Lake Michigan Salmon Fishing – Milwaukee

Fishing on Lake Michigan from a small boat has been rather “sporty” so far this year. Success from week to week can depend on many different factors, many of which you may have no control over.

Despite what marine forecast may predict for wind and waves, you still need to be prepared for something quite a bit different out on the lake. Case in point: In preparation for a trip this past Sunday morning, I had been keeping tabs on wind & wave forecast, expecting the same 1 foot waves we had fished in on Saturday morning. But after piloting the boat thru the main gap in the Milwaukee Harbor break wall, it quickly became evident that we were not going to be fishing in 1’ waves on this morning. Running to our starting point in these 4-5’ rollers was going to be either a rough, wet ride in the early morning darkness, or a slow, bumpy and un-eventful
ride. We opted for slow, mostly dry, a bit bumpy but safe.

On Saturday morning Wayne Henn and his 17 year old son were aboard the boat. Wayne is still pretty much a rookie but has been out with me before and is capable of driving the boat while I set lines. Brett on the other hand would be experiencing his first ever Lake Michigan fishing adventure, and after chumming for most of this trip, perhaps his last as well.

We set lines in the dark but never got a hit until daybreak. In years past, we caught lots of fish when setting lines in the dark of the early morning hours, often getting hooked up before we could manage to get all out lines in. This year though, we have yet to catch a fish in the dark.

Daybreak found us fishing in 75’ of water with a six line spread. Two riggers, two dipsy’s and 2 board lines. This is my typical spread when fishing with beginners, especially when the water is rough which it was not on this morning. (1 foot waves)

The bite was not fast but it was fairly consistent though out the morning. We fished till 10:00am and netted 6 of the 8 fished we hooked up with, all Kings.

Our best setups were wire dipsy’s rods rigged with a green flasher and aqua fly. The riggers & boards did pick up some smaller fish but all our nice kings came on the wire dipsy’s.

Fishing on Sunday morning was quite a bit more adventurous.
Wave forecast were way off as mentioned above. We were expecting 1 footers, kind of like on Saturday morning and instead we had 3-5′ rollers out of the northeast. One of my crew, Scott Schultz had 1 trip under his belt. (and a rough one at that) Tyler Anderson on the other hand, had never fished Lake Michigan at all. Both know there way around a boat though and both fish inland waters on a regular basis.

Just past daybreak found us out in 105′ of water and right on top of a nice little pocket of fish. The 5 color rod fired first followed shortly by the port side rigger rod. Both Scott & Tyler were fighting fish and I was in the process of letting out and 8-color line while steering into the waves. Looking back to check the progress I witnessed the port side dipsy line making a bee line straight across the back of the boat as one crazy, possessed fish was making a hard run from port side to starboard side, then make a hard turn left along the same direction the boat was traveling only at a much faster pace. It passed the boat quickly, then torpedoed straight to the surface and jumped out of the water no more than 20yds away. Along the way, the wire line in tow cut thru the port side rigger line Scott was battling a fish on and also cut off the starboard rigger line. With two rods out of commission, I gave the crazed fish, dipsy rod to the Scott who fought it for a while but as luck would have it, the fish came unbuttoned before we could see it. Of the 3 lines that had a fish on we landed only one which turned out to be a nice 9lb steelhead on the 5 color rod. Tyler’s first ever fish on Lake Michigan.

The end result of the early morning flury was 2 lines cut off completely and 4 of the six lines out of the water right at dawn when the boat was over a nice school of fish and only one guy with experience rigging lines. Guess how much fun it is retying lines in 4-5′ rollers in an 18′ boat?

That was just one of 3 mishaps with tangled lines for the morning. We actually got around 12 hits on the morning but only managed to land 4 of the fish. (Two nice steelies, one laker and one nice four year old king) The first steelie that Tyler caught did at least put on a nice show with multiple jumps behind the boat. That’s always a blast to see.

All in all, I spent a large part of the morning with my head looking down on the floor of the boat while trying to either untangle lines or retie lines. If I didn’t get sick on this trip, I’m pretty sure I’m not likely to get sea sick very often.

I am very thankful we were able to land the fish we did but still can’t help but feel we left a lot out there. At the same time, there’s a lot of crazy stuff that can happen in a boat out on Lake Michigan. Luck was just not on our side on this particular trip but at least we didn’t come home empty handed.