West Coast Sportfishing with Captain Ed

Call 989-928-2810 now to book for 2008

   

Michigan Salmon Fishing with Captain Ed on the Edventure in Manistee, Michigan

West Coast Sportfishing Charters, is a Lake Michigan Salmon Fishing service located right in the heart of beautiful Manistee, MI. We are here because the Manistee area offers some of the best Salmon & Trout fishing to be found on Lake Michigan. Enjoy fishing aboard our 29' Baha Cruiser... outfitted for serious fishing and maximum safety & comfort!!! We are a member in good standing in the Michigan Charter Boat Association (MCBA)

   
10/6/07 Springer Steelhead CharterWe fished the shelve from 40 fow to 170 fow from 7 -8 am. One king hit as we were pulling lines. We went out to 600 fow and trolled east. We caught our limit, 9 steelhead in all, and only lost 2 fish. I will have to post a picture from my fishfinder on my web site to show what massive schools of baitfish we have in Manistee right now. That is probably why the kings didn't bite this morning. When we were out at 600 fow, the seagulls were diving and feeding on bait on the surface. The fish we caught had 2 inch alewives in them, but the schools weren't massive there like in 40 - 100 fow. It made the bottom at 60 feet appear like it was at 40 feet. The water temp in 60 fow was 64.5, at 600 fow, it was 61.4 on the surface which was where we caught all the fish. I ran 2 colors, 3 colors, 5 colors, and 7 colors of lead and they all produced equally. 6 were on lead core, 4 were on riggers. Orange and chrome prokings, green and black prokings, bumblebee - proking: see the pattern, small lures, I did not catch one fish on a magnum lure.



9/29/07 Bartleson Charter We got a real late start today, it was after 9am when we set our first line at 166 feet. The waves were 3 -5 's, and we pulled lines and went South to the 8's, in shallow the waves were 1-2's. We marked a lot of fish there. We landed this great CoHo right away down, and had another fish on, but the dipsy leader broke and that was our last hit for the day as a front moved in and that was the last time we saw the sun. These girls were wonderful and didn't complain or want to go home.











9/24/07 CampbellBob, Cheryl, Kara, and Kaitlyn came out fishing today. It was still slow from the gale winds we had yesterday, but we caught these four nice fish. It was a bit chilly in the early morning, but it warmed up nicely by 10am.











9/23/97 Rick and Cheryl Rick was trying to rent a boat to go fishing this afternoon. I happened to be purchasing some supplies because all the trips that day were cancelled due to the gale force winds. I offered to take him out an troll the river and if the lake calmed down, we might get out on to deeper water. We put a couple baits out and Rick caught his first Salmon right next to the railroad trestle in the channel.



9/15/07It was the day afer a gale warning and the lake was just calming down. Fishing was slow in the afternoon, we were 1 for 2 from 3pm to 8pm, which didn't give the anglers much to practice on to get ready for the 'witching hour'. When it came between 8 and 9pm we had a lot of fish striking our baits. We lost a lot of them due to tangles, jumping and downrigger cables.



9/8/2007 This afternoon was the spectacular September fishing that Manistee is so well known for. We caught our first two fish by the pierheads with the salmon ripping and jumping out of the water right near the boat. Then we headed for deaper water where the fish educated us on how to catch them, and we educated some of them on what baits to avoid in the future. The day was perfect, the fishing was just as good, and these folks from Ohio reveled in both. It's days like these that I'll remember long into my old age.

9/8/2007 5am Earlier the same day Dave, Ned, and William caught this mess of fish. It was a little bit chilly in the morning, as you can see by the jackets, but the fishing was good, and we filled the cooler. We had fun guessing who the jinx was as we had time to eat those cinnamon twist donuts in between the strikes.



8/31/2007 Ed and Lauren had their battle with the fish today. Lauren kissed the fish again - I think that is a good luck. WE were reaquainteds with old friends from last year, and we had another great day fishing with them.





8/21/2007 Today was overcast and breezy with the wind from the east. We proved that you can't trust what you hear about the wind: "When the winds from the east, the fish bite the least." Ed, Ron, Henry, and Ray caught their King limit and also caught 4 Coho's. They were all reeling a fish at one point between 6am and 7am. Afterwards they were exhausted, Ray said it was because one of them was too excited and talked all night long. Click the date above to see all the pics.

8/19/2007Joel and Dan caught their limit today in the rain. Dan wrestled with a few fish, and as you can see he won the battle. They finished with 6 Kings, 3 Coho's and a Lake Trout. The fishing was great out in deep water.





8/18/2007Today was rainy, but that didn't stop us from going out and catching the fish. Alec holds this fish, but his brother Mason caught his share too. Click the link to see all the pics. The twins also pitched in to catch some fish with Brad and Tracy.








8/12/2007The Patnodes came in from NY and ND to go out fishing. We had a good time and filled some coolers today.



 

8/11/2007Kristi, Kathy, Wes, and Michael came out and fished the middle of the afternoon and caught these lunkers. This trip was a charity donation with the proceeds going to Covenant Foundation.





  



8/10/2007This past weekend was fantastic fishing. I can't remember it ever being better. Bob and his crew fished and caught 14 fish Friday night. This picture was taken just after the sun went over the horizon. Click the date above to see all the pics.

8/4/2007Bob, Leo, and their friends caught a cooler of fish heavy today that they had to remove the ice and sit on the lid to get it to close. I broke this ice up and poured it in the nooks and cranny's. All the fish came with Kens KRW Aqua gold glow fly and the riverside fly.They finished up 13 for 20.Check out the size of those fish. They fished in the morning, with most of the fish were taken before 8am.
After they finished, Scott, Brad and Stacy went out fishing and caught 12 fish, starting at about 5pm. What a load that was. Those fish were particular tonight, as they only came on a white J plug, with a black ladderback, and a meat rig behind a hoochie.

7/29/2007Sarah caught this monster down mear the stick at Big Sable Point. We went way down there to fish to get away from the tournament boats that were in Manistee. As you can see byu the picture the lake was calm, and fishing was slow. They caught 5 fish, including a steelhead. The full moon makes the evening fishing better than the morning, but with the north wind and heavy boat traffic, the fish just weren't biting really solid this morning.

7/28/2007Check out the moon in the top left corner of this picture. The sun just finished setting, and the moon was out. The fish really hit well just after the sun set tonight. We were 2 for 4 from 3 - 6pm and then nothing until 9pm. We boated 5 more fish in the next hour to send us home with our limit.

7/20/2007 Martin, Sammy, Chris, Jonah, and Ben went fishing today. We started out in 4-6 foot rollers a few miles from the port. We set out a couple lines, and had an immediate strike while I was setting the lines. Unfortunately, the drag wasn't set yet as I was lowering the downrigger and that one got away. After that first strike we didn't have anything for 15 minutes, so we pulled lines and went down south. The fishing was much better there and we caught some real nice fish. We finished up 8 for 12 for the day. Sammy was practicing California conservation and let some go. The best lure of the day was NBK (Natural Born Killer) on 10 colors of lead. At the end of the day, we had a steelhead hit off the downrigger at 20 feet down. He jumped out of the water and he must have seen me or Sammy and swam away. Take a look at these pictures.

7/15/2007 We caught our limit this morning, and all the fish were 15 pounds or more. We had 38 quart bags of Salmon after they were filleted. It was partly cloudy when we started, but rained later on, either way we caught fish. A couple fish bit on lures, but the rest were on KRW Aqua Gold Glow flies. Click the link to check out the size of these fish!

7/7/2007 Mattie caught the first fish today. We ended up 7 for 9 for the day. The good news is that the big fish are here now, and they are hitting flies, lures and meat rigs. The diamondback, orange piranha, cottonmouth, aqua gold fly, and green meat rig took all the fish. It was a slow day, and we filled the time eating donuts, cherries, and relaxing. We went to the beach afterwards and enjoyed the refreshing swim in 70 degree water on a 90 degree day.

6/30/2007 Ryan, Jim Martin and I started late this morning. This was a training trip to learn the LCX-28c HD unit we installed last night. This unit is impressive, which features top of the line Lowrance sonar, gps, and radar. We didn't get the morning bite because of the late start, but the unit was impressive. When the fish started biting around 8:30 am we had a whopper that stripped out a lot of line. We lost that first fish which broke the hook off the lure, all three prongs! We caught the next 2 hits and missed a couple more. Ryan, age 6, caught his first steelhead, a nice 9 pound fish. The lake turned over in th epast week, and the big fish are being caught since that occurred. We decided to quit early so I could pull the boat out of the water to get some faded paint replaced. While I setup the boat for painting, Jim took Ryan to the circus which is always intown for the 4th of July.

6/23/2007 Jim, Tom and I went out fishing this morning and for the first time this year we got a early morning bite. It was short but we welcomed it. The fish came on the downriggers up set at 39 feet down and 120 feet back on Sister Sludge silver streak lures. The next best bait was the silver streak Diamondback which we had out on 10 colors of leadcore which accounted for 3 of the 6 fish we caught this morning. We did not go out to the 39's like the tournament fisherman, who only caught the rare steelhead and caught many lakers all in the 3-6 pound range. It seems like schools of 3 year old fish are moving around and it was feast or famine depending on whether you found a good location. We took a couple of pics, but being seasoned veterans we were there for the fishing not the photos. There were new nets placed in the last couple of days. See the new locations at Manistee Net locations

6/16/2007 Dole There was a school of 2 year old fish that just started biting the hooks this morning. The problem is that they were only 12- 16 inches, and could not trigger the release on the downriggers, dipsy's or planer boards. We trolled south to get away from them and ran into a school of 3 year old fish from 3 to 6 pounds. We were looking for biger fish so we kept moving south. Finally we found some 10 pounders. Almost all hits came on the lead core and dipsy's using green and blue dolphins, and a lure called cottonmouth (silver streak). You can view it at their website: link to Silver streak lures

5/26/2007 The day started out with a nice steelhead and finished with a 8 pound lake trout. In between Madison and his friends caught 8 Salmon. We finished 11 of 12 strikes, but threw back a shaker so we ended up with 10 fish. Click here to view the photo gallery. A tournament had a shotgun start around 7am, and the boats roared by us. They went out to deeper water, while we fished in 80-120 feet and had a triple shortly after they passed us.


















4/29/2007 Mike caught this nice lake trout when he and his dad came out fishing with me for a short time in the morning. The water was still a lttile bit cold, but we went to my favorite spot and caught a nice lake trout.













4/28/2007 Martin and his son went out fishing for browns today. We caught this nice 20 inch brown, and also a beautiful 8 pound steelhead. It was chilly in the morning when we left the dock, but warmed up by late morning, and we had a good time cruising the lake looking for hot spots. The water temp was 43 degrees most of the areas we fished. The action turns on where you can find the water temps around 46.















We specialize in Michigan Salmon Fishing, but also target Rainbow (Steelhead), Brown, CoHo's and Lake Trout. Book now for the best dates. You will fish in comfort on board our 29' Baha Cruiser vessel and everyone appreciates the convenience of the head in the small washroom, and cabin! I launched in early April and will fish through October. I am a professional licensed captain (U.S.C.G.) The boat is inspected and licensed by the US Coast Guard and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Edventure is equipped with all the safety features. If there is anything we can do to accomodate you, please call me and ask. We want this to be fun and memorable. We watch the marine forecast closely for every trip, and will ask you to re-schedule if we think conditions are unfavorable. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery.

There are some great places to stay in Manistee. This link is to a cottage that you can book in advance, check out their availability online: upnorthgetaway (248) 668-9925 I can personally recommend it highly. The cottage has plenty of space to accommodate large groups, has a complete kitchen, private dock, gas grills, pool table, and fireplace. While relaxing on the deck this spring I watched a bald eagle fly over, as the turkeys were gobbling in the woods across the street! If it is booked, you can also get rooms at the Microtel Inn, or other motels.

Click on the Weather (Manistee) to find out the temperature each of the next 10 days for the Manistee area. The NOAA forecast link is to find out the marine forecast (wind direction and wave height) for the next 5 days. Be sure to check with me within 48 hours before your trip for the most accurate weather updates - Call me on my cell 989-928-2810. I have seen it change as weather fronts get delayed or stay further south or north than anticipated.

To find directions from Mapquest, click on the Directions button. Zoom out to find Manistee. The star is located at Solberg's Marina, 47 Arthur Street, slip #5, Manistee MI 49660. It is right across from Burger King on 31. The train tracks cross 31 at the entrance to the marina. Bear to the left when entering, go past the office and bear to the left again. Look for slip # 5.    or call Captain Ed at 989-928-2810
Pager: 989-258-0934 (Enter your phone number and I will return your call
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