King Salmon Fishing, Fall 2011 a Recap

After a brutal summer season of shore King fishing and a pretty lousy start to the spoon bite the night time crank bait action has been nothing short of killer.

I settled in with a lure of choice this fall, and more than 30 kings have been taken on a variety of colors over four outings in Wisconsin over the last month.  The reef runner ripstick 700 series has a perfect wide wobble at slow speeds and runs deep, but not too deep.  There was a lot of learning and tweaking to be done this fall with finessing my setup.  After breaking several lures off I started running a 2-3 foot length of 20 lb. test fluorocarbon to barrel swivel at the end of my braid.  After making this switch I only broke a single fish off at the fluoro.  In addition to a leader I found that changing out the hooks on all reef runners is absolutely essential.  While the eagle claw extra wide gap hooks seem to find a spot to dig in when they get bit, they have an awful track record of bending or breaking off during the long and hard battles with King Salmon.  All hooks are now immediately changed out in favor of something sharper and much more stable such as a 4x hardened VMC size 4 treble.

I started out the year with confidence in reef runners in any color that had a lot of white in it, but as I lost most of those baits I was forced to start using green, yellow, and orange/gold colors and when all is said and done, every single reef runner in my box has taken a king.  Some, such as the one above, have landed hundreds of pounds of kings..

Some nights were better than others, such as this triple limit before the sun even rose.

Or this double limit on a night I landed more than a double limit solo.

After all is said and done what the fall king season really brings is beautiful changing colors, long nights (some calm and peaceful, some cold, windy, and hectic), and good friends furthering their knowledge of this giant freshwater salmon.

This will probably be the end of the all nighters in Wisconsin throwing crank baits.  There is a chance I'll make the trip north once or twice more before the end for some skein fishing.  Crank bait salmon fishing is my favorite time of year for great lakes kings, the action is a little more predictable than summer fishing, and nothing beats 25 pounds of angry king salmon crushing a lure into oblivion while you set the hook and then hang on.

Here's hoping that the brown trout and steelhead runs are half as good as this years army of huge kings.  I now pass the torch to the river fishermen, I won't be taking part in that part of the game this year, I left a few for you.

King Salmon from Shore, Early September 2011

As usual I will apologize for my lack of posts these days.  Perhaps there will be a time when keeping this blog up will make sense in my schedule again, until then I will post only when I have time.

I made it up to a favorite harbor mouth in Wisconsin this week after work to see if any of the big kings were in.  They are, but not in great numbers yet.  The kings are huge this year, I haven't heard of one under 15 pounds yet.  I hooked one and proceded to hold on for dear life as it took me for a drag screaming ride up and down the rocks.  It eventually snapped my line on the rocks near the wall, easily a 20 pound fish, if not more.

It hit at around 10:45 at night, and hit a green/glow K/O wobbler on a steady retrieve near the bottom.  If you put in the time, you'll get your fish this fall. Look for them to concentrate around harbor mouths and become more active when the water temp drops below 60 degrees.  Sorry there are no photographs of the fish I didn't land, I am still playing the fight over and over in my head.  I'll be out this weekend, in the Kayak if wind allows, on shore if it doesn't.  Look for me, and say hello if you happen to see me.

Tom

Milwaukee Area Brown Trout Report : Thanksgiving Weekend

I am lucky enough to find a fishing report in my inbox every now and again submitted from you, the reader.

This one comes from a fellow I met one night after a banner day of Salmon fishing in Milwaukee.  He sent the following:

"I only got out once this week, but it was sure a nice day. Browns are in nicely with some late cohos.  I landed 3 browns, 2 cohos, and missed just as many of both in 4.5 hours of fishing. Didn't see any chrome, but I'm sure they're in there.  Get out while its good!"

Thanks Ying for the great report!  I wish I could get out, I'm burried in work and catching up with things around the apartment after my great western vacation.

Here is Ying and 1 of 5 photos of brown trout he sent me!  Way to go!

Milwaukee Brown Trout and Coho Salmon

More information to come later, but for now, there are browns in the harbor, there are coho in the rivers, and my friends over at the Chicago Trout Bum, seem to have a pretty good bead on where the Steelhead are, even if I can't find them yet!  The guys over at Illinois-Wisconsin Fishing have locked in on the Coho bite so if that's what you're after have a read over there.

Harbor Brown Trout from Saturday the 13th.  This big fella fought like a champ.

A friend, Keith, caught a gorgeous fresh lake run Brown who still had skeins.  Brown trout eggs work the best and early morning and after dark are the best time to target these roaming harbor monsters.

I found some feisty coho in a couple of my favorite spots to fish and found that very small spawn sacs, only containing a couple eggs drifted through pools just down from bedding fish payed out.  I was able to manage 2 coho, this nice female and a fiery male that jumped like crazy.

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.

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.

Lake Michigan Kayak Fishing Report : Salmon and Trout : September 5, 2010

Strong west winds and cool September nights have turned the lake over and has set the wisconsin harbors and river mouths in motion for shore fishermen, and small craft fishermen alike.  Water surface temperatures from the state line all the way up past Milwaukee range from 48 degrees to 53 degrees.  Water inside the Milwaukee harbor runs an average of 55 degrees as of Sunday.

My first time out this fall started at dawn on Sunday morning as I launched my newly fitted Kayak from the beach at the mouth of Pike Creek in Kenosha, where there was a colony of tents and shore fishermen hoping to tie into their first King of the fall.  I did a 2 mile loop, marking an occasional stray fish in the 15 foot deep range.   I kayaked out to 30 feet of water and hooked back to shore, as the other handful of boats out all pulled away one by one to deeper water where more fish could be found.  I wanted to get the Kayak in Milwaukee harbor where I knew more fish would be holding.

I launched from the rocks near the channel head light and set out in calm waters under a blue sky to the middle gap.  I was marking dozens of fish and bait clouds inside the wall of the harbor which dissapted after heading out of the main gap into the lake.  A freighter headed past and sounded its horn as it passed through the channel under the Hoan bridge.

Wind was steadily rising from the south and clouds were moving in.  I made a line to the North gap and began trolling counter clockwise circles through the gap.    At 1:45 p.m. I hooked and landed my first Kayak salmonid.  It was a small but beautiful brown trout.  It hit a Green Dolphin Magnum Stinger spoon behind a dipsy diver in 29 feet of water.   There was 30 feet of line on counter.   As winds had continued to rise I battled across the harbor to my launch point and pulled out and headed south to Racine to meet the crew I salmon fish with, I haven't seen them since the end of Steelhead season in the spring and was looking forward to catching up.  After arriving at the channel head and swapping fish stories from the summer I began casting a jig with a 5" gulp minnow.  A Steelhead had been landed by my friend Mike shortly before my arival.  Another friend Andrew, who runs the fishing website Fishing-Headquarters, which you should all check out, swiftly hooked a beautiful fall King Salmon at about 9 lbs.  After the sun set I hooked on a glow spoon (a 3/4 oz. Moonshine) and stuck the biggest Steelhead I've caught to date.  32" of chrome, beauty.

It was exactly how a start to the salmon season should go.  Just increadibly excited about the fall.  You can expect regular reports from here on out.

Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha Salmon Fishing Forecast : October 1st

October is upon us, and things are looking up. Rain that will start later today and extend until the weekend should push a heavy load of King Salmon, Steelhead, a few Coho Salmon, and maybe some Brown Trout up into the Milwaukee River, the Kinnickinnic River, the Menominee River, the Root River, the Pike River, and Oak Creek.

It may be tough fishing in the rain, but when the flow goes down afterward and thing settle out, fishing should be amazing.

Great Lakes Angler : Milwaukee River Salmon Fishing Plans

This Friday night the Great Lakes Anlger and Mike, from Angling with Mplant, another Chicago fishing blog, are heading up to stay with a friend named Tyler for the night. We'll be fishing the Milwaukee river all day Saturday. Look for me in woods-camo hip boots, a black waterproof coat, and grey hat.

I'll likely be fishing somewhere to the south of Estabrook park and would be happy to say hello and shoot the breeze with you if we happen to be jockeying for the same hole or run. For those of you who don't know my name is Tom Harris.

Detailed report and photographs will follow. Mike and I don't like to get skunked and will be fishing hard. If there are fish in any stretch of the Milwaukee on Saturday, we'll find them.

Looking forward to the weekend.

Fields of Gold

This last weekend I took the Amtrak home from Milwaukee. Between Milwaukee and Chicago I took a few photographs while speeding through the beautiful golden fields of South-Eastern Wisconsin.

Soon the rivers of Milwaukee river be blanketed in golden leaves and the salmon will be golden to match them.

It's beautiful here.

Salmon Fishing on the Milwaukee River : 9/27/2009

Today I was blessed with the opportunity to teach an amazing 11 year old how to fly fish, and needless to say, the day needed no Salmon to make it any better. This young man picked up my eight weight and was throwing a woolly bugger like his life depended on in less than an hour.

Salmon were not on the move in Milwaukee today... 4 hours of fishing produced 1 take down on a nice long drift through some deeper current. That's it... I saw one other fly fisherman hook up, only to play the fish like he'd never used a fly rod before and lose it after a short battle.

The Great Lakes Angler is off to Connecticut to photograph a corporate headquarters. While I'm gone the river will call, and I will not be able to answer.

It is pouring rain right now, that kind of rain that will only last minutes and will cool the air ten degrees before it stops falling. Water was below my feet this afternoon while I swung a fly rod with a young man by my side, it fell on my head while I knelt next to him and watched his back cast roll out toward his father behind him on the bank. It surrounds me now in curtains and waves. It is what makes the existence of this blog.

Until Thursday my friends. The salmon won't wait for me, go court them on our rivers.

South-Eastern Wisconsin Salmon Report : September 27th 2009

Sheboygan : Chinook Salmon and Steelhead have entered the river and can be found in some numbers in the lower sections.

Milwaukee River : Nearing a prime state of fresh fish entering the river, and not a whole lot of angler pressure. Next weekend looks promising after low pressure, west winds, and recent rain.

Grant Park : Oak Creek : Fish can be found in very small numbers and are holding only in the deepest of the holes, more water will greatly improve fishing if we get some rain this week. Fish that are in the river now are still silver though and should be very good eating.

Root River : Salmon are trickling in, cover ground, work deep holes and you might find yourself with a lively King Salmon with your hook in it's mouth.

Pike River : Reports from friends say there are a few fish in the very lowest sections of the river, it may be worth fishing by next weekend, I'd be hesitant to try it if more rain doesn't get the flow up. Casting from shore may be a better option at it's mouth.

Waukegan, IL : Some trout have been caught recently from the South Rocks and from Government Pier. Action is still spotty.

User submitted photograph of a King Salmon caught this weekend. Way to go Keith!

South-Eastern Wisconsin River (Salmon) Fishing Report : Low Flow

Grim news for anglers across Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The rivers have all but dried up this fall. Southeastern Wisconsin on around the tip of Lake Michigan into the state of Michigan are finding their favorite fall Salmon rivers barely trickling.

The Root River, in Racine Wisconsin, which normally sports one of the healthiest runs of salmon around is barely moving at just 5 cubic feet per second.

Oak Creek, which is one of my favorite streams to fish for migratory Salmonids has also just about stopped moving. It's putting along at 2 cubic feet per second.

My original home turf, the Milwaukee river, which I like to fish late in the run at 120-140 cubic feet per second is running right now at about 100 cf/s. This river needs a bump up to around 200 cf/s for a bit to really get the King Salmon cruising up the rapids.

Letting you all in on some little secrets, my favorite stretch of the Milwaukee river to fish (both with spinners and while fly fishing) is the water north from the Locust Street bridge on up into the lower rapids of Estabrook Park. I like staying away from the areas further North at Kletzch Park.

Your best bet may be throwing glow spoons at fresh King Salmon at night, and fishing for the elusive and nocturnal Brown Trout in any of the Harbors that these rivers and creeks enter into.

I'm going to do my best to get out this weekend and find something biting. If I do, you'll be the first to know.

Glad to be back in Chicago and out of Orlando, FL...

-Tom Harris