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Unfortunately, I wouldn’t even bother fishing the pier heads anymore in the southern ports unless they increase the stocking. Even some of the northern ports with reasonable stocking are shadow of what it was in the past. It’s a shame, doing harbor patrol in the fall used to be one of my favorite times of the
fall. Hard to believe that something can’t be done to raise the survival rate.

So went out Tuesday morning. Was out in front of Trail Creek by 6:30am. Trolled north to around 60 FOW. Started marking fish between 45 and 50 feet but could not trigger any strikes. Waves got kind of big and ended up getting the mother of all tangles. After clearing that up we decided to head in. Interesting thing was that on the way back we came in closer to shore and between Chesterton and Portage we marked a ton of baitfish and bigger fish at around 30 FOW almost the entire way. Kind of want to go back and troll through that area sometime soon.

More than likely drum.

I stopped by the Lamprey barrier today and didn’t see a single fish there. The light wasn’t great for seeing fish in the deeper water but didn’t see a single jumper or anything milling around. On a side note while it sucks to not having some fall zombies to catch it is hard to complain after the late April - mid June King action we have seen the last few years. Given the choice I’ll take the spring action 100%.

I finally got on the board Tuesday night and Monday morning. I hit 2 “kings” Tuesday night. The first was about 24”, dark and skinny. It hit close to the wall and at first I thought it was a pilke. About 10minuted later, I got a SMALLER brighter fish, about 20”. It was also a king. I cleaned both, both clipped males with fully developed sperm sacks. I went back this morning and hit one fish even smaller. I’m not sure if it was even 15”, looked more like a steelhead, I flipped that one back quick, but in the dim light I can’t say what it was. All that was in Chicago. Gave it a couple hours on the pier tonight at sunset in MC, nada. I’m with Baron on the spring fishing, just fish I could dial them in casting or jigging. I’m also standing by my theory that the “bulk” of our fish in IN are coming back as 2.5 y.o.s 2 years after they’re stocked.

Fishing in Chicago seems about the same as it’s been the last few years. Less people thanks to Covid/Lightfoot. You’ve got to get creative to park and walk in, but no problems fishing. I really look forward to getting our stocking back off this rotational experiment. I’m going to have to make some time to scope out the little cal to see if there’s a few over there.