whitehall trip this week

[sirslurpee]

I'm going salmon fishing for the 3rd time in my life (I can only remember one time before) out of whitehall with my grandpa. I was wondering if anyone has any info for me fishing out of there... We've got an idea of a marina where we are going to keep the boat for a couple of days, and apparently there are some cabins up the hill that are decently priced to stay at. Grandpa said the lake goes from deep-shallow real quick and can be tricky, but there's markers for the shallow spots?
I figure that won't be a problem..
Weather.com forecasts the winds to change out of the north... Will that kick up the waves?
I figure, I'm going to bring some spinning gear just in case I wanna fish from shore or even if we end up fishing in the lake.. which brings me to my next question.. I figure that salmon might run through the lake and into the river there.. If we can't find them in the big lake, is it worth trying the 'small' lake?
But like I said, I don't know much about salmon fishing.. I'm hoping my grandpa still knows enough that we can pick up some fish..
So.. I guess the only other thing I wanna ask about is the local scenery.. Is there anything we should check out while we're out there? Any good places to eat?
Thanks to anyone who helps.. and Good luck to everyone.. most of all.. be safe.

[Fishous]

...Grandpa said the lake goes from deep-shallow real quick and can be tricky, but there's markers for the shallow spots?


Not other than the normal navigational bouy's. See a map here: http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/14935.shtml

Weather.com forecasts the winds to change out of the north... Will that kick up the waves?

Depends on how hard the wind blows. SW and NW are the worst.


I figure, I'm going to bring some spinning gear just in case I wanna fish from shore or even if we end up fishing in the lake.. which brings me to my next question.. I figure that salmon might run through the lake and into the river there.. If we can't find them in the big lake, is it worth trying the 'small' lake?


Good idea. I do the same thing. Last year we caught quite a few and a few nice pike as well.


But like I said, I don't know much about salmon fishing.. I'm hoping my grandpa still knows enough that we can pick up some fish..
So.. I guess the only other thing I wanna ask about is the local scenery.. Is there anything we should check out while we're out there? Any good places to eat?

Not a lot of decent places to eat. Some fast food, pizza hut, and a few taverns. Big Jon's pizza is good. I'll send you a pm with my number if you want to call when you get in town.

[sirslurpee]

We're in town and fully prepared to slay 'em in the morning...

we'll see what happens though :D

[sirslurpee]

Trolled around in the morning till about 11:30 we had 2 on, one got around the downrigger line and broke off.. it looked really brown/yellowish colored. Maybe laker or brown trout? Came on a silver and blue J-plug on leadcore out 5 colors in 70fow
Then we had another one on briefly but the hook came out within 3 minutes.. (happened twice today btw)
After that, we didn't get ANYTHING. So, we decided to head in....

big surprise! the motor started running like s*********(*&
wide open would only run 2300rpm
It seems almost like it's getting too much oil (yamaha 200hp 2-stroke self-mixes) cuz it smokes a little, and the spark plugs looked a bit fouled.
We pulled the plugs and cleaned them, then changed the fuel filter and it ran a lot better..

So we went out again. We set up in 50fow and started trolling southwest.. Not a thing.
We turned opposite and started going with the wind/waves and we hooked into one, but that was the 2nd one to shake the hook. Seemed like it was a pretty big fish too :(
FINALLY at about 7:00 I hooked into a fish, and landed it. But it was a small king. I doubt it was even 8 pounds.. Came on a blue/white spoon with blue ladder bones 40 feet down in 80fow
After that, the motor started running funny again and smoking a little bit, so we headed in. Wide open we only got 1900rpms, and I had trouble passing a sailboat. To add insult to injury the guy in the sailboat kept shining a flashlight in his sail, like I didn't notice him or something. Sorry guy.. I saw you, I just couldn't go any faster.

SO
we're going to sleep in tomorrow, and when the marina opens, switch the plugs out, and hope she will run good enough to get us out for a little while in the morning/early afternoon. I guess regardless of weither we get fish or not, we're headed home after that.

I wish I had more time out here.. to fish the river.. to fish duck lake.. to fish the channel..

BTW I noticed that just inside the channel, at the west end of the lake where it drops off, I was marking what looked to be a LOT of fish hanging out down there. Maybe it was just junk in the water, but they looked like the tell-tale bow echos. I dunno?

Well I'll report back tomorrow... Hopefully with good news.
Oh and I guess it's not SO bad.. there's some guys we talked to that went out on a charter and they got the same results we did...

[Sixshooter]

Last weekend we hit some fish out in 160 FOW in the top 45 feet. But it is hard to say where they may be now.

The fish inside the channel there could be kings working their way to the river. But very likely sheephead. Big Sheeps love that area of the lake. and I mean BIG SHEEPS.

Good Luck.

-Jim

[Hi-Tech Redneck]

BTW I noticed that just inside the channel, at the west end of the lake where it drops off, I was marking what looked to be a LOT of fish hanging out down there. Maybe it was just junk in the water, but they looked like the tell-tale bow echos. I dunno?

I passed a local charter boat that was jigging there with two clients Wed. night, my guess was for salmon. I concur that there are large amounts of sheephead in that area (my daughter caught one over the weekend that went 11.3lb on the digital scale - tossed 'em back as he's a goby eatin' machine). Sometimes that area also collects massive amounts of chopped up weeds from boaters, but doubt they'd give you bowed echo on the finder.

Wed. night we went 1 for 3 in about an hour and a half in front of the pierheads between 30 - 50 FOW. Looks like work has kept me from hitting the first big push.