Average fish per day?

[hawkeye625]

I know this is a loaded question but just wondered how many fish you guys boated in 2013 on an average day?  And do you target certain species or run a multiple species spread?  How about lost fish or short strikes?  Do you only target big kings?  How about time on the water per day?  Your best day on the water?  Biggest fish of the year?

 

Kings

Steelies

Browns

Lakers

Cohos

Atlantics

fish with lampreys

 

Just trying to pass time til spring and wondered how we are measuring up to the fleet.  Dan Keating and Dave Mull got my juices flowing and for Dan to average 17 fish a charter for over 30 years...wow that's some good action. 

 

 

 

[devilfishIII]

What lake? 17 fish per trip sounds pretty hard to believe unless you're just laker fishing for kill count. We box on lakers but for salmon average pry 1 fish per hour fished isn't a bad day

[Gill-T]

You are NOT going to average 17 fish per outing UNLESS you are targeting multiple species with your spread.  Come to Niagara County in May and you can shoot for that goal realistically. 

[rolmops]

I do suspect that those 17 fish included smelt or alewives. Or maybe a bit of fishermans latin.

[King Slammin]

My average last yr was 8 fish per trip. Each trip was average 6 hrs. Best day was 17. Worst was a skunk in 6 footers (I tried, people puked). We caught 79 kings with the biggest being 27.5 lbs. Caught the first atlantic of my boat, an 11 lb male. I'm still learning the captain end of things as this was my 2nd yr back on the lake with my own boat. We lost a bunch, caught a few shorts, and I learned ALOT. I'm enjoying ice fishing now but I can't wait to get back out after those sharks.

Edited January 31, 2014 by King Slammin

[GAMBLER]

You are NOT going to average 17 fish per outing UNLESS you are targeting multiple species with your spread. Come to Niagara County in May and you can shoot for that goal realistically.

Come on Chad, You can average 17 per trip with only two rods out if you come to the dark side and fish lakers like I do.

[finsntins]

we fished about everyweekend from june through sept. in mexico bay.this was my first full season on the lake and i had never fished for salmon before 2012.didnt really keep score but i would have to say that we averaged 6 hours a day and probably averaged landing one a day,2 to 3 missed fish and lost 1 or 2.we were doing alot of experimenting and learning,so obviously people did better then us,i hope!!!!we pretty much targeted salmon.from what i heard this year was a year of quality,not quantity fish.we had 2 days where we landed 6 fish and id say we only caught a few fish under 20 lbs all season,with our best being 27.we went for lakers a few times when the salmon were deeper then my riggers would go and after reading a few posts here on where to go and what to use,i dont think we would go more than 15 minutes without a fish.cant wait for spring to try for browns,gona be another learing experience,as i have never fished for them,but im stocking up on gear and info from this website,thanks to all!!!!

[momay4000]

Tough question:

 

Here's the Michigan DNR charter fishing data by various ports:

 

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_52259_47568-91516--,00.html

 

I have fished many times out of Ludington Michigan, and if you look at the data for 2012, charters were averaging 0.4 salmon caught per hour from that port for the year.

 

On a personal note I live and fish near Rochester, NY and when I dragged the bottom for lakers - a fish every 10-20 minutes was the norm out of I-Bay from sun-up until we would head back to port but when targeting silvers 1-2 fish per hour would be a great day for me. That being said, over the past few years we have caught as many as 25+ fish on my boat and two other times I was skunked like a bad Heineken. I've also fished solo a few times and after 7-8 fish in 5 hours, I felt like I ran a marathon.

 

Good luck - forget the numbers and focus on learning something new each and every day.

 

Good luck,

 

Chris

[Tim Bromund]

Dan fishes out of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois on Lake Michigan.

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Adk1]

Come on Chad, You can average 17 per trip with only two rods out if you come to the dark side and fish lakers like I do.

i haven't boated a laker yet, but would have loved to last summer when the fishin was a slow go. Will have to brush up on the tactics

[YodaMage]

I averaged about 1 fish per hour. I only had one brown and one laker last year and they were accidental catches in places they should not have been. I run a 6 to 8 rod spread and tend to run 1/2 down low for large kings and the other half high for bows, atlantics and cohos to keep things interesting. 

 

I probably had my best year for Kings over 20 with about 15 over 20 lbs and 2 or 3 over 30 lbs, 34 biggest. I usually have issues with those 12 to 16 pounders pulling up my lines for me and getting in the way. I still had more 4 pounders than I would like. (Amazing the size of prey a little guy will take on!)

[G-Daddy]

Can't say that we even count fish, but certainly our best day of the season was on the second weekend of August when we had 5 kings over 20# one day.  Our biggest fish of the season was on the slowest weekend of summer - Labor Day weekend when we had a 29# king which was the only fish we caught on one day.  The third weekend of August we had a mid-teens coho, which was a boat record for us on that species, so overall we had a good, if not great, season.  Looking forward to July when we will make the trek northward again from the Mason-Dixon Line for a couple of months.  Each season it seems we extend our stay at Point Breeze.

[hawkeye625]

Thanks for the input guys.  We broke my boat records several times this year.  Salmon went from 26lbs last season to bouncing at 30lbs this year.  Several fish from the mid to high 20's came to net.  Seemed like the fish were on the large side this year. 

 

Lots of lampreys...over 20 in the boat, several other fish with marks.

 

Lakers to a little over 19lbs.

 

Few browns in the mid teens.

 

Nothing special for coho, steely or atlantics.

 

Best day was not big numbers but several doubles of mid 20's fish.

 

Best lesson learned this year:  remember the go pro is on when you take a leak...got more footage than we wanted from 3 different passengers.  Seems like everyone takes a leak when someone else is fighting a fish.

 

Great year for us and hope everyone else as well.  Looking forward to spring...just hope after this spring they don't take the king division out of the LOC.  If it stays this cold I don't think the leader board will fill up. 

[fathobbit0074]

Keating fishe lake Michigan I believe and they have 5 fish limit there. 17 isn't that far of a stretch I gathered from talking to others at show that fish same wAter I think it was blood run guys I talked to about it

[Captain Carl Bish]

Only the first one counts.....everyone after that is a bonus!

Your welcome to count them hanging on a dead fish board at "salmo charters" on Facebook.

[VanderLaan]

Keating fishe lake Michigan I believe and they have 5 fish limit there. 17 isn't that far of a stretch I gathered from talking to others at show that fish same wAter I think it was blood run guys I talked to about it

Not sure I get your point. As I see it, 17 fish is 17 fish. Why does it matter what the limit is? (No snark intended).

[fathobbit0074]

A five fish limit means that the fishery is very healthy And is capable of producing higher numbers than. Say a place that has a 3 fish limit. It's common sense Have you ever looked at pictures of their charters. They always have lots of fish. But they are smaller than lake o fish

[hawkeye625]

I have to agree, 17 fish is a great average no matter what species or multiple, I wasn't talking kings only.  We boated over 20 fish a day 2 years ago but we got a lot of steelys and spent all day on the water every day we fished.  To average 17 on a 8 hr charter is awesome.  I'd imagine that includes many coho but who really cares.  They put up a fight too.  My post wasn't a dig at Dan at all, I just was looking for an idea of what other boats were catching on a daily basis. 

 

I was sort of hoping to get some response from charter captains from Lake O to get a better idea of what the lake I fish yields from the pro's.  The 1st one matters and look at my facebook isn't really the respone I had hoped for, but it's better than not posting I guess.

[baitrigger]

Some very honest posts. Go pro caught four on our boat last season. We fished ollcott to the bar every weekend. Had fifty plus two times. 742 fish for the year. We dont count shakers. We do fish all day. Spring was great. Summer and fall were hit and miss. 30 lbs was our big king. Wish i was sitting on the boat suffering through a slow day right now. Bad day fishing is still the best day.