On Sunday, some of my older kids and their girl friends, along with my mother and wife’s mother went for a ride to Manitou Island for the afternoon. Surprisingly, at least to me, nobody wanted to fish, but fishing was part of my mission for the day. I was prepared to fish myself, but My wife, Margaret volunteered to come along. It was just a short stint of 1 hour, because after catching 2 lake trout, I got snagged up twice and lost interest. I don’t have any pictures, but they were 3 and 4 lbs.
Monday and Tuesday were off days so we spent one day in Marquette and the other doing maintenance.
On Wednesday, I we did a bumpy charter with 2 guys and 2 gals from the Green Bay area, Packer fans of course. Nobody got sick, but we bounced around a lot. The water was actually more friendly than the weather men predicted. 8 Lake Trout were boated and released 1, came home with 7. Lynn was the winner of the “largest fish” contest between the party, as she caught a 5.5 lb laker. Lynn and husband Henry also had a double header and landed both.
The next day, Thursday, I brought out a father and son from the south eastern farming country of Minnesota. Fishing was a little slow and difficult with the winds causing some releases and a few tangles. We fished with few lines and short leads behind the trolling balls, but still had some trouble with them. Our take-home was 1 coho and 3 lake trout, but also released 3 small lakers. The Coho was the first boated fish, not too far off of Bare Bluff in 95 feet of water. I thought we’d pick up more coho, but no such luck. After that, we headed out to 150 to 200 feet after lakers, since the lake seemed to settle down slightly, where most of the rest of the fish were caught.
It looks like Saturdays charter will be postponed due the the high winds coming… up to 50 mph winds. Well, I that’s the life of a charter boat captain!
See the Gallery page for more pictures.
Brian Helminen
