Great Lakes Documentary : Waterlife : Trailer

Enjoy this trailer for a documentary that will come out soon.  It sounds like it does the grandeur of the great lakes justice, as well as inform thoroughly of the impending consequences of our actions in the region.



Waterlife, Enjoy.

Southeastern Wisconsin Coho Salmon Report

The recent rain has not only brought a torrent of water, but a torrent of Coho Salmon into the tributaries as well.  I predicted this would happen Sunday or Monday after those rains, and suspicions have been confirmed by this report by friend of the Great Lakes Angler at Illinois Wisconsin Fishing.  The link to the blog is on the right bar there, go take a look!

Have a look at his report for proof!

Milwaukee Area Salmon Fishing Report : 10/23/2010

The Salmon season is grinding to a close in South-Eastern Wisconsin and though there are still a few Kings left to be caught, many of them are circling the drain and will not be around for long.

Today I got out with a friend Matt who, until today, has never caught a Salmon.  The day started with a blanket of much needed rain.  Matt and I both got off to a bad start with 2 missed fish each, 1 break off and 3 missed hook sets due to distraction.   As the dawn bite faded it took with it our hopes of a fast and furious day of catching.  The morning went on and things slowed to a near stop as all fishermen had ceased catching Salmon at the location we were fishing, I hiked around the harbor on a scouting mission and found a huge school of playful Kings that I hoped would produce a fish.  We relocated and got set up.  It wasn't 5 minutes before Matt hooked his first Salmon ever.  It took his float down, made a run out in front of us, then made a line for the lake, it wasn't until a load of drag screaming and about 200 feet of line later until the fish stopped running.  It took Matt 15-20 minutes to coax the beautiful female King Salmon to shore where I promptly netted it and got it ready for a photo shoot with Matt.  Just as we were releasing it I remembered our proximity to the harbor scale so we made the 15 second jog and weighed her.  Just a hair over 17 pounds!  A trophy of a first King.

Matt was then off to an appointment, he had in the city.  I nabbed some lunch, scouted Oak Creek, which was looking dismal, and returned to the harbor.  I found the discharge flowing quite nicely from the rain that was coming down and immediately hooked a nice King, from there on out things were slow again, with a hook up here and there.

First Steelhead of the year, this thing jumped so many times, I think it may have actually spent more time in the air than during the water during the fight!


One of the real highlights of the day was meeting a fellow named Woody and his son Trevor.  They had come to visit Milwaukee from Madison for the day and were hoping to do some fishing elsewhere but had been thwarted by some circumstances that didn't allow them to get out.  Trevor, a 3rd grader who really wanted to fish, had his rod in the car. His dad got it, I rigged him up from my own gear, got a good chunk of Skein on his hook, and had him in the water in no time!  It wasn't too long before my own float went down.  I set the hook and nabbed Trevor's rod and traded it for my own!  The little guy fought this 12-13 pound king for 20 minutes before he was finally able to get it to the wall for me to net it.  He was exhausted from the fight and absolutely beaming with joy, the fish was almost as big as he was!  Incredible.  All in all a good end for me to the fall King Salmon run.  28 Kings this fall makes it my best fall ever!  I really learned harbor fishing better this fall as the Milwaukee River, Oak Creek, and the Root River were all but unfishable during the peak of the season.

Trevor and his father, great team work men!

Grand Rapids Michigan Salmon Fishing Report : 10/7/10

While working in Grand Rapids this week I made sure to make it down to the fish ladder and falls on the grand river, get some photographs, and talk with some of the fishermen.  It would seem that numbers of King Salmon, Coho, and Steelhead have made it to the base of the dam.  They are not, however, there in large numbers.  One or two fish jump up a section of the fish ladder every 5 or 10 minutes and some are very small stockers.  Spawn sacs fished on river rigs on the bottom took all the fish I saw caught, and most came from the first 50 feet below the falls. 

Fishing pressure is moderate during the early morning hours, light during the day, and then heavy at dusk and just after dark.  Some very silver Coho and Steelhead are at the falls, but darker King Salmon outnumber those by a great deal.  I talked to a couple of fishermen who say they have walked entire lengths of streams up-river and have not even seen fish moving up river.

A detail of the fish ladder.

Artprize is happening in Grand Rapids and there are many pieces of publicly displayed art along the river walk and all over town, so if you're in the city to fish before Sunday, be sure to take a walk and see some of the art.  There is even a Sturgeon peice at the fish ladder.

Fish were hopping up while I was there, but I wasn't able to capture one with the camera phone.

Here are a couple of views of the river from a higher vantage point.  The river is very low and fairly clear, it seems as though a bit of rain wouldn't hurt fishing in Lower Michigan, the same as in Lower Wisconsin.

Milwaukee Area Salmon Fishing Report : 10/02/2010

Any Salmon fisherman knows that in order to catch a salmon it requires at least some degree of knowledge of the fish, it takes time spent on the water, and it takes luck.  Put those three together, and in time you'll hook one and at least get to battle with it, weather it breaks your line or not, well that's up to you.  Some days it takes more of one than the other.  If you really study how the fish work you can make a very educated guess to where and why Salmon are where they are, and because of this you'll catch a fish that day while others don't.  Some days it takes hours, just casting and casting as the hours pass, and eventually some lone fish decides enough is enough and hits your bait.  The final ingredient is luck, and this is a tricky one.  Some days you just get lucky and the fish just so happen to be where you are, and you just so happen to want to catch them.

Yesterday, two friends and I had all three of these things in abundance.

It turned out to be a day of such volume and magnitude of fish that I'm not sure I've heard of a day like it.

My of fishing started with a stop at Oak Creek, which is running very low, clear, and as far as I can tell is empty at the moment.  Rain will pick things up, and we need it bad.  At this point my knowledge of Salmon started to kick in.  My reasoning in my next move is as follows.  Since it is now October and we've been rain free for more than 2 weeks now the fish have got to be around in number in the harbor.  There are 4 harbors in my range however... so which one should I pick? Well I know that the only source of moving water in range is the Milwaukee River, which is actually running at a reasonable flow, not a flow great enough to push fish into the system, but for this time of year, it's running at an average rate.  So Milwaukee it is, now where in the harbor should I try for these Salmon in broad daylight.  Well... if there are hundreds of Salmon in the harbor waiting for a torrent of moving water where can you find them?  Well the night before last we had a brief downpour in the region, not enough to make the rivers swell, but probably enough to get the discharge near McKinley Marina flowing at least a bit.  So that would be my destination in hopes that a little trickle of water would draw in fish, fish that hopefully would be willing to bite on chunks of Salmon skein that I happened to have in my car, just in case the situation came up.

I pulled my car up, there were 3 fishermen there.  One had a fish on, good sign.  As it was netted I walked up,  said nice fish, I then moved around the other two fishermen to claim my spot on the railing.  As I put down my stuff one turned to me and said "TOM!", it was my friend Keith, who I had fished with the night before in Racine. Mike was there as well, I asked if they had and fish, and sure enough, Mike had caught a fresh, silver Coho, which was on the pavement behind us.  I asked how long they had been here, they replied only 15 minutes.  Hopes were high at this point.

The next 6 hours may be the best 6 hours of shore Salmon fishing I'll ever experience.  Between the 3 of us we landed 32 fish, were broken off by 7 more, lost 10 more to spit hooks, and had probably 30 hits that we missed.  28 king salmon, 3 Coho, and one Brown Trout.  Absolutely amazing.

To anyone who thinks this years salmon run is already over, there is no other way to put this, you are wrong.  The run is late, and is only just starting.  A warm summer, cool temps near shore in the fall, and a lack of rain have lead to a very slow start and a prolonged run, I will not be surprised if we still see a strong spawning run going into November.

We kept 12 fish, released the rest until the last 3 fish of the night, which we also kept.  All fish except 3 were donated to the fishermen around us who were fishing for food and were not as lucky as us.

We fished cured salmon skein about 3 feet under a float.  That's all there was to it.

Every Once in a Great Great While....

Intuition, time spent, and luck all collide and things are perfect.

In 6 hours we landed 32 salmon and trout from shore, between the 3 of us.  Ended up keeping a 3 handed limit toward the end of the night, all of which was given to fishermen near by that were fishing for food.  I will have a very detailed report later in the day when I sort through these photographs.

$4,000,000 awarded to improve the Kinnickinnick River in Milwaukee

Great news for some habitat restoration in Milwaukee!

Root River Fishing Report : 9/27/2010

An email rolled into my inbox today from someone who I've had the pleasure of talking to a couple of times through emails this year, who I hope to fish with this fall.  He's been making some sly moves on the Root River and you can find some gems of information in his blog.  Fish, though you may have to hike, climb, and search for them, are to be found in the Root River contrary to popular belief.

A great shot of a chrome Steelhead he picked out from between a King Salmon and a Brown Trout last week, you can see the fly in the mouth if you look very closely.

I'd recomend you have a look at his blog if you plan on hitting the South Eastern Wisconsin tributaries soon.

Northern Minnesota Musky

It seems that just when you think you're on some big fish lately an email rolls into your inbox that makes you think.... "man that King Salmon, that huge one that towed your Kayak all over Milwaukee... that thing only weighed half as much as this fish!"

This is a good friend of mine, a relative of my girlfriend, Rich and his 47" Muskie, tipping the scales at right around 30 pounds.  Looks like the weather was beautiful up there this weekend.  Congrats on another epic fish Rich. 

Rich and I have a little competition going for first Walleye from this lake over 10 pounds or 30".  As he said in his email.... "it's not a Walleye"  but it will do!

Milwaukee Area Salmon Fishing Report : Kayak Fishing : 9/26/2010

After a busy week I've finally found time to get a bit of writing in for you all here.  Internet is finally up and running here at adventure headquarters and I expect I'll be doing a bit more posting here.

Last weekend I was able to get out in Milwaukee and land 6 king salmon from my kayak.  A mighty thunderstorm in the morning and heavy overcast skies made for excellent conditions in the harbor.  An influx of fresh runoff coming from the discharge, combined with north winds pushing a good flow into the harbor made for a complex mud-line and mighty currents that whirled in some spots, and just flowed quickly in others.

Whenever I find a good mud-line in/around the harbor I always concentrate on fishing both sides of it heavily as I know bait fish and salmon like to move in and out of the wall of debris in the water.  Last weekend I found the line on the inside of McKinley pier, and began trolling patterns pulling crank baits.  My first fish came on a medium sized bleeding pearl Rapala Tail Dancer.  It came when I was letting line out on my other rod.  I hooked in, held on with one hand and quickly reeled in my second line with the other.  Once I had things together I began gaining line foot by foot, but the fish took several huge runs and started pulling the kayak to the south.  I was in the open harbor just on the south side of Veteran's Park and the fish had miles of open water to move in.  I started with about 50 feet of line out and must have had over 100 out when it took its first jump.  It was silver as they get and I thought it might be a huge brown despite the King like runs it was doing.

These were the first 2 kings of the day, the left, a 16 pound male, very silver. The right, a 15 pound female full of roe.  Still quite silver as well.

After a few more minutes of towing I finally tired it enough to get it boat side, got it on a stringer, and sat back in my seat for a minute, drifting slowly, with my adrenaline pumping.  For the whole time I had the fish on I thought, I can't believe I'm into my first King, this is what I've been waiting for, I hope I don't loose this beautiful thing.

I reset my lines and just 10 minutes later I hooked into a wild fighting, high jumping steelhead that threw the hook after 4 or 5 jumps.

From there on out the action was hot and heavy.  I switched to 2 white crank baits, and for the rest of the day I couldn't keep fish off of the full sized, deep running, wonder-bread reef runner. The pattern that worked the best was getting to full speed (around 2.5 miles an hour), holding that speed for a few minutes, then simply stop paddling except small dips to maintain a vector.  All my hits but one came as my lures (both slow, very wide wobbling lures that hold up at slow speeds) slowed to a crawl and probably started floating up in the water column.

This is another 15 pound female, this puts in scale how huge these fish are compared to the vessel I'm in.  Lots of fun.

I ended the day 6/9 fish landed, with about 8 more hits that shook the rod violently for a second but released before I could get the rod out of it's holder.

The lowlight of the day came when I was lifting a 15 pound female King Salmon out of the water, she slipped and buried a single hook of one of the trebles in my left index finger.  She was attached to me via the hook and thrashing away in the water.  Fortunately I was able to yank it loose (bending the hook about 10 degrees as it pulled from my own flesh).  Ouch.  Needles to say I made a trip to the cleaning station to fillet what I had and to clean out my wound.  I made friends with a fellow fisherman who was landing his boat and politely asked if he might spare a band-aid from a first aid kit in his boat (one of which I now have in my kayak for just such an accident.

In the morning after the rains I stopped by the discharge in the harbor and quickly hooked this beautiful walleye on a thunderstick.  It gave a good hit and I thought I had a Salmon for just a second.  But then, as walleyes usually do, she dragged in like a log and didn't give me much of a fight. Nice to catch such a healthy, fat walleye from Lake Michigan though! She was released right away, despite calls from some other fishermen near by to let them keep it.