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As the title suggests, we made it out twice this weekend. Headed out Saturday afternoon with a few buddies and thought we'd see if the fish were still hanging out right around the gong. If they were, we certainly didn't find em Saturday. I don't think the graph lit up even once with a marked fish. Ended up putting just 2 fish in the box but had a great evening out and enjoyed every minute we were floating.

Sunday morning was a different story altogether. Went out with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. Headed out early on thinking we'd run north and see if we could find some of those bait balls we'd been marking earlier in the week. Set up a few miles further out in 45-50 FOW. Was just hoping we'd stumble upon a few scattered fish.(I couldn't believe the number of Mylar balloons floating on the lake out there. Looked like everyone in Chicago let one go over the weekend). All I can say is every time we marked bait one of the rods would start dancing. Had a few doubles and several back to back. Ended up going 13 for 14. Caught fish on dipsy's and riggers. Most hit on red dodger green/blue peanut fly combos with a few hitting on flasher flies. Best depths seemed to be around 30 down. But got several throughout different depths in the water column. All in all a great weekend and I know my pops-in-law had a blast today. Tight lines. Nick

Nice job gentlemen. There were a bunch of balloons over at MC this weekend also.

Congratulations. sounded like a great Dads day out. Rudey

Way to go guys. Nice pic.

Nice! sounds like an excellent outing. Good job finding em.

Good job Nick. We also made it out yesterday morning (the 21st). Started at the gong with a NE troll. Had a drive by on the rigger and hooked up with good fish on an 8 color with a clown dodger and fly. That one fought like ton of bricks, just hanging out like dead weight. We finally got the board to the boat and the fish let go. Seemed like a big trout.

After not much more luck trolling NE we changed direction and headed NW, but were limited to Indiana water due to half the crew not buying Illinois licenses. After no luck trolling that direction for a while, we ran east right on the state line and got into a few directly north of the gong. Ended up with 5 coho with numerous drive by's and a few lost that hooked up. All on dodger fly, and one on a spin doctor.

I should also mention that we found a banana on the boat at about 9:00. My dad had brought it with. I'm not superstitious, but my buddy said it's terrible luck to have anything banana on a boat; something I was unaware of. We threw it overboard and started catching fish right after.....weird HA

Good job finding the fish FowlHook. And never, ever bring a banana on board. Lol...

To add to Nick's report on 6/20pm- while we were out, I was checking in with another buddy who was out in the same area and had similar results. Because of the (biting) flies everywhere, he decided to throw out a line straight out the back with a small sinker and fly and picked up one that way; ~1-2 FOW.
When we cleaned the coho, stomachs were full of Gobi's- most about 3-5" long.
Stay Safe.

Thanks for bringing that up Treble. On the subject of the (biting) flies, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Don't ever wear shorts on the boat when the flies are out. Those things seemed to be a bunch of ankle biters. Finally had enough and put my rain pants on. Sunday was a bit better and a good bath in Off seemed to help quite a bit. Nick

Good investment is those light weight pants that unzip to become shorts. They are thin, cool, dry fast if get wet, and I wear them long past my ankles. They are baggy so keep the flies off while keeping you from overheating and getting sunburned. And the long sleeve shirts are worth the money as well. Also, try wearing 2 pair of socks. The flies have trouble penetrating where they annoy you the most (ankles). Did someone say if thermocells work?
And good job fishing boys and thanks so much for the reports. Trying to get out but weather not cooperating on my days off.