5/18 shelburne

[keithm87]

Hit the water yesterday with a friend and her father for a trip I had promised last year and hadn’t been able to pull off due to timing.

We launched from shelburne at 6:45 and headed to the red can where the water starts to get deeper. Set out 3 inline boards, 2 riggers, and a slide diver. Mix of spoon and stick baits. We trolled toward the wood pylons with gear at 30 and 25. The bait was fairly thick in the bay but no marks on it. Lots of clouds in that area. We made 2 passes through the area and then I decided to troll north, as I made the turn a lead core 2 color fired. Fish on only to soon come off. We looped that section again and had another hit this time on a rigger and land a laker. Another pass and nothing. We decide to troll out of the bay, and as we head north get another hit. My friend gets the laker to the boat, but it pops off before we get the net under it. As I worked to reset that rod, our inside lead core with 1 color lead fires. I grab the rod and start reeling. Fish on. I get the board off and get the fish to the boat, a 19.5 inch salmon on a pin minnow. We keep at it with another 2 releases as we trolled out of the bay, but just bump n runs.
I headed towards the outside of shelburne shoal but there were no marks or action, trolled along the drop, finally finding some fish on the little point where the shoal starts to turn south toward Dunder. Hit that spot hard for 30 minutes with 5 releases and 2 fish, before it shut off. With the weather way better than forecast we decided to make a run to a different area. We pulled gear and headed south a couple miles. I was planing to hit a hump I’ve fished in the summer, but saw a spot on navionics that looked appealing so we pulled up to try it. Before the second line hit the water we had a fish on.
That area turned out to be pretty hot and over the next 3.5 hours we had a steady bite with 13 fish landed and another half dozen releases. The 3 biggest fish all came near the end.

We ended the day with 16 lakers and 1 salmon, on around 28-30 hits. Purple was our hot color for spoons, but the spin n glo setup rules the day like always when fishing lakers, taking better than half of the fish, and the vast majority of releases. We ran it suspended 15 off bottom in 75-85fow.

One laker came up spitting bait fish, which were a species I have never seen. We took a pic of one which we thought was a baby trout till we noticed it being full of eggs. Anyone know what this is?

[BottomDollar]

Blacknose dace I think. It's a native but lives in gravel stream beds.

[Butcher]

Great report Keith.

[bagman]

Keith what kind of lamprey damage are you seeing on lakers?

[keithm87]

A lot on any of the bigger ones. The young (under 20 inch) were all clean but otherwise a discouraging spring from that standpoint.

[bagman]

Thanks Keith Also any one else able to comment with numbers of laker lamprey wounds would be very helpful

[Greenhorn]

I have witnessed quite a few lakers with lamprey wounds going back to ice fishing in February. Even a good share of the salmon have wounds and some of the fish I have caught are coming to the boat with really small parasites on them that look like tiny lamprey. I took a picture of one with my phone and will post it when i figure out how. Most of these fish come from button bay up to town farm bay. Most of the lakers I caught ice fishing around button bay had large lamprey on them. I understand they will be treating some of the tributaries in these areas this year. It concerns me that tiny lamprey are in the lake and on fish. I hope they treat parts of the lake as well as the tributaries because it seems like they are reproducing in the large flats in the lake. We should show the environmentalists that want to shut down lamprey control some of the fish with lamprey wounds. Maybe that would change their minds.

[Greenhorn]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/FZJJg ... 20-h960-no

[troutcrazy]

Greenhorn that's a kind of leech. I thought they were baby lampreys until I did some research. They have suckers on both ends.

I don't think they hurt the fish-- I'm not sure they even penetrate the scales, because they fall right off and there doesn't seem to be a mark.

Keith, thanks for an excellent report!

[Greenhorn]

Thanks for the info trout crazy. They are nasty looking creatures, but I am happy if they are not lamprey.

Also, in my focus on Lamprey, I neglected to thank Keith for his usual great fishing report! Thanks Keith. You keep the forum an interesting place to visit. I'm interested in your success with spin & glo setups. I do have some, but haven't developed a taste for them yet.

[keithm87]

I love the spin n glo! It works great for me. Lucked into it too. I had bought cowbells and spin n glo’s based on reading about gambler rigs, ran one for 25 minutes and couldn’t get the release set right and got pissed off that every time I bumped speed up from 1.8 to 2.2 it would release. Decided they were not for me, but had a dodger fly out on a different line, and decided since the principle is the same just on a small scale to try it. Had no clue that out in Michigan people ran them that way, but I sent it down naked, no skirt or any frilly crap and it caught a fish. Have used the exact Same setup for 3 years now, with the same color, lead length, Dodger pattern, even the same beads and hooks. I never change anything. Replace the hooks after a few fish, but anything new that goes on is the same that came off

[fishy1]

i have landed 46 salmon so far and only 4 had old lamprey marks on them. havent fished lakers yet though . a freind of mine though in the same area has seen some lampreys on them though trolling.
keith i have 3 sets of the gamblers tournament series. they catch lakers and good ones. the white is the most productive so far when we use them.

[keithm87]

The answer to the baitfish riddle seems to be a Johnny Darter from what I can tell. Apparently a common food source for lake trout when they are feeding shallow, but I caught it in 80fow on a rigger which is strange.

[septageguy]

That little baitfish could be our new best friend. They eat water fleas!

[USFWS Lamprey Guy]

Hi Guys, a friend sent me this topic and asked me to comment. The parasite is indeed a "fish leech". Pretty common. It's a parasitic worm (true leech), not a lamprey (parasitic fish). It's technical name is Piscicola geometra - http://www.pond-life.me.uk/fishhealth/piscicolageometra
Remember, lamprey are not parasitic until they get to be at least 6-8 inches long. Lamprey smaller than that (larvae) live in rivers until they mature. Then they exit to the lake to become the parasites we see on fish. Anything smaller than about 6 inches (typically 8) can't be a lamprey.

Regarding lamprey wounds on lakers.... Remember that wounds can heal and you may see many "old" wounds on fish. Just because you see a lot of wounds on a laker doesn't mean that the population of lamprey is up this season. Only fresh (actual holes or bloody wounds/scars) are indicative of this year's crop of lamprey. The status (freshness) of the wound matters in determining levels of current wounding. That being said, rest assured, we know there is still work to do and we're on it. We're upping our game again this year and adding efforts to further reduce lamprey wounds.