Indiana waters bounce back

 

Outdoors - Mike McKee


 

A lot more like it.

 

A trio of six-pound salmon in the box barely one-half hour into a trip is terrific, but that was hardly the best thing about the fishing earlier this week aboard Tony Hofstetter's Salmon Hunter.

 

The really good news is we were within 400 yards of the Michigan City Lighthouse.

 

A few days prior, the only decent fishing the local fleet could zero in on was a swarm of coho 15 to 20 miles from shore in Illinois waters.

 

"On Saturday, we finished up 11 miles from Chicago," Hofstetter said. "The guys had a great view of the skyline, but that's an hour run back home."

 

Besides the boring boat rides to start and end a trip, the long-distance salmon school had captains dropping $100 bills at the gas dock like they were coins in a pop machine.

 

A brutal, three-day storm that started April 22 devastated the fishing along the Indiana shore for better than a month. Silty, stirred up water stretched from the shoreline to eight or nine miles out into the lake.

 

Conditions finally cleared enough on Saturday for the salmon to start snapping.

 

"I had a double (two charter trips) and on the way in Jerry (Ross on Seeker) let me know the kings were hitting. We fished in there (within one mile of the MC harbor) in the afternoon and filled the cooler, including an 18 (pounder) and a 16," Hofstetter said.

 

Ross, by the way, has been on a streak of double-digit chinook catches, including 14 on Wednesday.

 

"I think they (chinook) have been here all along," Ross said. "We caught 11 a few weeks ago when the water started to clear, but then another storm roiled it again."

 

"Those fish were there before the tournaments (late April), we marked them on the graph, but the water has been just too dirty to get them to hit."

 

After several hours of trolling we ended up with nine salmon, all between five and seven pounds. Although the big ones avoided us, most boats were still taking a chinook or two in the teens per trip at mid week.

 

The best areas have varied over the past week from the rock pile (one mile west) to the Michigan line (three miles east). Best water depths have been 45 to 55 feet with most chinook hitting 30 feet down to the bottom.

 

A variety of magnum sized spoons behind full cores (100 yards of lead-core line) have been the hot ticket for the charterboats, although we didn't put out any lead the first couple hours and stuck fish with Dipsy's and downriggers.

 

Best spoon patterns seem to have been dark stuff like Kevorkian, Benefactor and Green Dolphin early or when its cloudy and brighter patterns like Lemon Ice, Woodpecker and Yellowtail when the sun gets on the water.

 

€ Fishing Report.

 

A Skamania watch is in effect for the Michigan City pier. A few of the silver speedsters have been caught from shore during the past week, along with a whopping 21-pound brown trout (state record is 25), and trollers targeting chinook have hooked several each day this week.

 

Keep in mind the "big run" of Skamania has struck before Memorial Day in the past. Then again, we might still be waiting for decent numbers a month from now.

 

Perch fishing continued to be very spotty early in the week.

 

Inland, its all good right now.

 

One lake I was around last weekend still had some crappie plus bass, bluegill and redear all spawning at the same time.

 

Catching for all those species has been good in the shallows in the afternoons and evenings with the best bite outside the weedlines and lilly pads early in the day due to the cool nights of the past week.

 

€ The local wild turkey population appears to be continuing on an upwards spiral..

 

The LaPorte Co. harvest, which was 122 in 2003 and increased to 140 in 2004. likely took another leap upwards this spring.

 

Area check stations were all above or very close to 2004 totals this spring. Catch-um Bait Shop (Fish Lake) registered 73 gobblers, Elkins Taxidermy (Rolling Prairie) 30, Graicies Tackle (LaPorte) 32 and Kingsbury Fish & Wildlife Area 59 (33 from its property).

 

The 2005 spring season was April 27-May 15. Only one bearded turkey per hunter was allowed.

 

The apparent harvest increase bodes well for a fall season in LaPorte Co.

 

Regulations for Oct. 19-23 firearm and Oct. 1-23 archery seasons have already been established. The only stipulation is biologists want to evaluate the spring harvest before deciding which counties can sustain a fall season.

 

€ Not a "web gem," but certainly an incredible catch.

 

Fishing rarely makes any of those ESPN Top Ten lists, but there it was this week - a world record, 124-pound blue catfish.

 

The goliath cat was pulled out of the Mississippi River at Alton, Ill., last Saturday.