In the words of Paul Harvey:
How I think I remember it;
I went with my wife, daughter and parents to Mackinac Island for a family day trip. We left at 5:00am and got back at 10:30pm.
Got unloaded from that excellent endeavor and grabbed what I thought I would need for my next adventure.
Dan pulled in to my folks driveway at 11:00pm. We blasted off with an icechest full of beverages and high hopes to Meet Gabe. Gabe is the fellow that is the winner of fishing guide of the month and a real strong candidate for guide of the year in my opinion. He said that there were a handful of truly 'money' spots and that if we got there early enough we should catch fish so long as the migration hadn't moved on yet. So we arranged to meet at 3:00 am in Kalamazoo.
Swung by East Lansing for Dan to get his fishing gear and drove to K-zoo we had decided to get the the meeting spot and nap rather than nap then drive. Pulled into the assigned park and meet location, put the pillows behind our heads and Dan's phone rang, Gabe wanted to know if we were on the road yet...Dan tried his best to sound half asleep and said that we weren't. Listening in the passenger seat I could tell gabe was searching for the nicest words he knew to say that we were screwing it up.
It became too funny and Dan and I started laughing and told Gabe to hurry up we were waiting for him. 20 minutes later we were headed towards a river (name omitted as per gabes request) that empties into Lake Michigan.
We put the boat in the water at 4:30am and slowly slid up river. Gabe picked out a few landmarks and we were on the spot. We pulled up to within 10-15 yards of a creek mouth and in the moonlight we could see fish splashing in the water. We threw spinnerbaits and some flies at them. They weren't hungry but could be convinced to give the bait the teeth if provoked adequately.
When a steelhead (a large migratory rainbow trout) was hooked they exploded into action shooting left and right pulling drag about like a spanish mackeral does. However if their frantic flight took them toward the boat or the tree down in the water they would jump. We had several jump three or four feet out of the water, several hookups were lost with this maneuver but not too many.
We had the first two fish in the boat before the sun was really up. The limit is three steelhead each and after Dan cranked the last one in we checked the watches. Everyone took a guess at what time they would say, most estimates were around noon...Really it was 9:05am. We started to stow the gear for the drive home and it started to rain. It was raining steadily as we pulled the boat onto boat ramp.
As we were pulling the boat out of the water I told my brother. This is what is feels It, we won....To which Dan replied this isn't winning, this is marching over land you have already conquered.
We cleaned the nine fish. I didn't have a ruler but the icechest Dan and I brought was 30 inches wide and the fish stuck out each end. Each one a solid 10 pounds of fish, several better but none that would make the 'pig' classification of 14 pounds. I took a photo of the carnage at this point to show the variation in the colors from green and silver to nearly black and silver with a bit of pink along the middle but in the pic they just looked grey.
And now you know the rest of the Story...
I went with my wife, daughter and parents to Mackinac Island for a family day trip. We left at 5:00am and got back at 10:30pm.
Got unloaded from that excellent endeavor and grabbed what I thought I would need for my next adventure.
Dan pulled in to my folks driveway at 11:00pm. We blasted off with an icechest full of beverages and high hopes to Meet Gabe. Gabe is the fellow that is the winner of fishing guide of the month and a real strong candidate for guide of the year in my opinion. He said that there were a handful of truly 'money' spots and that if we got there early enough we should catch fish so long as the migration hadn't moved on yet. So we arranged to meet at 3:00 am in Kalamazoo.
Swung by East Lansing for Dan to get his fishing gear and drove to K-zoo we had decided to get the the meeting spot and nap rather than nap then drive. Pulled into the assigned park and meet location, put the pillows behind our heads and Dan's phone rang, Gabe wanted to know if we were on the road yet...Dan tried his best to sound half asleep and said that we weren't. Listening in the passenger seat I could tell gabe was searching for the nicest words he knew to say that we were screwing it up.
It became too funny and Dan and I started laughing and told Gabe to hurry up we were waiting for him. 20 minutes later we were headed towards a river (name omitted as per gabes request) that empties into Lake Michigan.
We put the boat in the water at 4:30am and slowly slid up river. Gabe picked out a few landmarks and we were on the spot. We pulled up to within 10-15 yards of a creek mouth and in the moonlight we could see fish splashing in the water. We threw spinnerbaits and some flies at them. They weren't hungry but could be convinced to give the bait the teeth if provoked adequately.
When a steelhead (a large migratory rainbow trout) was hooked they exploded into action shooting left and right pulling drag about like a spanish mackeral does. However if their frantic flight took them toward the boat or the tree down in the water they would jump. We had several jump three or four feet out of the water, several hookups were lost with this maneuver but not too many.
We had the first two fish in the boat before the sun was really up. The limit is three steelhead each and after Dan cranked the last one in we checked the watches. Everyone took a guess at what time they would say, most estimates were around noon...Really it was 9:05am. We started to stow the gear for the drive home and it started to rain. It was raining steadily as we pulled the boat onto boat ramp.
As we were pulling the boat out of the water I told my brother. This is what is feels It, we won....To which Dan replied this isn't winning, this is marching over land you have already conquered.
We cleaned the nine fish. I didn't have a ruler but the icechest Dan and I brought was 30 inches wide and the fish stuck out each end. Each one a solid 10 pounds of fish, several better but none that would make the 'pig' classification of 14 pounds. I took a photo of the carnage at this point to show the variation in the colors from green and silver to nearly black and silver with a bit of pink along the middle but in the pic they just looked grey.
And now you know the rest of the Story...
posted by steven-hoffman | 6:15 PM
5 Comments:
The huge variety of colors was said to be due to the variations in the hatchery of origin and the length of time they have been in the river as opposed to the big lake. The darker ones were called Skamanias Steelhead and were stocked out of Indiana. We saw one with a notched adipose fin meening it was from Wisconsin. The one that was really bright green backed was a newcomer to the river, fresh in from the lake.
In searching for the spelling of skamanias I found a site that talked about fishing them in indiana. THey called them "silver rockets"
I would have to agree
Sounds like yall had a hell of a time. Added a new species to your new tally list too I assume? Well I got nothing to compair to that but when me and Scooter went up to PA last week, I added two to my list aswell; Northern Pike and Walleye. Nothing too big, the pike was about 26" and the walleye was 16". Also caught some yellow perch, not new to me but an "exotic" from my latitude of reference. I believe Woody notched a few new species in his belt durring the same timeframe, however I'll let him tell the story if he ever decides to type.
Sounds like yall had a hell of a time. Added a new species to your new tally list too I assume? Well I got nothing to compair to that but when me and Scooter went up to PA last week, I added two to my list aswell; Northern Pike and Walleye. Nothing too big, the pike was about 26" and the walleye was 16". Also caught some yellow perch, not new to me but an "exotic" from my latitude of reference. I believe Woody notched a few new species in his belt durring the same timeframe, however I'll let him tell the story if he ever decides to type.
Don't they have cameras in PA?
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