When heat sets-in on the Upper Midwest like it has this past week, the fishing action rarely matches the conditions for most of the species I usually fish for. I guess I should start fishing for big-lake salmon and trout during the dog-days? Not that I was in any-way responsible for our success; as the two salmon guys I shared the boat with had played the game before, adapting the approach to changing conditions throughout the day. I felt lucky to have been able to meet up with fellow IDO’ers Joel Ballweg and Pat Howard on a hot day in Milwaukee to try our hand at targeting some salmon, if only for a day. Joel was the captain, and it was obvious from the way he kept his boat, to the way he never-stopped working, that we would be in for a good day no matter what the fish’s mood would be. Keep in mind, I’m a complete salmon neophyte. I’ve been on a few charters before, reeled in a handful of good fish and plenty smaller salmon/trout, so this was as much a learning opportunity as it was a fishing trip.
We started the day near-shore, trying to replicate the success of other recent anglers jigging hair, plastic, and even some hardware, to no avail. Good conditions slightly off-shore, bolstered by reports and recent trips had Joel liking our odds out trolling a bit more. Who was I to argue when the first king of the day came literally minutes into having our spread set? Fast action in the morning came with several quality 4 yr. olds, including a 20lb+ fish on our full-lead reel some 500+ feet from the boat that Joel caught. Flasher/fly combinations in green and blue seemed to be preferred early, with a smaller number of fish being taken on riggers with spoons of names I’m not sure I’m allowed to repeat. Most of our active fish came from the 60-80’ range, towards the higher end of that range in the early morning, and slightly deeper as the morning wore-on. As boat traffic died, so did the bite, with most folks seeming to clear out after the mid-late morning boom. We had plans to make a day of it however, so we continued searching, switching, and searching some more until we marked fish/bait.
What did become a theme were the number of active fish near bottom in 90-120FOW. Lowering the trolling speed slightly, or moving our baits a bit deeper put those marks from the graph into the boat, only to find out they were primarily lakers. Good lakers! One fish, caught by Pat, approached the 20lb mark and was a real warlord. Scarred by several lamprey lesions, this fish fought every bit as hard as the largest king we caught and then some, to the point where we literally had to drop our speed a bit to get the fish onboard. As the day wore on, bites became tougher to come by until late afternoon when the lakers cranked up again. In our search for salmon, we weren’t even targeting these fish, though they would often come up off the bottom 40 feet or more to attack our offerings.
At the end of the day, we’d amassed a pretty good talley, some smaller fish put back and only a handful of missed fish. It was good to fish with a couple of experienced salmon guys, and they seemed to appreciate someone who was content in keeping the boat pointed straight. If anything, I learned a few new words for fish, like “jacks”, “shakers,” “’ho’s,” “’bows,” etc, with Cohos (‘hos) and brown trout being the only popular trout/salmon species out there we didn’t do battle with. A beautiful steelhead that put on quite a show ended up going home with us as well, rounding out the ranks of fish we were excited to eat, let alone happy to catch. Thanks guys for the great time! You know a trip is good when you’re about one day removed, and already stoked to do it again!
Joel