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Classic results are up on the "Classic" page at www.hoosiercohoclub.org.
Mighty slim pickings for salmon. Lake trout were even a bit spotty.
Only six limits (10 fish per day) were recorded among the 66 entrants in two days of fishing - and each of those 10-fish catches came in the Pro division by teams fishing at Navy Pier in Chicago!
Aboard the Salmon Hawk, we weighed four good kings and a laker for Friday's Hartman Memorial (5-fish shoot-out). Two Chinook came in 45' in Michigan City and two in 47' outside the Port. Two kings hit 125' copper and two on 150'. All magnum spoons - one each on Kevorkian, Caramel Dolphin, Lemon Ice and Green Dolphin. Also caught a half-dozen coho, one small steelie, one btown trout and a couple of lakers. Five of the coho came on dodger/fly in 20' just east of the donut, where a ton of bait showed on the graph - even snagged an alewife with a fly.
Sat., the first two hours in front of the Port yielded one six-pound Chinook, a laker and one missed king bite. Didn't see much activity aboard the dozen or so other boats in the area so loaded up with dodgers and flies and worked the 20' line hoping for "numbers" of coho. Result was two coho in two hours, Off to salvage two lakers (only 3 per day allowed) before finishing up in front of MC. The two lakers took two hours to round up in 70-90', although we finished with a double and a third lost at 90' before running in. Miserably slow fishing, but was pretty much the same for other tournament boats.
Sun., it was straight to where we left the lakers the previous day. Bingo-bango five trout in 20 minutes, three of which over 11 pounds. Back to shore with five hours to scrounge up as many silver fish as possible.
It turned into a tortuous troll as we worked from one mile east of the donut to the Port, in-and-out from 10 to 50', and around every big bait blob we came across, which were mostly in 20 to 35'. Results was one small (3 lb) Chinook landed and one small brown trout lost near boat. Aargh.
Tip of the cap to Am winner Nail Bender and 24U Champ Plane to Sea, both of whom fished the same general area we did on Sun. with much better results.

Thanks for the wrap up Mike and congrats on the second place finish. Tough tough fishing for sure. The winner in the pro division is gonna need that ten grand to pay for that fuel bill for those runs to Chicago and back. Isn't flat out that great big black boat I see every year...or perhaps blue...I just know it's BIG

Yep, a 58' Donzi, runs 50 mph - blew by us this morning (while we were full speed) like we were on a treadmill.
Dave Baker seems like great guy and obviously very good fisherman.
And probably was a $1,000 daily fuel bill, but if you got it...

Thanks for the report.
My wife and I stopped in to watch the awards program. First time attending a major tournament activities and got us interested. Maybe next year will have to compete???

I would like to get more involved as well - if anything its a good time and most seem to be really great guys. Only problem is getting work, family, and weather to cooperate come tournament day haha.

Excellent report DBF! Told a story and showed persistence. Keep up the good work.

Capt. Mike

Dogs Best Friend summed it up perfectly. Excellent weather and brutal fishing! We worked a lot of areas Friday and didn't find many fish. Tried different areas Saturday to get 4 lakers and only 3 per day are allowed in the tournament. Sunday we hit our Laker spot and it took a while to get our 3, but we were lucky enough to get a Brown also and then a upgrade Laker moving us into 6th place in the 24U class. Hard to believe only 9 fish caught between two days out of Michigan City in early May and zero silver fish. It was fun, but rather frustrating at the same time! Also nice to see meet the Reel Fun guys at the weigh in on Saturday!

Craig

Nice talking and meeting you too Craig...wish we could've had some Intel to share, we sucked like most others. Went home after the weigh in, and judging by Sunday's results, glad we did. Bring on the thermocline I guess...