Lake Michigan salmon report 7-20-08

I just got done with my favorite 10 days of fishing that I do each year. This is the second year my wife and I have made the trip to Two Rivers, WI, located on the shores of Lake Michigan with my own boat. 2 springs ago I rigged my Skeeter up with all the necessary down riggers, rod holders and such making it capable of running 12 lines at 1 time in search of the lakes ample salmon and trout. A typical day consists of waking up at 3:30am and launching the boat at 4am. We fish for about 5 to 6 hours, come in, clean fish, grab a bite to eat, and take a nap. It’s back up at 3pm to get back on the water about 4 until 9 or 10pm. It can take a lot out of a person if you are not used to it, but the rewards are well worth it!

Fellow IDO’ers Derek, Craig and Jim were out there Thursday and had been catching a few fish. The itch got real bad when Derek would text me with hourly fishing reports. I couldn’t get out there soon enough. The first part of the trip I was fishing mainly north of the piers in 50-80’ and catching some real nice kings on a green dodger/fly combo 3 to 4 passes out on a dipsey diver on a #3 setting. We also were catching rainbows 150’ behind the boat on orange spoons with no weight, or sometimes adding up to a 1.5oz rubber core sinker 8’ in front of the spoon. Having the Lakemaster chip really came in handy when wanting to figure out what trolling runs to make to stay in the optimum depths. My wife fished with me Friday night and Saturday morning before getting on the ferry and heading over to Michigan to visit some family. That Saturday night I went out for the first time by myself on the “real” big pond. What an experience it was. I was able to land 3 kings weighing 8, 16, & 18lbs all on dipseys. With the 12’ leads I was using I would have to hand over hand the fish the last few feet to get it to the net. I lost another in the low to mid teens and had another come off half way to the boat. Definitely one of the more memorable fishing experiences I have had. Sunday morning Derek hopped in the boat with me, which given the wind and waves was a god send. We managed to boat 6 fish and lost 2. Craig got himself a real nice king that day as well before they made the trip back home.

The rest of the week my wife and I fished together along with a good friend Captain Dick from the “Mabe”. It was an honor to get him out fishing with us four different mornings as this was the guy that used to take my dad and me out fishing on Lake Michigan since I was probably 8 or so. He also gave me a lot of insight as far as how to rig my boat to effectively fish the big water and make sure I had all the right equipment, and nothing I didn’t need. He had sold his boat a couple years ago and had not been out on the lake at all this year, so it was nice getting out and catching fish with him. The payback felt good. My wife really liked the stories he had of trips past such as me sleeping on the cooler or making the mistake of getting a couple Big Macs on the way out and catching the Lake Michigan flu. By midweek we were doing most of our fishing straight out of the piers and to the south towards Manitowoc. We still caught king salmon, though they ran a bit smaller, but we got some real nice rainbows and good numbers of them running the same baits as earlier in the trip.

The weather was great for the first half of the week. We were able to fish almost when ever we wanted to. Tuesday afternoon called for high winds so we decided to make a trip down to Milwaukee and stopped at the Cabelas and did a tour of the Miller brewery. Starting Wednesday through Sunday, every morning there was real heavy fog. Usually it would lift about 11am, but Saturday it was foggy all day. It required you to be on your toes while fishing as many time you couldn’t see much past your planer boards. The fog was a result of the warm, humid air temps and the cool lake water. The warmest we saw for surface water temps was 54 and the coolest was 43. We marked a ton of bait and fish. About half the fish we caught were full of alewives, the food of choice for salmon and trout.

For anyone that was not given this fishery a shot, it is well worth your time. It is an easy 5.5 hour drive from the north suburbs of Minneapolis to Two Rivers. There are many charter captains willing to take you out. An ideal trip is 4 people car pooling out in the morning, getting in an evening of fishing followed by the following morning, and head home, and the cost is very reasonable.