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Good morning!  Went out of Michigan City 7/11/23. Took a 280/290 heading out of Michigan City and set up in 80 fow. 20 minutes we had our first fish. Dodger/fly on a downrigger 52 ft down.  (The waves were building so it was very difficult to troll any other direction except with the waves. By 7:30 am we had 3s and 4s and a 5 ft here and there. ) Kept trolling to numbers. Got to our numbers and got a steelhead on a 240 steel line. Continue trolling between a north and 90 degree heading. From 137 fow to 152 fow we never took a hit so at 10:45 the lake started to lay down so we turned and headed back to our numbers. When we got to 112 Dow we took another steelhead on copper dipsy/ green set on number 3 82 back with dodger/fly combination. 

We went 4 for 8. 2 Coho and 2 Steelhead. We lost a very heavy fish 60 ft from the boat. It hit a 60ft copper with dodge/ fly and it did a lot of head shaking with only a couple of short runs. Finally got to the board after 15 minutes. Went to take the board off and the fish did a good head shake and gone! Pull the line in and one of the hooks on the treble hook broke off. It was only a 1x hook and it had taken multiple fish from prior trips. 

fishing basically stopped by 11 am so we pulled lines at 11:30 am and went in.

Mixed veggie on 240 copper took a 7/8 steelhead.  Dodger/ fly took a couple hits and double orange crush silver spoon /standard size took hits.

The fish we caught were in the top 52 foot of water. We ran  dodger fly close to the bottom but never took a hit. We bounced bottom but all that did was catch a bunch of weeds and zebra muscles! 

I talked with guys out of Esst Chicago and they finally found fish on a hump that went from 80 fow to 60 fow and didn't take long to limit out once they found where the fish were. They were fishing Illinois waters. 

We've decided to leave to boat set on the trailer until we see things picking up.

Years ago we fish in 20 to 70 fow for the Skammanies but I haven't seen anyone posting anything happening yet. Last year I know that caught a lot of steelhead in close going out of Portage but I never saw much from Michigan City. Maybe I missed it.

We did see a boat fishing in 75 foot of water and another boat in 50 fow while running in but no idea how they did.

Well, I hope this gives everyone a little help for their next fishing trip.

By the way, we were headed to the corners but stopped short because of the rough water.

Thanks for your report! Nice job!

Thanks for the report, the inshore Skam run has not materialized in Portage yet. My opinion is since we've had so much north wind the cold water is deeeeeeeep and thus the Skams are staging offshore and making their trip to the ditch over night or any rain event straight in.

You're welcome!

I totally agree with you! All the steelhead we've caught haven't had eggs or sperm in them and most have looked like they haven't eaten much but yesterday we caught on steelhead with 4 large alliwives in its stomach. We've caught steelhead every time we've gone out in the last month.

I talked with guys out of Esst Chicago and they finally found fish on a hump that went from 80 fow to 60 fow and didn't take long to limit out once they found where the fish were. They were fishing Illinois waters. 
 

Hey Trent, what did they get limits of out in front of EC? 

We never launch out of Michigan City and it was rough first thing in the morning and continued building until about 10:45 am. We were a few miles east of the corners and set up and trolled with the waves to 152 fow.

I talked with the guys fishing the hump earlier when they were in 80 fow and it was slow for them then one of them found the fish and it sounded like it was fast action. I've never been that far west yet but its definitely on our plans for next week.

We may launch out of Portage or maybe East Chicago or just make the run from Michigan City. The fish we caught or had on were close to the areas we've fished for the last 6 weeks. Those fish just moved West.

We see what happens on our next trip and let everyone know.