A s summer quickly approaches we are hoping for decent numbers of chinook salmon to show up on our side of Lake Michigan. As it was heavily reported last year, there were very few kings being caught throughout the season. In my opinion, there are far less salmon in the lake but I think the cold water last summer made the fishing way tougher than the past few years. The fish were very scattered. After the extensive ice cover we had on the lake again this winter we may be looking at the same search and peck style of fishing we had last season. There is hope the lake will setup with some good thermoclines with warmer than normal weather patterns that the forecasters are predicting for this summer. As cold as the water is at this point I would not think we will see any thermoclines setting up until at least July even the air temperatures get hot. June in most years is thought to be a slow month on the lake, but if you are will to put in your time, it can be well worth it.
In June, we like to downsize our offerings to standard and scorpion size Michigan Stinger spoons ran on short, high riding copper and leadcore lines and troll fast. We downsize our spoons so that smaller fish are more than willing to chase them down, but you would be surprised how many big fish we catch on small spoons. We bump up our speed and troll fast to cover as much water as possible. When fishing high and fast we like to use spoons in very bright colors. Orange and pinks are our go-to colors. A few colors that very rarely ever come off our highest lines are Jägerbomb, UV Veggie, and Jawbreaker. As we set other lines just a bit deeper, we will start with a combination of Dolphin colors. Another tip to try is running Slide Divers. Last year we saw a dramatic difference replacing standard divers with Slide Divers when the fishing got tough. The great thing about these divers is you can stretch your lure a long way back for a stealth approach. Most of the time, we run our spoons 75-100’ back from the Slide Diver. In summary, downsize, speed up, cover water and June does not have to be the “slow” month.