sports fleet was to be found.  This photo was taken 2 miles south on Manistee (13s) looking south to Big Point Sable and there's no boats on the horizon what-so-ever!
                             Click for a deserted Lk. MI on 9/2/08

      As Paul Harvey might say, ........."click here for the rest of the stories"