T he season has started out a little slow due to the fact there was ice as far out as could see until April 15th on Lake Michigan out of the Port of Muskegon. The water is still very cold, but fishing for shallow water brown trout has been decent. Most browns are being taken between the sandbars in 7-12 FOW. When fishing this shallow I really like to run straight mono lines behind the smaller TX 12 Church Planer Boards. Fishing with planer boards lets you really cover the troughs and sandbars at the same time and ups your catch rates considerably.
When using shallow running stick baits, very little to no weight is needed in front of your lure. I also always like to run a few standard size Stinger Spoons in very bright colors such as Mixed Veggie and Jäger Bomb with very little weight on 50-100′ leads behind the boards. The brown fishing will continue to be good for at least another month, but most anglers switch to chasing early season kings as soon as they start to show up. May is one of the best months for numbers of eater-size fish out of Muskegon as well as a few big kings. These kings and coho really stack up around the commercial trap nets and are very eager to bite. This time of year we are fishing standard size spoons 90% of the time to match the size of the bait fish in the area. Look for most of the actively feeding fish higher in the water column. This is a great time to get out, load up the freezer with the best-eating fish of the year, and cure that cabin fever from the long, cold winter.