With the reasonably mild winter and the lack of ice coverage on much of the Great Lakes, many anglers will be anxiously waiting their first chances to hit the shores of Lake Michigan as early as possible. With April being one the first great months to chase fish up and down the coast, don’t discount the great fishing that can be found in the month of May out of Frankfort.
Within the first few weeks of May many anglers continue their pursuit of spring browns while the water remains cold in front of the Frankfort piers and up and down the coastline. While trolling try to stay in close to both the shoreline and the pier heads, where depths will vary as shallow as 4ft to as deep as 30ft of water. Main presentations will include mono rods, and rods spooled with 1 to 3 colors of lead ran off inline Church Tackle Walleye Boards. Stagger your boards to where your mono rods will be your shallowest on the outside, followed by your 1 through 3 colors located closer to the boat. Use a mixture of bright and copper colored spoons and body baits, including standard jointed and floating Rapalas in perch, orange & gold, and black & gold patterns, as well as Yakima Bait 3.0 Mag Lips. Dreamweaver Super Slims and Silver Streak Mini Steak copper backed spoons in orange patterns are extremely effective when ran in conjunction with body baits.
In addition, as the month progresses many anglers out Frankfort will change their sights and tactics to bottom dwelling and suspended lake trout. With the water still being relatively cold, many of these lakers will be found in depths from 40 to 60ft of water, sometimes even shallower. Using a mixture of downriggers, divers, and 2 to 7 color lead core rods off inline Church Tackle Walleye Boards, try and target these early season Trout. For these bottom dwelling trout try bouncing both your cannonballs and Dispy Divers off bottom using Metal Dodgers (sizes 0 and 00) in chrome, tin can, and white color patterns, followed by #2 & #4 sized Yakima Bait Spin N Glows in lime chartreuse, pearl clown, and yellow clown color patterns. For any trout that are marked suspended try using your 2 to 7 color lead core rods set up with similar spoon and body bait patterns that you also would be using for targeting brown trout, but try incorporating smaller silver backed spoons in chartreuse and green patterns as well.
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