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Another bait that has been hot for a while is the Bay Rat Coho Crusher. It seems to latch onto early season kings and browns as well. I have a pic for you.


I think the lure has a running depth of 4 to 7 feet. Good lures need one in your spread.

I stopped in and chatted with Slez today so I checked on the Red Squiggly Brad's. He said the first of the year order will be in around the 1st or 2nd week of March. He has plenty of colors with a limited amount of red and Bengal tiger, OK currently zero on the shelf. He is going to look and see if he has any stored away. Like I said the other colors work just as good on and off just like the red. If you are looking to pick up a few he has some good colors in stock.

I agree with Don on the Bay Rat Coho Crusher. I used it for the first time last year with great success. They also have an identical bait but in a color called Pink Flash Tiger. Great bait and seemed to do well for early season Coho. Nick

I would like to say thank you for everyones input! I will stop by Slez's and grab a few different colors as well as some Coho Crushers. Hope we all have great success, and the only problems we run into is when we run out of room in the smokers

Jums wrote:

One more question? Early Coho season we always put in at Pastrick and trolled East along the wall until we hit a few schools is this still a good strategy or is Portage area good in the spring as well? I've never fished Portage early season.

As it happens I have been compiling a bunch of this data, so here's some visual aids that might help you


First one is overall coho catch rate for the entire open water boating season. As you can see, there's definitely a few trends - EC is usually the best, but catch rates by port sometimes fluctuate seemingly at random. Recently, EC has been the best in terms of entire year catch, and has been holding fish even into June/July/August, whereas the other ports have seen silver fish disappear once the water warms.

As an aside, you can see in the early 2000s how much higher the catch rate out of East Chicago was. Once Dean Mitchell was shut down and that warm water source went away, catch rates fell back in line with the other ports.



Second graph is only March/April catch rate, from 2010-2016. This is fish per angler hour. Lots of fluctuation again, but you can see that last 2 years, EC was the best by a decent margin.

Chief's Bait, 1114 W. 4th Street (U.S. Hwy 12), Michigan City has Thin Fins in stock in many colors.

They have started stocking more salmon/steelhead stuff as they are the only bait/tackle shop remaining in MC, maybe all of LaPorte County.

MC_angler wrote:

Jums wrote:

One more question? Early Coho season we always put in at Pastrick and trolled East along the wall until we hit a few schools is this still a good strategy or is Portage area good in the spring as well? I've never fished Portage early season.

As it happens I have been compiling a bunch of this data, so here's some visual aids that might help you

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

First one is overall coho catch rate for the entire open water boating season. As you can see, there's definitely a few trends - EC is usually the best, but catch rates by port sometimes fluctuate seemingly at random. Recently, EC has been the best in terms of entire year catch, and has been holding fish even into June/July/August, whereas the other ports have seen silver fish disappear once the water warms.

As an aside, you can see in the early 2000s how much higher the catch rate out of East Chicago was. Once Dean Mitchell was shut down and that warm water source went away, catch rates fell back in line with the other ports.

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

Second graph is only March/April catch rate, from 2010-2016. This is fish per angler hour. Lots of fluctuation again, but you can see that last 2 years, EC was the best by a decent margin.

Great data Ben - Thank you.

calumet marine has a decent selection of brads thin fish in stock
just sold the last 3 red with black lines today
have two cases of the reds due in march 14th

frank

MC_angler wrote:

Jums wrote:

One more question? Early Coho season we always put in at Pastrick and trolled East along the wall until we hit a few schools is this still a good strategy or is Portage area good in the spring as well? I've never fished Portage early season.

As it happens I have been compiling a bunch of this data, so here's some visual aids that might help you

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

First one is overall coho catch rate for the entire open water boating season. As you can see, there's definitely a few trends - EC is usually the best, but catch rates by port sometimes fluctuate seemingly at random. Recently, EC has been the best in terms of entire year catch, and has been holding fish even into June/July/August, whereas the other ports have seen silver fish disappear once the water warms.

As an aside, you can see in the early 2000s how much higher the catch rate out of East Chicago was. Once Dean Mitchell was shut down and that warm water source went away, catch rates fell back in line with the other ports.

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

Second graph is only March/April catch rate, from 2010-2016. This is fish per angler hour. Lots of fluctuation again, but you can see that last 2 years, EC was the best by a decent margin.

Thanks Ben this is very nice

Lots of great info thanks guys!!!