A few updates on some product availability, a early to mid summer open water fishing update, and an observations around ridiculously long diver leaders fad currently ongoing.
A few holes in the trolling rod line up will be filled the week of July 13 with our coveted copper rods and 10' wire diver rods back in stock. We went through double this spring what we did the year previous. so a quick and slightly delayed reload for the bulk of our remaining season. We will also have Pinlands back in stock, same situation for that rod with high demand throughout spring causing some stock outages.
As far as fishing, summer run Skamania steelhead have been pretty solid in most of the regular tributaries that they would normally be near, as well as abnormally large numbers of them scattered around the southern end of Lake Michigan. Its been a long time since we have seen this and I have some thoughts. Here is where we sit from my observations so far this year, and it gets weirder the more I think about.
Lights out, I mean record breaking lights out brown trout fishing this spring, which is unheard of around us. Has not been like that in many decades, I think they were Wisconsin fish that got lost and ended up near the south and east sides of the lake. Kings were hard to come by early on. Biblical flooding in most locales flushing the lake with nutrients. Coming off the coldest winter we have had in probably 15 years, a real actual winter. That has kept all of the Great Lakes much colder than usual so far this year, which explains the scrambled fishing. Lights out spring king fishing in some weird northern lake Michigan ports, and a complete wasteland in other ports nearby. Lake Ontario is still super cold, no spiny water fleas yet as would be more abundant by now with warmer water temps. Some super weird pockets of king activity showing up right now in Milwaukee and St Joseph and other south end ports, in tight with cold water. This is not a "lake flipped" cold water situation. This is an abnormal lake-wide current situation right now combined with cooler air temps, the lake just cannot get set up.
By now Lake Michigan would have its normal counterclockwise current moving on the south end, and clockwise rotation on the north end. It seems to be a multi directional situation on both ends, not wind driven. I will get out of the technical weeds about lake currents and what they influence, but trust me, the wrecked random lake currents explains all the weirdness so far this season. The kings for the most part have been nice sized early on, lots of twenties. We might get a good batch of 30's by August. We will see how it all plays out in a few more weeks, but its been a weird start to summer so far, and not just in the Great Lakes either.
Now on to the ridiculously long diver leader trend, how it started, where its at, and why it defeats the purpose. Our friends at Dreamweaver put out their new diver this spring that allows you to run unlimited long diver leaders. Like a slide diver, but better apparently. It sounds like its a great product and works well. This discussion is not about the product, or other divers that enable running extra extra long diver leaders, but the actual concept of running extra extra long diver leaders. So, I will bore you with the history of how this all got started and why its not what you think it is.
In the late 70's and throughout much of the 80's and into the 90's Great Lakes waters with the exception of Superior were basically green. Heavy plankton and rich with organisms for alewife to feed on. Water clarity was not great, we pounded kings on 10-12 foot downrigger leads, and 10' or less diver leaders...lots of 6'-8' range. I remember pounding kings for many years running metal dodgers 6' behind cannonballs and mono dipsy divers (pre braid, pre plastic flashers)
As the lakes started to clear up in the early 2000's with the mussel invasion, we started running more 20-25' downrigger leads (and we still do) for kings, and we also started the 18'-24' diver leader program which required us to hand line leaders in. It actually worked out great and still does, because you will always have more control of a king at the back of the boat with a guy on the leader versus someone at the front of the boat with a 10' diver rod with a diver pinned up at the tip swinging all over the place. More fish are lost at the boat with bad or no communication between a poor net guy chasing a king around rigger cables and his buddy with his diver rod tip straight in the air. Always always always hand line diver leaders, you will land 99% of your fish this way.
Downrigger balls being dragged by cable under tension and large divers being dragged by diver wire under tension DRAWS FISH TO THE BOAT. The harmonics of the wire under tension, combined with the water displacement by the cannonball or diver both create a signature under water that kings key in on from a distance with their lateral lines. As they move closer to the vibration from long distances, the cannonball and diver come into view, as does your lure or flasher running 20' or so behind it. That is plenty close enough for a king and ends up being about the perfect length for kings to take a swipe at your presentation. Any closer, and kings will flare...they aren't into the super tight lead thing due to the water clarity. They used to be, but no longer are other than in maybe complete darkness.
But running a diver leader like 40-60-100' back completely defeats the purpose. Kings are keying in on the vibration of the wire and water displacement by the diver. They come in to look for the movement, and your lure or flasher is nowhere to be found because you are running an insanely long leader behind the very thing that brought them to your spread in the first place.
If you want stealth, run your coppers and leadcores, that action picks up negative fish later in the morning. But when the light is low, or kings are on the chew, they are coming in to your spread based off the harmonics and water displacement of your divers and rigger balls and wire. Make sure your presentations are within 25'-20' max of your cannonballs and divers and take advantage of the fact the fish are there.
If you truly want to run yet another stealthy presentation for negative fish mid morning to compliment your copper setups, then go ahead and stretch your diver leaders WAY out there if you want. But to be honest, we personally keep them at 22' at all times, to take advantage of the late morning (11-noon) bite window where kings will feed once again for a short while where they were feeding at dawn...up and in and around inside your tight spread.
None of this applies to coho, steelhead and lake trout....all of whom have no problem biting (and prefer) tight diver leads 12' or less.
Or you can completely ignore the above advice and continue to run 100' diver leaders all the time and miss the hot aggressive boat bite that happens every single day. Stealthy does not always work, if it did, your coppers and leadcores would fire all day every day. They typically do not, and its during those periods that the closer to the boat program is the best. 18' - 22' rigger and diver leaders always, clipping right along at 2.7 SOG always. You can thank me later!