Outcast Salmon Fishing - Ludington, MI

08/29/2026

Went out at 3:30 thinking we’d have a good mid-day coho/steelhead fish, but not the case. Trolled from the 01s to the 07s in 100-120fow without a bump. Turned around and shallowed up and took a mature king and small coho, then we didn’t to anything til 9:00 when we started getting fish up on the shelf south of the stick. It was really baked out top to bottom in shallow but the fish were biting. We ended with 8, 5 mature kings. We lost a handful and had a bunch of drive-bys. Great last hour. First 5 hours, not so much.

08/26/2026

Glad this man had the vision to solve a complicated problem while doing ‘something spectacular’. Only had the chance to chat with him once. My life would be way different without the spectacular salmon fishery we have because of him. Think outside the box. Think bigger than the box. RIP Dr. Tanner.

Howard Tanner's daring 1966 decision to stock Pacific salmon in Michigan rivers created a world-class fishery and solved an ecological crisis that was making beaches unusable across the state.

08/26/2026

We jumped on our neighbors/dock-neighbors boat tonight and headed north. We left the dock a little after 6 and setup just inside the cold water, like 60degree surface, out near the weather buoy. We lost a steelie to start, but then caught most of the rest of the fish we hooked. We boated 9, mostly decent coho. Almost everything was in the top 22’ of the water column. Surface temp is all over and very pocketed up there. It looked like it was real cold the further north you got. We pretty much stayed in front of the sand-plant, give or take. Not many 4 year olds out there and no noticeable sunset bite. We just worked and picked away. Pretty satisfying three hours. It was sloppy out there mid trip, but laid down some as it got later. Supposed to by ugly tomorrow. Thanks Brian and Cindy for the hospitality.

08/25/2026

The first mate and I went out for a quick sunset troll. Lake was beautiful and there were a billion fish around, but we came back with none. Hooked three at sunset and they all came unbuttoned. There’s top to bottom fish in 50’ and under north and south. Crazy surface temp breaks out there. Not many big hooks at all in the channel when I was coming in.

08/25/2026

The Lund Navy is keeping the pier-heads well guarded tonight.

08/21/2026

Let’s talk bare minimum boat lighting requirements and how it directly relates to self-preservation for a minute.

I’ve come to expect little from the August fishing crowd in Ludington in terms of competent captaining and ettiequte, but FFS, at a bare minimum, can you make sure your navigation lights are on the correct sides before you head out into Lake Michigan and traverse the harbor.

Last night coming in at 10:15pm in the pitch black, a boat came in from the north of us in the big lake while we were coming in from the south, and he had his bow navigation lights(green/red) backwards. This is not even close to the first time ive seen this. When we got into the channel, I confirmed from the port side and yelled to him that his nav lights were backwards and he needed to fix it. Not yelling like an angry lunatic, rather ‘.. bro, you gotta fix that..’. To his credit, a minute later, he sent somebody up there with a flashlight to atleast look at it. He was damn near to Crosswinds at the time, so I’m sure he just got to the dock and hopefully fixes it before next trip. Theres few things on your boat that are as dangerous to every other person on the lake as this. Not to mention, while fishing, everybody else is trying to not get tangled with you based on backwards directional information.

While we’re on the topic, can we also normalize NOT wearing red or green headlamps on the back of the boat while in the water? 🤦‍♂️ I’m watching boats in the pitch black channel going away on radar, but I’m looking at a red light dead in front of me… then dude just turns his head around. Red and green headlamps have no place on a boat.

Also, the amount of boats that have almost no visible light from behind cause it’s a white flashlight on a pole with a guy standing in front of it, or its up top and theres a tocket launcher full of rods blocking it, is crazy. Ya’ll are gonna get ran over by a captain thats not sober and not looking at two twelve inch radar screens

Oh, and to the two boats I’ve watched in the last couple weeks run in from deep with full on headlights/lighbars blazing forward in the dark, lol, I truly have no words. 👏🏼 🤦‍♂️

If youre gonna fish in the dark on the big lake or in harbors, for the safety and sanity of everybody else on the lake, have your boat correctky lit. Like, youre gonna kill somebody.

It’d be awesome if we had a nice nearly-new Coast Gaurd station here in Ludington actually staffed for the busiest months of the year to enforce the basic rules, but that’d be crazy, right?

08/21/2026

Tonight was the rebound trip we needed after a couple spectacularly poor performances. It was our good friends 74th and 75th birthdays this week, and it was a perfect night to get them out on the lake.

The plan was to go out in front of the Project in 190-200fow and fish for Kings at 6pm then creep into 100’ at sunset. We got out there and the cold water was like 20’ down. We changed up our program and started running steelhead stuff high and went 5/7 on very ariel steelies in the first 1.5 hours with a big steelie going 13.5lbs, which is out biggest this season. We took a couple on 1s, 3s, a 5, and high divers like 50’ back. I was doing 2.9mph at ball to get em going. Yeck Fireballs with di*********es were money. At 7:30, I pointed it easy trying to get into 80-100fow.

We hit our first king in 110fow 100’ down on the rigger as the sun was setting. It ended up being the best king at 20.5lbs. We hung out in 70-100fow in the 53s and picked away at a couple more big kings and a coho. 9 color with mag Raspberry Carbon took 3 mature kings. Ended 11/14 with a nice mixed bag.

I marked almost nothing out deep, and only random suspended fish in under 100fow, but no big bait piles and not tons of fish. No bait in my fish. We did troll all the way into 50fow in front of Project as we were pulling lines, no crazy bait or fish there either, i cold water was much higher in the shallows today than yesterday.

Perfect night. Lake was flat, fish were spread out thru the trip, no boats to deal with all night. Feel like i got my Mojo back. Finished typing this report after chasing a big ol bat out of my house. No rest for the wicked.

08/21/2026

Went out for a few hours Wednesday and didn’t post a report cause I had nothing good to offer. We boated one king and ended up in some baked out shallow water. Logan takes a good picture anyway. lol.

08/18/2026

Another night that seems like it shoulda been more productive. We went north. Trolled from the bathhouse to the 06s and back, 120-150fow on the way up and up in the shallows on way back.

We set down and again hit a decent king setting lines, then like yesterday, trolled forever with not another bump. Marked fish all night, many more than yesterday, especially at sunset, but we could not get em going. We did loose a big fish 20+ minutes in, but other than that, it was tough truckin. Ended with two kings and a coho.

Two charters I know took nice boxes in the same water tonight. These fish just weren’t buyin what I was selling.

And, I’m out on fishing the point til Labor Day anyway. Bunch of dingbats doing donuts up there. 🤦‍♂️

08/17/2026

We set down and took a nice adult king five minutes in while setting rods.