Ludington Fishing Report: July 2015

Seanmcdonald

July is looking to be off 
to another cold start in 
Ludington just like last year. We 
still have scattered fish and cold
water. We do have one great
thing though. Bait! Near the 
end of the month, we hope to
 have a thermal-cline set up to
 concentrate fish in layers beneath
 the surface. We have had mixed
catches so far this year since
mid-May of kings, lake trout,
and steelhead. Our types of fish
are scattered, and we have been
setting a multi-species spread to
match it. On a normal year, this 
is in June. Mid-July on should be prime time for adult kings.

A multi-species spread consists of many types of baits set at a variety of depths. Starting at the outside inline boards we are running 1-3 colors of leadcore line with orange spoons for steelhead, inside that the mid range leadcores 5-10 colors with green glow spoons. This mid-depth has not been as important so far, but will improve as the month goes on. 300-450 foot copper lines have been producing kings daily and seem to be the top producers. At first and last light wire divers and spin doctors with flies and meat rigs have been the way to go. Our downriggers are not producing that many kings yet, so we have been running dodgers and spin and glows near or on the bottom to complete the multi-species spread to include lake trout. The DNR changed our lake trout limit to 15” this year.

Keep an open mind and think of the variety of fish our port offers. The multi-species spread is a good start and if you run across one type of fish more than another add some more rods out to target them.