Fish Pics

The boys and I took our annual pilgrimage north this past weekend to take advantage of the Lake Michigan salmon run. The water was a little higher, faster and murkier than it has been the past few years we were up there. We still caught several fish. Egg sucking leach patterns were the pick fly of the weekend for us. The favored colors were purple , black, and tan. I did catch a few on Saturday with a flo pink but that didn't last long.

I think we were still on the early end of it this year. There were very few dead ones along the banks and the fish were averaging a bit smaller than they have in the years we hit the run dead smack in its prime. Needless to say we had a lot of fun anyway. The nice thing about the timing is these fish were fresh out of the lake and full on fight.

The first pic is of my dad with a nice Chinook. Pic two is me with a nice fresh Chinook. I don't know what happened here in pic three. I guess the fish decided to flop when I took the hook out of his lip right at the time Michael snapped the camera. You couldn't have planned this pic if you tried. Pic four is Michael with a nice Chinook. The last pic here is Mark and me with a tag team. Mark with a Chinook and me with a nice Steelhead (that was fun). I had spotted a few other Steelhead this trip. However, by time I spotted them they were on to me and that was the end of it.

I was wanting to round out a grand slam this year but it did not happen. I got the Salmon and the steelhead but the big brown trout eluded me this year. To make it worse, just up stream from Micheal and me was a jerk who hooked a very nice Brown that would have gone several pounds. This was a 28"-30" fish with solid girth. The guy catches a fish to be prized and what does he do? With his chest puffed out with pride, he drags it up on the gravel bar, steps on it to take the hook out and to release it he kicks it back in the water. What a total PUTZ!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark was closer than the rest of us were so he took the fish and worked with it to get it revived and moving on its own again. We can only hope it lived but after the way it was treated the odds are against it. I considered walking down stream (with what vacation cash I had in my pocket) to talk to those burly Russian guys fishing with the surf poles and grappling hooks to see if I could get the guy treated the same as he treated the fish. Ya ...... beat half to death and tossed in the water. What can I say, a conscience can be quite inconvenient sometimes.

Hang on more to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!