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WCNC BLOG |
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October 2009
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I don't know what sounds worse: I'll be a half-century old, I'm turning five decades old or I'm just plain old 50. The only good part about turning the big 5-0 is that it seems to be OK to celebrate a little extra and maybe that's because people feel sorry for you.
One way I celebrated was to go salmon fishing with my two brothers -- Paul, who's 55, and Tom, 52. The plan was to make the 1 1/2 hour trip from Tom's house in a northwest suburb of Chicago to Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Harbor. During late September and October salmon from Lake Michigan start to move into area harbors and rivers on their spawning run. We will be using small chunks of King salmon and Coho salmon spawn or eggs suspended 5 to 9 feet below a float. The night before the trip the winds started to pick up and the temperatures started to fall. Overnight, wind gusted to 40 mph and the temperature dropped to a chilly 44 degrees. Needless to say, we were not very optimistic about our chances to catch fish on our trip. After buying our Wisconsin fishing license online we left the house around 6 a.m. The winds started to let up and were down to about 15 mph. The skies were cloudy and the forecast was for clearing skies. We reached the harbor at 7:30 a.m., loaded the boat with fishing tackle and were at our spot and fishing by 8 o'clock. We became more optimistic about our chances when we saw fish surfacing in the harbor. Within the first 10 minutes Paul hooked a nice size king salmon but after a quick jump, the fish threw the hook. Five minutes later Paul was into another salmon. This one was a brown, hooked jawed, 15-pound fish. This fish we landed and released it after taking pictures. About a half-hour later, my bobber took off and soon I was fighting a big female salmon. Even with the drag set fairly tight the fish pulled my line around a large boat dock support pole and I was afraid of losing the brute. I kept the line tight and eventually I was able to pull the fish back to the boat. This fish weighted more than 15 pounds. We kept this fish because it was loaded with more spawn to be used on the next fishing trip, plus smoke salmon also tastes pretty good. During the next three hours we caught two more nice size salmon and lost five more. Just as we started to call it a day and bring in our lines, I hooked the biggest fish of the day. Ten to 15 minutes later, we netted a 20-pound Chinook salmon. At the same time Paul hooked a fish, this one a silver colored rainbow trout. We ended up catching six fish and losing six more. It was a lot of action for just five hours of fishing. We caught all these fish while seeing only five other boats that day and I'm sure the cold weather had something to do with it. On our way back to the boat launch we met up with Tom's son, Robbie, who was fishing for these monsters from his Hobie fishing kayak. All by himself and in the kayak, my nephew caught five fish and lost a few more. I would have liked to see that. My brother Tom runs Tom's Taxidermy in the Chicago area and is planning on mounting the 20-pound King salmon. I know it will look great above the fireplace. Wisconsin fishing license $15, fishing rod and reel $85, fishing with my brothers on my birthday....Priceless! Click here for more photos from the trip 4 CommentsLeave a comment |
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN,sorry I did not get to see you
a GREAT DAY for YOU AND YOUR BROTHERS,very well put
Tony
Happy 50th John,
and WOW what a catch, sounds like you enjoyed your birthday and time with your brothers. good to hear.
take care
love marcia and bill
Happy Belated Birthday Johnny. Sounds like you had a great day !
Patti
It was a great time and we all still have hair on our heads! Great narrative of the day. For the record, I think I hooked the biggest fish but for some strange reason the line decided to rupture at a most inopportune time. We lost the float, but because of that, we watched the fish navigate the area as we could see the red and white float 10 inches below the surface.