Battling with lake trout on Lake Michigan
The outside starboard rod tip loaded up quickly and popped up and free from the “cannonball” weight on the down rigger. Captain Tom Linderholm, owner of Superior Sport Fishing in Bayfield, pulled both duties of captain and mate on this trip. He stood a foot away from the pole and quickly wound down on the reel setting the hook and handed the pole to my son Josh.
Josh started reeling hard and the outside portside pole did the same thing. Tom pounced on that like a mountain lion on a mule deer fawn. My buddy, Clyde Sippel, took that pole and started reeling. Tom grabbed a net and Josh’s fish that just surfaced about 100 feet behind the boat. Doubling up raises the excitement level.
Just then, another portside pole on a downrigger dipped hard and popped up. I jumped at it, set the hook, and started reeling a nice sized fish. When Tom netted Josh’s fish, a 24 ½ inch lake trout, a fourth pole tripped off the left outside downrigger and another buddy, Dennis Pawlak, picked that pole up.
The line from Clyde’s pole and mine started to rub. Clyde “ducked under” and slid towards the center of the stern while he reeled his fish into the net. Captain Tom needed to clear that fish from the net in order to net my fish. It didn’t take him long and I pulled the fish into the net. My fish spilled out onto the deck and Tom darted over to net Dennis’s fish. Tom pulled the fish over the stern of his 42 foot sport fisher – “Your Nauti” – and the high-fives started. A quad hookup and all four fish landed. That doesn’t happen every fishing trip! Captain Tom put us on the fish once again! We sailed out of Red Cliff earlier that morning and motored 40 minutes to a spot in the Apostle Islands. Tom told us their first pass there netted eight fish the day prior. The waters of Gitchi Gumee looked like a mirror. Smoke haze filled the sky, making for a spectacular sunrise on the trip out. “This is awesome,” Dennis commented.
We started fishing but several passes produced a string of eight strikes with no hookups. When the anticipated first hookup happened, Josh reeled the fish in and spirits rose. But another pass produced only a couple more short strikes. Tom decided to pull up the poles and move to another location.
He set us up in 90 to 100 feet of water at the new spot. A light breeze started blowing and created a light chop. A fish hooked up almost right away and Dennis hauled in a nice fish. Clyde hauled in another shortly after that.
I started picturing filets of lake trout on the grill with a maple-bourbon glaze.
Next came our quad hookup. We needed to measure those fish. The rules allow each angler to catch one lake trout 25 inches or larger with a bag limit of two lakers in the area we fished. The fish must measure at least 15 inches. Short fish weren’t a problem; our fish under 25 inches measured between 24 to 24 ½ inches. We finished our quota of 25 inch fish with the quad.
We caught several more fish after that measuring 28 to 29 inches. Beautiful fish that we released. Josh reeled in a steelhead salmon a couple inches below the minimum size limit. A new species for him.
A bad day fishing beats a good day of work any day. What a phenomenal day of fishing. World class fishing right here in Wisconsin, catching hard fighting lake trout.
Tom’s been running fishing charters for 15 years and the experience shows. No one can catch fish like that every day, but the more I fish with him the more I realize he does it more than most.
Our little group talked about living where we live, doing what we do, and how few days of our lives do we get to open water fish. Not many was our answer and we were catching nice, heavy, hard fighting lake trout. For anyone, but especially an angler, not much beats that.
Eating them rivals it. Lightly seasoned with sea salt, grilled to 140, and glazed with a maple-bourbon glaze - a great dining experience.
If you’re interested in enjoying your own adventure, check out Superior Sport Fishing. Captain Tom and his partner put fishers on fish.
Tight lines everyone!
THROUGH A
