Last Boat Trip of 2014

Tim's new best brown trout

Dad with a nice rainbow trout

Headed out to the Milwaukee Harbor for one last boat trip before it gets too cold for me to enjoy being on soft water.

Together we boated about 7 fish (I only caught one) and lost about a dozen more boat side .  Tim lost a real nice fish after a pretty substantial fight.

We were primarily using 4" White Gulp Minnows on 1/4 oz jigs while also dead sticking small spawn sacs over the side of the boat.

The bigger fish definitely prefer the Gulp.

Water temp was 35 degrees.  Air temp not much higher.

Cool view while fishing

I FINALLY CAUGHT SOMETHING DECENT ON LAKE MICHIGAN!

Did not handle the fish enough to weigh or
measure, but this is my personal best brown trout
(for now...)

We braved the cold to fish Lake Michigan today.  Tried a variety of techniques.  Trolling would have been by far the most successful technique, but I am bored by trolling,  so we went and started casting jigs and gulp.

We had a great time today, landing well over 15 fish.  For a little while we were getting hits every minute or so.

Besides the jigs and gulp, we also caught fish dead sticking spawn sacs over the side of the boat.

After no fewer than 8 trips down to Lake Michigan without catching a fish, I am pretty confident I am starting to learn what is necessary to be successful.  It turns out, you can't learn a body of water this immense in 8 trips.

I now realize that Tim's trout looks substantially larger than mine...Tim dropped the ball with photography today :(

Tim caught a lot of brownies today, and while this one
did not fight as much as it should have, it was a
beautiful fish.

You may ask yourself...what on earth is this picture...
It is Tim and Eric Haajata with what can only be
described as a big ass gizzard shad.

October 10 - 12 @ St. Germain, WI

I am pretty confident this is my personal best walleye!
Didn't weigh it, but it was heavy...and ~25" long.

This is Tim's best walleye to date
at ~18"+

Spent a couple of days up in St. Germain, WI...again, staying at the St. Germain Lodge.  As I have mentioned before, if you are looking for a great fishing trip, only 4 hours from Milwaukee, I highly recommend checking out St. Germain and the St. Germain Lodge.

Again, here is a link to the lodge: CLICK FOR LINK

This was really my first FALL walleye trip, so I was not totally sure where to catch them.  I got some good info from YouTube (man you can learn anything there) but the tips I got simply sitting at Fibbers (the bar at St. Germain Lodge) is what made the fishing trip.

We found fish between 15-28 ft of water over hard bottom.  To catch them, we simply dragged 4" walleye suckers behind a small bell sinker and a single gold hook.  We tried other things, and some fish came on fatheads and jigs, but the sucker/gold hook combo was by far most effective.

John may have lost his muskie, but he did
land this 30" pike.

Lake Michigan - Part One of Many

On September 20th I took a charter boat out on Lake Michigan with Carly and our friends Nicole and Travis.

While it was beautiful out and we caught 7 brown trout, fishing from a charter boat just isn't the same as fishing on your own and catching them with rod in hand.

Travis is pictured here with a nice brown at about 8 pounds.  While it is a gorgeous fish and no doubt did not just submit to being caught, a combination of the planer board and the force of the moving boat made the fish feel more like a plastic bag in the water than a powerful fish.

If you are looking to hang out on a boat and have a nice time with your friends without having to do anything but reel in fish, a charter is for you...but if you want the pride of finding your own fish, and the excitement of catching them on light tackle, you may find that you will be disappointed.

That being said, I did learn a lot from our guides and I got a good feel for the Milwaukee Harbor...enough so that I will feel comfortable taking a boat out there myself.

September and October appear to be the time of year when the King Salmon are in the harbor on their way to spawning grounds.  This makes it a great time to fish from shore or from a small boat.  In the next few days, I plan to hit the harbor hard from shore, then from boat to catch some salmon on my own.

I am guessing I will not have a ton of success right away, but I am pretty sure this will be my new fishing passion.

Below is a video of the type of fishing I can't wait to learn.

August Minnow Fishing

Are you tired of catching little fish?  Now is a great time of year to pick up a dozen shiners, chubs, or suckers and drag them along the deep weed edges.  For muskies, you would need some 12" suckers or larger, but for bass, pike, and walleyes, 5-6" bait works great.

The bass pictured here were caught on Okauchee Lake with suckers.

Carly's northern pike was caught casting and slowly retrieving a 6" sucker in Portage.

The walleye pictured is one of the first walleyes I have caught on Lac LaBelle in Oconomowoc.  I caught 4 more like it up to 17" using a 5" chub in 9 feet of water.

The bluegill pictured was caught under a pontoon boat in Portage in about 10' of water.  The gills on the lake I was fishing seem to have moved out of their deep water summer haunts, and back to break lines.  This one is probably the biggest gill I have ever caught.  It is 9.75" on the tape measure and was thicker across the back than any bluegill I have seen.

Anyway, this is it for summertime fishing. I have never been much good at fall time fishing, but I am hoping to turn that around this year.

Winnebago Perch are on FIRE!

Dad with his personal best
catfish...we estimate it at 20 lbs.
The scale was not functioning.

48 keepers on the day.

Dad with one of the bigger
gills I have seen in some time

  Spent Saturday out on Winnebago's, east side doing some perch and walleye fishing.  Never found any walleyes greater than 10", but we did find our way into some spectacular perch fishing.  It has been a while since I have decided that I was tired of catching big perch, but Saturday was that day.

Unlike the previous time out, the fish were NOT in the 11 foot range...rather they had moved out into 13 feet.

To find them, I recommend starting shallow and slowly drifting deep until you get some bites...then when you find some active fish, anchor and try a variety of methods.

Travis with his personal best
perch.  ~11"

The bait of the day again was a red worm on a plain gold hook.  This technique out fished all others by at least 3:1.

Dad took the multi species crown today (as well as the perch crown).  His giant catfish in the upper left was caught on his ultralight and bit a small piece of worm under a slip bobber in about 11.5 feet of water.

All in all, great trip.

I have preached catch and release in my previous posts, and I realize this is my second post in a row with fish being kept.  All previous fish were consumed during a family fish fry and the 48 kept here were divided amongst three families.

First Week of August...Bass and Perch

 My first fishing trip in August was a brief evening excursion with my brother Tim.  We spent most of our time drifting the 17 foot break line with 6" suckers...when that failed to catch anything but a medium sized pike, we anchored in 10 feet of water and casted our suckers to the weed edge and let them swim around on their own.

Eventually, the line would shoot out and you would have a fish.  We caught a few nice bass this way, but a fairly violent thunderstorm chased us off.

On August 4, my dad and I went out on Winnebago to try for some perch.  We did terribly on our last two trips out on the west side of the lake, so we changed it up and headed off of the east side.

Perch fishing is extremely relaxing, as perch like the bait to be completely still.  This means that the best two ways to fish them are 1) with slip bobbers and 2) simply dropping your bait next to the boat and holding it still.

Dad's 12" Winnebago Perch

While this is relaxing, it is also very frustrating when you are not getting bit.

All fish were caught between 11.2 feet and 11.4 feet of water. Anything else, and you were assured to catch nothing but sheepshead.

Also, despite the hundreds of dollars I have spent over the years on different baits, the most productive bait today was a single #6 gold hook with a red worm or chunk of crawler.

We took home 21 perch and one small walleye.  All perch were between 8 and 12" with the majority being in the 9" range.

I am quite excited for tomorrow's fish fry.