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Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Made my last Salmon forray today. The Salmon canning process from this years catch starts next Saturday.
Launched at Blacksmiths Bayou on the Manistee River at daylight. Never launched there before and it's been years since I fished that stretch from High Bridge down past Blacksmiths, so we took it slow and easy and fished a couple of spots just down river as the sky brightened. Seen some fish moving but could not really tell just how many were in this section of river. We cast T-sticks and bobber fished globed spawn till 10:30am and had nothing to show for it. We finally hit this tight/narrow curve that I recognized from years ago and it had several gravel beds in it, with as many as 10 to 15 salmon on each red with several others waiting their turn in the holes and slots below these beds. But the fish would still not hit either offerings. In fact the T-sticks were simply scaring them out and off the beds.
Told Mark only one program left to try Bud. I Put in the Brads Wigglers/Wiggle Warts 35 back. 2 Black and Gold (my favorite Big M color) and one Gold and Orange in the middle. Placed mark in the back end of the boat and I went up front and pulled the anchor, kicked in the trolling motor with remote, kept the plugs running in the groove of the hole and started dropping back the plugs. We did not go 40 feet and the right outside rods slams down. Nice female still tight about 15 pounds. Regroup, start back at the top and bam, 12 pound male joins the female in the coffin. Long story short we pretty much stayed there till 2:30pm and went 3 for 7.
Holding on to and bringing these fish to net was extremely tough in that shallow current in the corner. We could have chased them downstream but there were a couple of other boats waiting to take our spot if we moved. Then things got really tough as the air temp went up and the air temp was 75 degrees when we left the river. Our last fish came after the other boats pulled out. It was a female dropping loose eggs, so we let it go. I believe if we would have started pulling plugs right away, we could have had one heck of a day.
Edited by walleye express 10/5/2011 6:21 PM
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