Great Lakes Angler off to Crystal Lake, Michigan

Great lakes angler gets in the car at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow to make the 5 hour drive to Crystal Lake, Michigan, which used to be a fantastic perch fishery, as well as a producer of huge lake trout and at one point, Coho salmon. It is now, like so many other places... not any of those. It does have a huge amount of mean rock bass though. We'll see if I can't find a little school of perch swimming around somewhere.

Here's the lake 165 feet deep at its deepest, and averaging more than 70 feet deep, its a beautiful and "crsytal" clear lake, 20 feet of visibility is common. I'm excited to camp on the beach, fish from the row boat, and just enjoy my time in the sun... err I mean rain this weekend.

Lake Michigan Stonehenge?

Since July fishing has been slow here in Chicago, with the Perch season closed for another week, and Trout and Salmon out of reach, I've been delving into archives of some of my favorite great lakes news sources and here's another find.

Mark Holley, an underwater archeology professor (I'd have taken that class in a second in college if it was offered) at Northwestern Michigan College discovered a series of standing stones under the waters of lake Michigan. Some of them are arranged in a circle, and one of which appears to have carvings of a mastodon on it.

Here is a photograph of the Mastodon Carving in question.

A huge discovery in North American Archeology. This sonar they're using to find these things is mighty cool, I'd love to make images with that thing, I've always had my eyes plastered to the depth finders of any boat I've been in, watching the bottom contours. The photographs are interesting if nothing else.

This one is a pile of sunken boats and cars. Pretty cool.

You can read more of this article over at BLDGBLOG.

Assault on a Bait Ball

This is why I strive to find a way to get my hands on underwater camera gear. I want photographs of Salmon and Trout going at a bait ball of Alewifes, I've seen them get active and chase schools around and I've even seen a pod of them thrash the top of the water only to have a big Chinook burst through the surface chasing them.

This photography speaks for itself. Click here to check out the rest. Some of the best underwater stuff I've ever seen.

This weekend I'm headed to Crystal Lake Michigan. I may do a little bit of fishing, but nothing more than shooting a few RockBass in a barrel or drifting for perch. I'll likely stop in Indiana and scout for some Steelhead spots for next week. Photographs and reports will follow the weekend. Enjoy yours, I'll enjoy mine.

In Search of Steelhead, The Quest Begins

There was a time last fall, living 6 blocks from the Milwaukee River, when I could throw on my boots, sling a messenger bag on my shoulder with a long fishing rod sticking out of the top, bundle up as tight as I could, and go stalk steelhead on cold November mornings between classes.

I remember over the course of about a week a little slot of ice, 2" wide at first, growing each day, formed along the banks of the river. I had my 2 holes, I'd bike there, slide down the frozen bank by the road where I locked my bike. Jot across the Oak Leaf Trail, a bike path, and continue my slide down another icy bank to the riverside. I would then pick my first hole, shoot through the rapids a few times, usually I'd hook up right away. If not, I'd change presentations a time or two and hike down to my next spot.

Near the end of the aforementioned week locked my bike up, slid through fresh snow, and arrived, to my horror, at the edge of the river only to look down on one continuous pane of ice. I could close my eyes and see the steelhead holding in eddies under the ice, feeding on whatever was left bouncing down the river bottom. I remembered reaching from limb to limb, pulling myself up the slick hill thinking "maybe it will thaw! I'll go check the weather!" but sure enough, when winter comes in Wisconsin, it stays.

That day I thought about the spring run, in which I had some success this year, landing my first fly rod steelhead, hooking up to chrome beauties in the Root River, and tangoing with them in Oak Creek. That run was blown out most of the time by big spring rains. My steelhead lust would have to wait... until now. Reports are good that Skamania, the big daddy of the stocked Great Lakes strains are in. Throwing big acrobatics in with bulling, line ripping, drag screaming runs, every hook up promises to be a battle.

Here is a photograph from Today, it got my blood pumping without hesitation. This fellow, by the tag cichlidfinder on Windy City Fishing bagged 4 of these beauties this morning.

I, along with my recent, and good, friend Mike P., who has a new fishing blog as well, found here. Will be headed on down to the Tributaries to put ourselves in the photographs holding the Steelhead. I hope to bring them to you by next week. In fact I'll do my best to do so. Hope to see you out there!

-Tom

Fisch Franke : Living Trout Poster

Tom Chandler, over at the Trout Underground, displayed this clip from youtube over at his top shelf trout angling blog.

Quite an interesting idea to draw people to a storefront. The clearly farm raised trout make for a quick eye catcher to draw people into eating at this German seafood restaurant.

Fishing's been slow for the great lakes angler lately. I'm buried up to the top of my waders in the job hunt, and havn't been able to put those waders where they belong... in the river. Soon the browns and kings will fill with roe, change from chrome bullets to darkly colored bulls, and I'll be waiting for them with rod in hand. Until then... see ya out there.

Diporeia Down, Quagga Mussels Up in Lake Michigan : Bad News for Great Lakes Gamefish

More bad news involving Great Lakes invasive species today. This article delves into a net dragged across the bottom, 3.5 miles offshore of Grand Haven Michigan. The ship named the Laurentian pulled up 300 pounds of quagga mussels, a few zebra mussels were mixed in, along with a single slimy sculpin.

10 years ago there were zero Quagga Mussels in the great lakes, these can live deeper than the more familiar zebra mussel and will cover a far higher percentage of the lake michigan basin, as well as a majority of the other lakes. They can live on sand, not just rock, wood, and other submerged structure.

The article, found here, naturally goes far deeper into this web of problems than this short post does. Go on over and read this post from the U-M News Service.

Great Lakes Charter Fishing Boats : Midway Through a Slow Summer

In an associated press article about Great Lakes charter fisherman detailing the lull in business this summer I couldn't help but think of times fishing from the pier last fall, watching the charter boats with 2 or 3 salmon/trout hooked up at one time. The clients plastered with toothy smiles as they fought these great lakes beauties in to the boat.

I was invited along on a fall Salmon charter last fall on : Maritime Charters, out of Milwaukee. The fish happened to be scattered that day, we brought aboard a 10 lb. brown trout, two small two year old kings, and one lake trout in the 4 - 5 lb. class. Not that impressive for a dozen lines in the water and 5 hours of Trolling. Marc Sobeski, the captain, was a very knowledgeable captain and was willing to answer my dozens of questions about thermoclines and depths in various harbor spots and spots along the walls and gaps. He put fish in the boat, it was just a slow day and he can't be blamed.

In fact, he's responsible for a tie for my personal best brown, shown above.

The thing I'm not so keen on is the level of involvement in a trolling charter. The captain runs the boat, hooks up all the lines, sets riggers, dipsy's, leadcore, and planar boards. He then runs up, sets the hook, and hands the pole off to you to reel in the fish. He then nets it, unhooks it, and puts it in the box. So basically you get to reel the thing in and eat it later.

I'd love to learn the ropes of trolling. Learn how to set all my lines, learn why to run a e-chip mountain dew flasher with a peanut fly instead of a red dodger with a 4" bloody nose ladderback spoon behind it. I'd love to learn why I should run 5 colors of lead core along with my #1 Dipsy set at 2. Or just simply how deep and in what direction I should be running my lures.

That's something for the future I suppose. I love angling on the great lakes from shore for the time being. Someday I'll have a boat worthy of the big lakes and some money to make that boat an anglers paradise.

Go ahead and read the article about Great Lakes Charter Captains by clicking that text. I'll see ya out there.

Swimming in the Yellowstone River

A fantastic documentary about Yellowstone Cuthroat trout and the environment in which they dwell. A sound recordist named Mike, who's hobby is swimming in this river takes cameras along and documents the Yellowstone Cuthroat trout and the challenges they face, such as stocked lake trout, osprey, and other mammals looking for a meal.

The photography is gorgeous, it's worth a look. You can watch it online here.

Chicago Shoreline Stimulus Money

In recent chicago news, some stimulus money coming the way of Chicago's effect on the great lakes.

Some $5 million will go toward the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal Aquatic Nuisance Species Barrier System, which will help keep Asian Carp out of the great lakes.

$3.5 Million in stimulus money will go directly into repairing Chicago's crumbling shoreline.

Millions more go toward keeping sewage out of the waterways, researching flood damage reduction in the Des Plaines and other rivers.

$100,000 will go into research in restoring the natural flow bubbly creek (where much of the waste from the Chicago stockyards used to flow into).

You can take a look at the full breakdown of stimulus money coming to Chicago and the greater Chicagoland area here.

Round Gobys and Zebra Mussels : Invasive Species Chain Reaction

I've had my fingers and feet cut dozens of times snorkeling and wading in the great lakes by sharp little Zebra mussels, and round gobies are so aggressive that while fishing for Yellow Perch this summer I've had to greatly edit the way I fish to avoid a goby instantly on my hook. Now along these two invasive species are a serious annoyance, but together there is something even greater to fear.

An article in the Mid North Monitor, found here explains what can happen when these two species interact.

The Round Goby feasts on not only fish eggs and fish fry but mussels themselves. Not enough to control the spread of the mussels, but there is feeding happening for sure. The Gobies that feed on Zebra Mussels develop "Type E Botulism, caused by bacterial infection". As these contaminants make their way up the food chain from the Round Goby up, they can become toxic to walleye and other game fish, as well as birds of prey when they feed on the contaminated Gobies.

Give the article a read, there is more valuable information to be gleaned.