TOPIC:

Any staging kings around the south end? any decent sized coho moved in? I know lakers are everywhere, not after them.
Whats the surface temp and thermocline break looking like? I'm thinking about heading out to portage. Any insight? TIA.

Haven't heard of much silver yet on the southend.

Better of going to Wisconsin cold water nearshore

For water temps, bookmark this site
glbuoys.glos.us/45170

Right now looks like the thermocline is around 45 or 50 feet deep

Silver reports are scarce. A few big kings out of St. Joe is about all I have heard. Draw a straight line from around Waukegan over to South Haven and anything below that has had rather poor fall salmon fishing the last handful of years

I've done well many years in a row, in late August and all of September, smashing big zombie kings trying to go up into rivers, smashing coho just outside the temp break. Draw a line from Chicago all the way over to portage IN. Them kings will be staging under that line, very soon. I'll take the trip over to Portage IN and report back my findings for you guys.

Thanks for everyone who offered some type of report. Appreciate it tremendously.

Hopefully you will be able to change that very soon Ben . It is our turn to have a fall fishery again with all of the bait that remains in the southern basin for the last several years.

Agree with you completely kingseeker. Our fall fishery is 100 percent not excitant now. The time to add fish is now no one wants the lake to crash or be in danger but we are grasping at straws for anything to catch after mid July other than grease. We need your help Ben..... I think stopping the lake trout stocking as you did was a move to the right direction... I am sure many would agree with me when I say this as it’s my opinion.....We stopped stocking lake trout I think there should be room for an increase in another predator wether that be kings coho or steelhead I know it wouldn’t be the same number of fish but something. And we would still be in balance in your words. I think brown trout stocking should be re evaluated I understand they are very expensive. Is the return on investment worth while to boat and creek fisherman? I am fairly confident we did not get an increase of anything else when lake trout was cut. I understand the concept of being conservative. I am not saying to go back to old days stocking numbers by any means. There has been talk of an increase of 400,000 something kings lake wide. How many does indiana plan to bring to the table? If Indiana can house half the population of kings in the spring like it did this year for over a month. I would believe we could take plenty more silver for ourselves moving forward. You are the biologist and are much more knowledgeable of the matter than I am but I think we need to start supplying ourselves with more fish. If we can return a fall fishery we would have the best fishing on the entire lake and that would be something you could be proud of.

Will be going out of Portage in the morning will keep all filled in on the out come of the morning. On Steel and kings

The silver fishery past early July is pretty dismal most places. Everyone needs to do their part to get as many lake trout out of the system as possible in order to stabilize bait populations. Salmon are not the apex predator on the south end...lake trout are. Indiana is not slated to get any of the 450k increase in Chinook. Michigan is only slated for about 150k. The rest goes to Wisconsin. It’s a fairly bleak outlook for late summer fishing on the south end until the lake trout populations are dramatically reduced.