Salmon Fishing on Lake Michigan

Ahhhh it is that time of year again.....for Salmon fishing on Lake Michigan. The season is short, only July 1- Aug 30,but,there is nothing like the thrill of pulling in a 15# salmon on the end of your line. Dave and I have not really been into fishing all that much....at least the first 33 years of our marriage. We love boating but seldom have taken the time to actually fish on Lake Michigan. Now we are "hooked"....he he, as almost every time we go out we catch three huge fish, clean them, smoke them, eat them and give them away to friends. It has added a new dimension to our boating on beautiful Lake Michigan!!

The best thing about Salmon fishing, although a very short season near Washington Island, Wisconsin, is that the fishing is best at sunrise or sunset. Now i am not a fan of rising at 5am and sitting in the dew to catch a fish but...sunset....well is a joy to behold on Lake Michigan!! It is the time of calm waters, soft warm breezes, quiet and beautiful color, as the sun begins to drop below the clouds. Occasionally we will see a huge Great Lakes tanker ship pass us just a short distance away on its way to Michigan or perhaps coming back. We see beautiful sunsets and have taken many many photos of this glorious experience. Sometimes we don't even care if
we catch any fish , as it is just a blessing to be out on the water at that time of day. The lake sparkles in the bits of days end sunlight and you are transported to a calmer, more serene time, only passing a handful of boats while fishing. While we are waiting for the fish to bite we may enjoy a light beer , some summer sausage or some chips and just listen to the satellite radio and chat a bit. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh to pause and enjoy some of God's gifts he has offered to us if we just slow down long enough to enjoy them!!

We often fish with our friend, Mike, who also has a house on the island and also lives near us in Illinois. He is a great buddy for Dave(and me) and helps work on the boat and fishing equipment. He is low key, kind and easy going, so a joy to be around. We are lucky to have such a great friend.(He also waters my flowers around the yard on the island on weekends we don't come up...it is how my flowers survive despite me!!) Mike and Dave watched a fishing video Dave sent for after watching a fishing show on TV about fishing for Salmon on Lake Michigan . He then purchased the equipment we needed and he and Mike installed "down riggers", "fish finders", "trolling" equipment, and rod holders on our boat. It was not a huge investment as Dave used "eBay" to get a lot of the equipment second hand. But it was great for Dave to have the company of Mike to help install all of it. Mike also offered to share some of the costs even though it was all installed on our boat. I guess he knew he would be our main fishing buddy! I call us the
"three musketeers"(of fishing that is....)!!

When fishing for Salmon we use "down riggers" which are in essence a small apparatus that holds the fishing pole line to a line with a weight on it ,so you can lower the line down into the water at different depths to fish, usually anywhere from 50-120 feet). Then you watch the lines to see if the pole tip snaps, which means a fish is biting and the line releases from the down rigger so you can reel it in by hand. Reeling in is quite a thrill and sometimes a 15 minute test of strength. Dave had to buy me a fishing belt with a "pole holder" on it, as it helped me handle the reel in better. I have had a few hip bruises in the past before wearing the belt as I rested the pole on my hip to manage the reel in. We did learn to sometimes when possible, to turn off the motor rather than leave in on low to help release the line a bit to make it easier to pull it in but this can also tangle up the rest of the lines and you can miss catching other fish. You can ask my daughters how difficult it is to reel in a big fish..it is surprising how much strength it can take! Sometimes the lines tangle a bit in the waves or when turning the boat while trolling a low speeds but usually this works fine and you can even "stack" the down rigger with two lines each on a calm day to give you more lines out to fish. Dave and Mike know how to attach the lours called "flashers"to the lines and the lines to the down riggers and then lower them in to specific depths , i just drive the boat a low speeds while they set up the lines( i am fine with this definition of duties as driving is the easiest job for sure!!).Sometimes we do not use down riggers and just run lines on the top of the water with different lours called "Yellow Birds" or "Dipsey Divers"that float or bob on the top of the water but the down riggers work best for us i think.

We have been fishing for about three summers now but this summer i missed most of the season, as busy with family events and volunteers work. Dave however got to the island to fish a few more times than me ,once with his brother John from Milwaukee, with some co-workers from Illinois and Mike of course. Next summer I AM going to make it an effort to get up to the island to fish more as i really missed that relaxing time on the Lake. I wish we would have logged all the fish we have caught each summer , that would have been fun. I think our biggest fish was caught was this year at 18#. They can get much bigger than that, but boy oh boy, that size is huge to me and fills up the length our cooler on the boat, making for annice number of salmon fillets when cleaned.

The funniest experience we ever had Salmon fishing or series of mishaps i should say, was one day when we were coming in to park the boat at the town pier over night at Jackson Harbor. Sometimes we park it at the pier if we will be doing multiple days of fishing to save us launching it each day. It is relatively inexpensive to do so, although not that big a deal to take it out and drive the 5 min back to the house either. We were pulling up to the pier and Dave asked me to jump out and catch the pier to tie up. I have done this hundreds of times but usually at the launch pier with is much lower. Well i took a leap up but realized it was much higher from the boat to the pier and difficult to get around the down rigger and fell back towards the water grabbing onto a fishing pole in the pole holder on that side of the boat. It broke off the pole and in the water i went. Now this was very very lucky as the pier is cement and i could have easily hit it with my arm or head when falling in...as this all happened in seconds. Luckily there were not too many people around to watch my "circus act"...he he ...and i was fine, just laughing with embarrassment. Unfortunately however, I had broken off the pole tip with an expensive fishing lour. The water was too murky from the boats motor stirring it up as we parked but later that day we came back and Dave decided he would try to dive for the lour as the water by the pier was not very deep and we could actually see it sitting on the bottom of the lake right next to the boat. However when Dave dove for it, he scratched his arm on the submerged part of the pier on the way up after retrieving the lour and the pier had a host of "Zebra Muscles" with razor sharp shells attached to it. So Dave ended up with a very nasty, bleeding, 8 inch cut on his arm. To this day he has a scar to show off this escapade. I managed to put some butterfly-like bandages on it but he probably should have had some stitches in hind site. Oh well one of those goofy things that can happen so fast when boating.

Dave and I have a strong respect for the power of Lake Michigan and always check the weather radio before deciding to go out to fish. Storms can come up quickly and dangerous height waves can make boating even a short distance difficult. Fishing isn't all that good in the waves anyway as it is difficult to watch your lines and pull in a fish.We have had a few experiences where a dark purple storm sky was on the far horizon across the Lake, but managed to reach us in about 15 minutes, where we just made it back in to the closest pier in the nick of time!!You have to respect the Lake to have safe boating experience on Lake Michigan and constant monitor any questionable weather on the boat weather radio. Most of our fishing is only 10-15 min off shore from the launch so we are pretty protected, but we still always listen to the lake forecast before deciding to fish or not and in questionable weather conditions arise while boating.

The most glorious experience we ever had fishing was when we were fishing off Rock Island, one of our favorite spots to fish. We had caught a few large Salmon when we pulled up a much smaller one and decided to throw it back into the Lake. So Dave threw it out behind the boat up into the air a bit and lo and behold an EAGLE flew off the shore of Rock island and managed to swoop down just in tome to catch it and fly back to shore with it. We could hardly believe our eyes as it all happened so fast and none of us had seen the Eagle on the shoreline. I knew that one or two Eagles are spotted on Rock Island now and then but had never seen one up close or in action like that. The amazing beauty of nature.....what a blessing to catch a glimpse of this.

Salmon fishing on Lake Michigan is one of the most relaxing and enjoyable ways we spend time on the Lake now and it has added greatly to our enjoyment of the summer on Washington Island.