J une is another great mixed catch month in Ludington. Last year it was one of our best for kings except they were two-year-olds around seven pounds. The lake did not warm up in our area until the end of August and fishing was poor for adult kings. This poor king fishing is not an indication of what 2015 is shaping up to be.
So far, May showed us a mix of year classes of kings, lake trout, brown trout and steelhead, showing a promising future of our fishery. We have been targeting 10-60 feet of water trolling a variety of spoons and body baits. When targeting spring kings spoons are normally the ticket with an occasional flasher/fly or meat rig. If the kings leave our area, it is time to pull up the surface temp maps online and head to surface thermal breaks for steelhead. Orange spoons and small orange dodgers and flies set from the surface to 20 feet down on long lines, lead cores and coppers will take care of the steelhead. You may want to run a flasher/fly down around 100 feet for a king or lake trout.
Typically in the first half of June the breaks are not that far offshore (under eight miles), We have the near shore warm water meeting the cold water, and it concentrates all species of fish. The second half of the month we normally end up further offshore to find steelhead feeding on the surface. When fishing offshore trolling speed is normally faster to cover more ground. It goes along with the theory that in colder 39-55 degree water troll faster 2.5-3.1 mph and warmer than that slow down to 1.8-2.2. Often the key to trolling offshore is the direction of your troll, change it until it works and roll with it until you stop catching fish. If you turn around to go back over the area you caught fish offshore, you may have to keep changing your angle of troll until it starts working again.