If you’d prefer the expertise of a professional skipper, charterboats can be found in nearly all the towns mentioned, with the largest single fleet berthed at Black River Harbor, about 12 miles from Bessemer, Michigan. Rates are usually a bit cheaper than downstate Michigan, too.

Throughout Lake Michigan, June and early July find most fishermen concentrating on lake trout, a species that has recovered remarkably since the lamprey era, thanks to a federal stocking program. In fact, you’re liable to find an occasional laker in your salmon catch all season long, especially if the salmon are deep and you fish near bottom.

In past years, there’s always been a slump in salmon fishing from mid-June to mid-July. Fish are still caught, of course, but they move further offshore, and only the larger boats usually run the 8, 10 or even 20 miles to the big schools of fish. Most of this action comes between Benton Harbor and Muskegon on the Michigan side, progressing slowly northward with the passage of summer.

Frankly, no one theory has fully explained this phenomenon. The salmon certainly are there. And some biologists think that a great many salmon actually don’t migrate to the southern end of the lake in spring, but stay offshore in northern waters. If so, few fishermen are catching them and many are trying for lake trout. Nobody can say for sure why the fish seem to move out in the lake, either. The occasional salmon is caught inshore, even from breakwaters by perch fishermen. But there’s no denying that major schools of cohos are somewhat scarce in early summer.

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