A ugust is primetime for adult kings in Ludington. We are heading into our second year in a row with cold water temperatures in August. Catching kings has been inconsistent except when we have the right winds. Nearly all of them have been caught in the top 50 feet of the water column. The simple formula so far this summer is if we have a few days of south/ west winds then go king fishing along the banks (Big Sauble Point) when the water warms up. Any other type of wind, head offshore and fish for lake trout and steelhead, or stay close to the home port and run dodgers and spin and glows on the bottom for lake trout in 70-110 feet of water. The bulk of our nice kings are three-year-olds running 13-16 pounds. We have caught a handful of kings in the 20-24 pound range so far, but they have been rare. Some of the three-year-olds will run up the river this year, and some will spend another year in the lake. We have seen a good amount of alewives this year, especially after a hard northwest wind when the lake “turns over” near shore and in the harbor.
Fishing UV meat rigs behind wire divers and on copper and leadcore lines has been taking our biggest kings so far and should continue to work well until the water warms up near the end of August when we start fishing plugs, plugs, and plugs. The top producing flashers have been Spin Doctors called Kevin’s Girlfriend, Yellow Sparkle, and Green Jeans UV all made by Dreamweaver. Spoons made by Yeck and Dreamweaver in UV colors have been producing well when the morning Spin Doctor bite slows down. Because of the good amount of lake trout around we have been keeping at least one dodger/spin and glow in our spread and picking up lake trout as a bonus when targeting kings. We hope to see better numbers of coho salmon in our area around mid August.
How good we do in August for kings depends on how warm the lake gets and we are looking forward to a warm up.