I can’t believe it’s almost been a week since I posted a fishing up-date.
When so much time goes by, it’s hard to remember names and details of each day.
On Monday, my mother joined us on a cruise to Manitou and Gull Rock Lighthouses with a couple from the Greater Chicago area who were vacationing at 8 Mile Lodge for 2 weeks. My hope and plan was to see the lighthouses, then drop a line or two near Manitou to pull up a lake trout or two. As it turned out, Jim got sick on rough seas, so I did not even suggest that we fish for a little while. We just went in near Bear Bluff where it was calm to get some pictures up close. We returned without even wetting a line. Oh well.
In the evening, I fished for coho salmon for a little while with no luck.
Tuesday, I spent the morning on the water with a young couple from Missouri. Baker, Shawna and her hubby John the delivery man, who delivers metal building packages, caught 2 nice salmon and two lake trout to take home with them.
Thursday morning, I got to see the sun-rise by myself as I set out early to seek coho salmon. The fishing was un-productive though.
Wednesday and part of Thursday were spent doing mid season maintenance and changing the out-drive oil on the Fishin’ Mission. We launched with the help of General Motors drive train engineer Joe on Thursday evening, then fished Lac La Belle with Jim and his two boys Ryan and Jake aboard the “Helm-n-Buoys”. They missed a couple of Small Mouth Bass before we headed in with NO fish. I guess you could call this my first skunk EVER with paying customer. Nevertheless, Jim said he will come back again next summer for another charter. At least they learned some fishing techniques for bass.
`Thursday evening we set out at 3 pm for more lake trout fishing with Jim and Diana and 3 lovely daughters, Kirsty, Noel and Loren and, sorry to say, at the time of this writing I forgot the son’s name. Margie would say my mind was distracted by the girls. Anyway, we came in with 1 coho and 6 lakers. My camera was dead after only one photo (below) so I’m hoping they remember to email photos. In this one, Kirsty would not even touch the fish she caught, so I had to hold it for her.
Today, Saturday, long-time business owner Joe (40 years in selling and servicing office machines) and his two sons showed up early in the hopes of bringing a fish or two home.
We struck pay dirt with a small 2.5 lb laker after just 30 seconds (as entrepreneur Branden said)and another 10 minutes later to set the tone for the morning. It did not play out quite like that for the rest of time, but we did manage to bring in 8 fish, including one 9 lb lake trout. As Joe said… “a darn good morning.”
Next week I have a trip to Stannard Rock Lighthouse, Huron Island, Granite Island, Manitou Island Light, Gull Rock and Mendota, so I’m hoping for good weather.
Brian Helminen
