Throughout the midsummer period, salmon gain weight rapidly (two-thirds of their total weight at spawning is put on in wild feeding frenzies the last four months of their lives). They gradually become more available, too, showing up inshore along Lake Michigan from Muskegon up past Ludington, Manistee, Frankfort, Platte Bay, around into Grand Traverse Bay and off Charlevoix. Prime salmon fishing begins to peak by early August, if weather conditions are stable, improving weekly in a northward pattern. Arrival of the first big schools does vary from year to year, however, and until late August a telephone call could eliminate a useless auto trip.
The fishing from this time until October, when most of the spawning runs begin, can be nothing short of fabulous. Two days last August proved that to me.
I’d traveled to Ludington at the invitation of Skipper Mary DeWitt who heads the West Michigan Charter Service there. “You can’t believe how the fish are coming in,” he’s said on the telephone the night before. “I’m filling limits for two parties a day – and I could catch more!”
Not being hard to convince, I was aboard Mary’s boat by dawn as we headed out a full ten miles offshore. Mary uses a specialized device called a “downrigger” that enables him to keep several trolled lures at exact depths practically under the boat’s stern. Tests with a thermometer showed the preferred water temperature to be at 40 to 70 feet, and blips on the boat’s recording fathometer indicated that it was the best depth for fish.
Setting seven lines takes a few minutes. But Mary hadn’t put the fourth one down when the first broke loose from its downrigger, a coho swirling wildly behind the boat as it rose to the surface. Fifteen minutes later we lost two more and then boated a second one, then tallied three more quickly. All around us boats were netting fish, filling coolers with cohos weighing between 8 and 18 pounds.
A full hour’s lull allowed us to stow gear and settle down, but then we hit another school of fish – or found the first school again – and bouncing rods and aching wrists were the order of the morning. The limit for three of us was 15 fish, and we lost quite a few that struck and were gone. But we still managed to lay 14 fish on the cleaning dock by noon, and it was then I discovered that one of our catch was a fat 12-pound steelhead no one had noticed in the flurry of activity, since cohos and steelhead look much alike.
Ice Fishing Lake Manitoba Narrows
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