On Saturday morning I had a family group that hadn`t been together in years, and we had great weather as well as cooperating fish. We left the dock around 6:20, I headed back out to 160` where I left off on Thursday and set lines, we had our 6 man limit in the box a little after 9. I ran basically the same spread and the best rods were the 40` dipseys with a blue liz Cheddar flie which went at least 7/12 and a full core of lead with the Silver Streak "Hot Lobster", it was 4/9 for the trip. I was in no hurry to race back to the dock, enjoying the beautiful day, and we caught my limit as well, which took until 11 as we ended up landing about 1 out of every 3 hits after that. I went down below and found a banana in the garbage which may explain why it took so long to get the additional 5 fish .
On Sunday morning I had an " On the water class", we left the dock around 6:20 and headed back out to 160`. I did the initial set up to get the lines in the water, the first and biggest fish was a 15 Lb. King that took a Silver Streak Magnum "Smurf" down 105`. Then it was up to the guys to switch out lines as they felt necessary, so they could try the gear I used. We seemed to be doing well until a certain individual came up with the phrase of the day "Gee, we`re not loosing too many fish". Then we were hexed , We had 2 heavy pulling fish, I assume they were kings hit on the deep `riggers, on and lost both of them, many more short releases, and a spoon, that when spit, shot all the way to the front of the boat, seemed to follow. We ended up 15 for? I`m confident our limit could have been had if we didn`t loose so many, but that`s why they call it fishing and not catching . I will add I heard about not sharpening my hooks and so on...well when I was pulling the rods that they set at the end of the trip, I noticed one of the flies no longer had a hook on it? Luckily I graded them on a curve :wink: . My lead and dipseys which were my best producers the day before were pretty much dead, the lead despite lure changes never took a hit and the dipseys only a few.
On Sunday afternoon I found out it was a "Over the Hill" 40th Birthday get together . They were a great bunch of guys and the weather was still gorgeous for the first week of May. I set up where I left off out in 150` and the first fish was a Laker down 125` on a purple Stinger spoon, at first I thought it was a lethargic King, but once I saw the white mouth draggin` across the water I knew it was a grease can, and nice one at that, right around 10 Lbs. It was very spotty, the boards were just washing themselves off as the `riggers and dipsey were taking the blunt of the action for the first half of the trip. During our best action, however brief, we went 3/5, and funny enough the other charters mentioned on the radio that it picked up for them and shut off as quickly as it did for us. For the second half of the trip the boards and the lead finally came into play and we had a few steelies doing summersaults across the water all the way to the boat . What appeared to be the biggest (no fish story here) was lost well away from the boat after about 3 or 4 leaps as it tangled with the board next to it . We ended up with 20 fish consisting of a mixed bag of the laker a few 8-10 Lb. kings, some 7-8 Lb. steelies and the balance filled with coho.
After talking to a few other Captains it seemed what worked for me didn`t work for them and vice-versa, so I guess whatever works leave out, and if it`s not change it, the fish are there.
Some of the coho have moved into the shallows down by Waukegan and hopefully they`ll do the same up by us.

"Wet Nets"
Captain Jim