Before leaving for a fishing trip to the big lake planning and preparation are critical for both safety and to remain within the limits of the law. Make sure you and each member of your party have a valid Illinois sport fishing license and a Lake Michigan Salmon Stamp. Do not confuse the Lake Michigan Salmon stamp with the inland trout stamp. The Lake Michigan Salmon stamp will allow you to legally take all trout and salmon species from Lake Michigan while the Inland trout stamp allows you to take trout from rivers and stocked ponds inland.

Additional items not required by law should be added to your list to insure a successful trip and your safety such as, rope for towing and docking, a compass, a marine radio, GPS or navigation system, and a depth finder.

Once you are in compliance with the law you can start planning for fishing. Almost any medium action fishing tackle will work on the lake but most fishermen experienced with trolling the lake use trolling rods and line in the 17 to 20 pound class. This prevents break off of the often heavy and expensive terminal gear. Remember you are after fish weighing up to 30 pounds or more which really stress your tackle. Make sure you have a long handled large mouthed landing net to reach and handle these large fish. More fish are lost at the boat than any other time.

A large variety of lures are used when trolling the lake. Regardless of the lure used make sure a high quality ball bearing swivel is used to prevent line twist. This will save a lot of knots and tangles. Keep your mind open to color patterns and a variety of lures. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but once you find a pattern that is hot duplicate it. One of the advantages of trolling the lake is you can legally use up to 3 rods per person. This lets you try a variety of riggings to find what is working. The preferred lure is a dodger/flasher and fly combination. This set-up accounts for more fish than any other does. The second most popular lure is the spoon. A wide variety of plugs make up the final category of trolled baits. In general smaller lures are used early in the season with the preferred size increasing as summer progresses toward fall.

The flasher fly combination is deadly trolled with either a planer board or a dipsy diver early in the year, and can be effective trolled this way all summer long. If you are going to run it on the surface with a planer board or yellow bird, allow from 8 to 20 feet of line between the flasher and the planing device. Talk to someone to find out what is

working or simply experiment until you find the distance that works. When

setting this rig up for use with a planer, place a keel weight of approximately ½ ounce about 5 feet in front of the dodger to keep it below the surface. The flasher or dodger is attached to the line using a ball bearing swivel. A leader (30 to 50 pound test, approximately 2 ½ times the length of the flasher) trailing a fly is attached to the dodger or flasher.  Flashers and dodgers come in a variety of sizes and colors. The debate as to whether flashers or dodgers are better will probably go on forever. In reality either one works well, with color and size seeming to be more important than the type device used. Early in the season smaller flashers (approximately 6 inches) in silver, chrome, or fluorescent orange are preferred trailed by 1 to 1 ½ inch flies. As the season progresses the flashers and flies increase in size. Darker flies seem to be preferred early in the season. In 2001, the hot early colors were orange flashers with flies of primarily green, purple, dark blue, and black; or some combination of these colors with some gold, white or silver thrown in to trim them out. As the season progressed the flies increased in size and lightened in color. Larger orange or silver flashers followed by flies of a green, gold, and silver mix or flies of white and aqua worked well in 2inch flies in early June. By late summer and fall white, translucent blues, aqua, and greens with or without silver and gold for highlight colors worked well in 3 inch flies following smoke, orange, or yellow flashers.

Instead of planers, divers can be used in line to get the flies down to where the fish are as they move deeper. The keel weight is not needed with this rigging. The lure is generally run about 8 to 15 feet behind the diver with 8 feet more common. Many fishermen prefer to use the more abrasion resistant, smaller diameter fire line instead of monofilament on the rods rigged with divers. These lines break less frequently, and the smaller diameter allows the divers to get deeper with less resistance. This rig is an effective way of getting the lure where the fish are. Try setting the divers angle on different settings. The higher the number the diver is set on the shallower and farther out from the side of the boat it will run. Settings of 3 to 7 seem to work early in the year with 3 more common later in June and July. The more line let off the reel the deeper the lures will run. Early in the year try about 25 to 30 feet and go out as the year progresses and the fish go deeper.

Another way of running this set-up is to use a lead core or wire line to sink the lure. This can be very effective and most people who troll the lake regularly have one or two rods rigged with a sinking line. The depth the lure runs is dependent on how much line is let out behind the boat. Attach the chosen lure/rigging to a 15 to 20 foot monofilament leader. This rig is normally run straight out the back of the boat and is normally run quite a ways back. Experiment moving the line in and out until you begin getting hits.

Spoons are generally used with either dipsy divers or sinking line early in the year and follow the same rule of smaller seems to be better. Later in the year spoons are commonly run off down riggers or on a slider rig in conjunction with a fly off a down rigger. Everyone has his or her favorite colors for spoons. Oranges, blacks, blues, greens and purples all work well at times. Last summer silver diamond king spoons with a thins tripe of chartreuse down one side was deadly at times. Try a variety until you find something that works for you.

Plugs are the least used lure when trolling Lake Michigan. A variety of plugs will work well at times on the lake. The most popular are probably the j-plugs. Any plug that can be trolled at a speed of 1 to 2.5 miles per hour without tangling or compromising its action will probably work at some time if it can be placed at the depth the fish are running. Once again, don ’t be afraid to experiment.

Down riggers are the most effective way to get your lures down really deep. A wide variety of down rigger devices are used, some with electric motors, some hand operated. It really doesn’t matter what type you use, as long as it carries your lure down where the fish are. Lines are attached to the down riggers weight or just above it with a variety of methods. Again, it doesn’t matter how you do it as long as the lure is held down and the line doesn’t slip, pulling the lure in against the weight. Some fishermen wrap the line around a snap type release to hold it in place, others wrap a rubber band around the line 4 to 5 times and clip the rubber band to the release, and still others use a commercial spring clip. The advantage to the rubber band method is it doesn’t damage the line and virtually never

slips. The disadvantage is it takes longer to rig and requires a supply rubber bands. Commercial spring clips are quickest to rig, but can be touchy to adjust tension on so they release when they are supposed to. Wrapping the line around a clip falls in the middle for ease of rigging, but can cause line wear and damage. Any way you make it work, this can be the most effective method of taking fish when they move deep.

Water temperature is going to determine where the fish are found. Early in the spring, usually sometime in March the fish will begin moving north up the Illinois shoreline as the water warms. As the water continues to warm into the 60+degree range near shore, the fish move offshore searching for cooler water. As summer progresses the fish move deeper and deeper so more are caught with divers and down riggers than on the surface. In the fall, when the water begins to cool again, the salmon and trout follow the cooling water and can be found closer to the surface and in close to shore again.

Before any trip onto Lake Michigan check the weather. This is a very large body of water and can be very deceptive. One minute the lake can be as calm as a farm pond and the next it is running 4 to 5 foot seas. Weather can come up very quickly with fronts and wind shifts. This often includes high seas, strong winds, and/or dense fogs. Even operators of large boats with adequate navigational equipment use caution on this lake. You can fish the lake safely from a small boat, but you must keep a weather eye out and come in at the first sign of deteriorating weather. Be especially aware of frontal systems and wind direction changes. No fish in the lake is worth your boat or the life of one of the members of your party.

This article is not meant to make you an expert at trolling on Lake Michigan and will not guarantee you a limit of fish. It will give you a starting point and if you follow its suggestions you should have a safe trip with a reasonable chance of catching fish. To increase your chances of catching fish on your first solo trip, find someone with experience to take you on their boat or come along with you on yours. If you can’t find anyone to help, go on one of the many charter boat trips offered from nearly all of the harbors along the Lake Michigan shoreline. The charter boat captains are experienced and will answer your questions, explaining proven methods for catching fish. There you can see first hand how the lures and terminal tackle are set up and how the lines and lures are run.