The whole dumping grounds is on the Canadian side of the channel. Don't fish in the channel, there is plenty of Michigan water in that area and good structure in the dumps. Check out this chart and put together a game plan. Good luck.
http://www.marinecruiser.com/chart.html

 

Got it. Thank you. Will post successes or failures. And thanx again.

 

Nice chart! I didn't know the whole dumping grounds was in U.S. water.

 

Here is the report as promised. we went out Friday evening from about 7 till dark. We trolled the dumping grounds pretty much diagonally from far corners to far corners. You were certainly correct Mod. There is a lot of water there. We ran 4 lines with these giant lures (from 6 to 10 inches long). Some were called Believers and I am not sure what the other plugs were called. But they were big. Most were in what I would call a perch or frog pattern. We got 1 gigantic smallmouth that stretched the tape to 22 inches. weight was guessed at over 5 pounds. About an hour before dark.......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.......ZZZZZZZZZZz..ZZZZZZZZZZZ...... and I grabbed the rod (loaded with 30 pound test). Fought the fish for about a minute and it was taking more line than I was getting back. On one of it's runs, I attempted to slow it down by putting a little pressure on the spool with my thumb. SNAP!

There's my report. We will be back.

 

Never ever ever put that thumb on the spool, there is a reason that the drag is set. :sad:
Well you at least got to feel a good one. Keep trying you will get them. Try mid morning till afternoon. That is a great area in July.
Good luck.
Tom

 

If I might ask.... When Musky fishing how deep should you run those large Musky lures (or any lure for that sake) and what is the correlation between line out and how deep they are running (for the large Musky lures)? I'm running 30lb Power Pro if that makes a difference.

The Musky fishing is all new to me. I tried trolling some Bombers & Jointed Rapala's in 9-11 feet of water in front of Selfridge last Saturay and couldn't keep the damn weeds off of them. Any help is appreciated.
Dan

 

Danno, I am brand new to this also. I can only make some guesses as to what was happening at our lures. First off, we used some sinkers, probably 2 oz, on the main swivel. Then we ran a 3-6 foot steel leader to the lure. If we didn't do that, the weeds fouled our lures pretty quickly. When using the sinkers, it seemed that the weeds hung up on the sinkers first allowing the lures to run weed-free for considerably longer. We still kept an eye on the rod tips though, and as soon as we saw the 'thumping' turn into a steady pull, we cleared the weeds off. We ran the lures between 35 and 60 feet back and I would hazard a guess that they were running between 5 and 8 feet down. Pure speculation there. Also, I want to note that we trolled at about 3.8 mph for too long. We bumped it up to 4.5 and got the hit.

If anyone cares to comment further as to what we may be doing wrong or clearing up any of my guesses, please feel free to do so. I will be at it again as soon as I can.

 

Lose the power pro and spool uo with 50# Ande. Then go buy some Ziggies, Loke's, and bucktails. Way too many weeds in the bay to fish right now, get a Canadian license. 2oz 30' back off the boards and 6oz 10' back on boat rods are good numbers to start with and mix it up from there.
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I agree with UNREEL... Get some Lokes, Ziggies and some Bucktails... I would change your leaders to 80-100 lb Flourocarbon leader material... Make them 3'-6' or even 8'... If your going to use bucktails make sure you get quality 150 lb ballbearing swivels, they are a must!!!

I tend to use this method of telling how deep my lures are running @ 4-4.5 mph... About 2oz of wieght for every 10' of line out puts your lure down 1'... Now thats just a guess but i use that to start with and adjust it to what your marking on your screen... You also will have to account for lures diving...

Try that next time out and good luck!!!

 

Extremely valuable information and will be put to use. One question though. Do you really run a lure only 10 feet behind the boat?

 

you rig up what they call down rods which they are short depending on the size boat and run the rod tips 6ins. in the water, streight down and close to the boat then run the lures in the prop wash 10-15 ft out

 

Extremely valuable information and will be put to use. One question though. Do you really run a lure only 10 feet behind the boat?

Or 2ft behind the boat
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Err on the side of running your lures too high instead of too low. They look up for their prey and will come up and get it.

 

The whole dumping grounds is on the Canadian side of the channel. Don't fish in the channel, there is plenty of Michigan water in that area and good structure in the dumps. Check out this chart and put together a game plan. Good luck.
http://www.marinecruiser.com/chart.html

Thanks for the link, very useful. Plan on heading out to LSC with my own boat for the first time.

 

Great Info! Thanks guys!