Fast limit
July 25, 2024 Chicago 1 photo

Trip Summary

The fish are cooperating as of yesterday, it's more catching than fishing right now. So book a trip asap. I had a chance to go out by myself yesterday, and got a quick limit of coho and a lake trout. Had several others on the line, a nice steelhead 12-14 pounds to back of boat and a couple more trout. I was trying to see what they would bite. Doing a lot of experimenting on lures and baits I never run. I guess those fish are hungry and will eat about anything because it didn't take long to get a limit. In the process we found some new (old) standbye's (lures) that are working well. Fish are biting on spoons, plugs, flasher / flies, & cut bait. Fish are in 90-160 feet of water straight out and North of Belmont harbor. That is a big range but there are fish 40-to bottom, with 55 to bottom being best yesterday. Trolling 2.4 to 2.7 mph, in 110-125 FOW best. This group of fish fillets went to Hagens in Chicago to be smoked (a great choice if you love smoked salmon / trout). That smoked fish is great to add to cream cheese along with a few other key ingredients, for the best salmon dip you ever had! Come fishing with us I'll give you all the details. Capt JB
Jason Baldwin
Chicago, Illinois, United States
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Come fishing for Salmon & Trout on Lake Michigan (departing Belmont harbor Chicago). Captain Jason has 45 + years experience Charter Fishing Lake Michigan. There are 5 species of fish often caught, brown, rainbow & lake trout & coho & king...

Other reports from this charter

TOURNAMENT WINNER: ANOTHER GRAND SLAM 5
TOURNAMENT WINNER: ANOTHER GRAND SLAM 5
June 20, 2025
Hello, my efforts at all of the little things and dialing in the boat are beginning to pay off. On Monday June 16, 2025, THE Top Dog and his crew (Captain Mike Shine & Tony Boshold) beat a field of seasoned Captains and others in the annual Zillion fishing tournament held out of Belmont Harbor. We caught all 5 species of fish Brown Trout, King Salmon, Coho or Silver Salmon, Lake Trout and Skamania steelhead or Rainbow Trout, to take first place. We also won for catching the largest King Salmon. Our plan came together on the right day and we smoked the field. One veteran Captain stated that he had been doing this tournament since 2012 and that a boat had never gotten all five species since he's been doing it. So we are grateful to the Dragon fly (that came and landed on my hand and gave us a little positive luck), and of course to the fish gods we take a bow! We started at the R4 where surface water and down temps appeared perfect, and the fish were there and biting. We fished 50 to 80 FOW made a couple turns around the R4 and then headed east to deeper water to search for big Lake Trout and Rainbows (90 to 120 FOW) where we found both. We had our catch by 10:30 am and only needed to upgrade, which we did on the Lake Trout. We went back to the R4 on Wednesday and in a couple hours 2 of us, boated 8 coho, again today (Friday morning) we were 9 for about 13, 8 coho and 1 Rainbow. NBK, stubby dodgers, and moonshine lures were all good. Fish were biting from surface down to 50 feet. However the surface water temp is getting very warm, I'm sure it will push the majority of fish deeper soon, unless cooler water gets pushed in? Good luck out there and remember safety is number one.
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TOURNAMENT WINNER: ANOTHER GRAND SLAM 5
TOURNAMENT WINNER: ANOTHER GRAND SLAM 5
June 20, 2025
Hello, my efforts at all of the little things and dialing in the boat are beginning to pay off. On Monday June 16, 2025, THE Top Dog and his crew (Captain Mike Shine & Tony Boshold) beat a field of seasoned Captains and others in the annual Zillion fishing tournament held out of Belmont Harbor. We caught all 5 species of fish Brown Trout, King Salmon, Coho or Silver Salmon, Lake Trout and Skamania steelhead or Rainbow Trout, to take first place. We also won for catching the largest King Salmon. Our plan came together on the right day and we smoked the field. One veteran Captain stated that he had been doing this tournament since 2012 and that a boat had never gotten all five species since he's been doing it. So we are grateful to the Dragon fly (that came and landed on my hand and gave us a little positive luck), and of course to the fish gods we take a bow! We started at the R4 where surface water and down temps appeared perfect, and the fish were there and biting. We fished 50 to 80 FOW made a couple turns around the R4 and then headed east to deeper water to search for big Lake Trout and Rainbows (90 to 120 FOW) where we found both. We had our catch by 10:30 am and only needed to upgrade, which we did on the Lake Trout. We went back to the R4 on Wednesday and in a couple hours 2 of us, boated 8 coho, again today (Friday morning) we were 9 for about 13, 8 coho and 1 Rainbow. NBK, stubby dodgers, and moonshine lures were all good. Fish were biting from surface down to 50 feet. However the surface water temp is getting very warm, I'm sure it will push the majority of fish deeper soon, unless cooler water gets pushed in? Good luck out there and remember safety is number one.
Continue reading