Daver
PMA Member
Our family went on our first ever Lake Michigan salmon fishing expedition this past weekend. The morning started a little early for my wife’s liking. ZZZZZZZZZZ (Good thing she never reads these posts!!)
My youngest son started snapping pictures of the sunrise right off.
Another scenery shot…
But we came to fish, not to look at the planets!
Alrighty now, the first fish is on and Mark is all smiles for the camera!
A little fuzzy, but Mark boated our first salmon and had a good smile, so the pic makes it!
A short time later, John has a hook up and the fight is on again.
After about a 10 minute fight another nice one is on board!
Next fish is Mark again…
After a pretty good tussle, another nice fish is in the boat and everybody is happy!
John waiting for the next fish…
And a few minutes later, it is on…only this fish had other ideas. It was quite a struggle and involved getting tangled in two downriggers and two or three other lines. It was a wild scene and the crew showed their experience in keeping this fish on the line, but in the end…
...the good guys won and the biggest fish of the day came on board!
We decided the next fish would be my wife’s, so she watched with interest…
While the rest of us, ahem, diligently watched with her…
I awoke with a start when someone yelled “man overboard”! Except that the call was really “fish on”! Whew! That was a close one!
Uh-oh, this is a little more work than she bargained for…John had to help her get the “fighting belt” on, mid fight!
But fight she did…until her arms got tired and Mark had to help hold the pole up!
But in time, the fish came aboard and…
Regina proudly showed the fish…that she says she caught all by herself!
Heading back to shore, our lookout maintained his perch while the crew cleaned the fish.
In what seemed like 30 seconds!
The catch of the day…
One final pic dockside…
All in all, a very fun day and while the fishing was a little slower than what apparently is the norm for this time of the year, we had a great time and I will definitely be going back. The captain said that a big storm the previous week had blown out of the NE and stacked up too much warm water on the west side of the lake and also made the water like chocolate milk for a few days. Fishing was slow all week and things are just now starting to get back to better fishing.
Our boat was communicating with several other boats in the area and it sounded like our 5 fish were as good as anyone else did, several boats were skunked apparently during the early morning session. We lost 3 fish for various reasons and came home with a nice amount of fresh salmon, which is quite delicious!
My youngest son started snapping pictures of the sunrise right off.
Another scenery shot…
But we came to fish, not to look at the planets!
Alrighty now, the first fish is on and Mark is all smiles for the camera!
A little fuzzy, but Mark boated our first salmon and had a good smile, so the pic makes it!
A short time later, John has a hook up and the fight is on again.
After about a 10 minute fight another nice one is on board!
Next fish is Mark again…
After a pretty good tussle, another nice fish is in the boat and everybody is happy!
John waiting for the next fish…
And a few minutes later, it is on…only this fish had other ideas. It was quite a struggle and involved getting tangled in two downriggers and two or three other lines. It was a wild scene and the crew showed their experience in keeping this fish on the line, but in the end…
...the good guys won and the biggest fish of the day came on board!
We decided the next fish would be my wife’s, so she watched with interest…
While the rest of us, ahem, diligently watched with her…
I awoke with a start when someone yelled “man overboard”! Except that the call was really “fish on”! Whew! That was a close one!
Uh-oh, this is a little more work than she bargained for…John had to help her get the “fighting belt” on, mid fight!
But fight she did…until her arms got tired and Mark had to help hold the pole up!
But in time, the fish came aboard and…
Regina proudly showed the fish…that she says she caught all by herself!
Heading back to shore, our lookout maintained his perch while the crew cleaned the fish.
In what seemed like 30 seconds!
The catch of the day…
One final pic dockside…
All in all, a very fun day and while the fishing was a little slower than what apparently is the norm for this time of the year, we had a great time and I will definitely be going back. The captain said that a big storm the previous week had blown out of the NE and stacked up too much warm water on the west side of the lake and also made the water like chocolate milk for a few days. Fishing was slow all week and things are just now starting to get back to better fishing.
Our boat was communicating with several other boats in the area and it sounded like our 5 fish were as good as anyone else did, several boats were skunked apparently during the early morning session. We lost 3 fish for various reasons and came home with a nice amount of fresh salmon, which is quite delicious!
