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We fished out of the Portage on Saturday we set lines in 40 fow and had all lines set by 5am. We didn't take our first fish for about a half hour but once they started we had steady action. We ended up having over 25 bites only being able to land 10 with 1 throw back king. We got two 14lb kings and a 8lb king which where our first kings of the season and boy did we get reminded why we love them so much! We pulled lines around 10:15am because of prior obligations but the boats that stayed out kept getting them. On Sunday we did pretty much they exact same setup we had all lines in by 5am but started just a bit east of where we did on Saturday. We ended up getting 7 with 1 throw back king. We had to pull lines at 8:30 due to prior obligations again but if we would have stayed out there I'm sure we could have finished our limit. Our best water was 40-50fow from the ditch to Gary light best bait depth was bottom 30ft. We caught all of our fish on spoons with 4,6,8 color lead and 150 Morgan's copper pulled behind Church tackle boards being the best. Michigan stinger Carmel dolphin, puke, and pink panties where hot!

Nice work Joe! Good looking fish.

Thanks for the report!

Nice job thank you for the post.

Awesome Joe!! I should have been there Saturday, but I had other things going on. Great job and nice pic's.

Thanks guys it sure was nice getting fish near shore!

Great fish Joe. Glad to see you guys did so well. I'll say one thing...whoever said there are no kings in the lake really blew that forecast, as there are more kings caught over this past week than anyone could have predicted, that's for sure. To say I'm shocked after hearing about all the doom and gloom forecast over the winter is an understatement. We really have a lot to look forward to this summer if these fish don't wander too far and set up offshore like they're supposed to. One thing is for sure: the amount of smaller kings being caught as well also looks promising for next season. So for all you guys who didn't sell your boats, whew! That was a close one...

If you follow other reports from around the lake, we are seeing the most kings. The reason there here cause of the elwives spawning which they are a month behind do to cold water temps. Are hope is they have a good hatch. Most action been in 200ft plus the last month mainly being coho in North point being best. So just because we are seeing good action, the big worry is no other ports are seeing it, which means there not great numbers of bait and kings throughout the lake. Mike

Sorry: let me rephrase a little of my eternal optimisim. What I really meant to say is that I was under the assumption that it was going to be so bad out there, that we'd be lucky to catch 1 king for the season. And while I know the kings follow the bait, the fact remains that there were some boats with close to 10 kings this weekend that I know of. That's very promising. There were also kings being caught as recently as a few weeks ago in South Haven in good numbers, and while their fish have moved now they did have 1 weekend there where the local bait shop took in over 10 solid fish I believe in the 17-25lb class. They had a great bite going there of between 4-8 kings a trip too for a short while, and if you know this port, you know 4-5 lakers is a good day. I am aware of the Northpoint bite as well, but not many knew we had these fish here either in close, as most charters ran right over them and that could be happening in other locations too when captains are greaser-bound. The Gary light bite alone didn't even set up until the end of the week when somebody wandered and found them. Yes, it's a big lake out there and this will not last once the bait moves out, but I was just paiting a little better picture that there is some hope possibly, as there were plenty of bait pods that we noticed as well on a 2 mile troll.

I'm well aware of the data and I do follow the DNR press releases and reports. However, if I worked for the DNR, I'd paint as horrible of a prediction as I could to protect myself and my staff. Any sort of public marketing that is positive with a "looking up" attitude and then the lake ends up in worse shape would be a PR nightmare. I for one am simply hoping they are wrong, and that the lake is starting a recovery mode. Call it blind optimisim I guess.

The amount of 5 to 8lb kings this year is promising for the future. The bigger fish have all looked fat too. Also note the steelhead this yr primarily the skamanias look real good.

Confusing to say the least. Last fall most ports around the lake averaged less then a 1/2 percent of returning kings. Thats the worse ever. Indiana numbers were worse. Last summer, was some of the worse skamania action to go along with. This year the bait is showing up really late, bringing some silver with them. Skams are a month early. Last year,Michigan City Charter association fished 98% of the time out of Indiana waters.
As mentioned above as our fishing has gotten better, other spots around the lake have slowed down. Easy to see now how much the fish move. We will have to see what happens if we lose the good temp. break we have. But, it is nice to see better fish this year then the last.

nice job Kickr, nice to see fish to the west also.