I went out on Lake Michigan last night with new friends from the US Navy and we caught a bunch of fish! OK... our boat caught three fish and another boat caught six fish. But in the end, I was given seven fish to take home and two were reserved for a dinner party for members of www.Chitown-Angler.com.
I had posted on that forum that I was interested in going out on a boat one day with a member of the forum and if anyone was interested to let me know. Almost immediately, a guy known as "Bonus" from the forum contacted me and generously offered to take me out on his boat. It turns out, he is in the US Navy... just like my new wedding client Dan whom I met while fishing!
I met up with Bonus (real name: Keith) last night and went on his 21 foot Starcraft boat along with Beau, a Navy friend of his. We fished from around 6 PM until perhaps 10:30 PM. Keith let me reel in four of the fish we had that hit our lures (lost two) and Beau reeled in one. Keith didn't even attempt a single one but instead let his guests fish! What a nice guy!
Two of his other Navy friends were out on another boat and both vessels headed out about 10 miles into Lake Michigan together. I liked this as it was nice to know another boat wasn't too far away should we have gotten into trouble. The other two guys brought in six fish in total, but we beat them out for the heaviest fish of the night at 4 lbs. That was my first catch... a nice King Salmon (aka Chinook Salmon.)
On my second attempt to bring in a fish, Keith and I could tell it was significantly larger than the first based on how hard it was pulling. It was way out there too, easily over 125 ft away. No matter how much I reeled, it didn't seem I was getting anywhere with it! But after a significant amount of time reeling, I felt the slack in the line and he was gone!
Later in the evening, I had on another nice fish which seemed to pull a lot harder than the other two I had already reeled in, but it wasn't tugging as hard as the one I lost. Still, it was a battle and it looked like he was headed to tangle our other lines in the water. So I crossed over to one side of the boat and continued the battle. Just before Beau was able to net him, we could see he was a big one. Much larger than the other two we had already brought in. But just as we were about to net him, the net and line bumped one of the other rods in the rod holders and the rod and reel promptly went overboard! We all scrambed to save the rod and reel and luckily, Beau was able to net it as I brought the fish closer. But alas, in our attempt to save the rod, we had to lose the fish in its place.
Beau felt really awful about it, but Keith and I both told him that if the choice was to lose the fish or save the rod and reel, we both would have chosen as he did to save the rod and reel. I'm not sure that made him feel any better, but it was definitely the right call.
No matter, in the end, I didn't just get a couple of fish to bring home this time, but I got nearly all the fish to bring home. The other guys on the other boat didn't want their catch and Beau said he still had fish in his freezer and Keith just wanted two of the catch for Saturday's event with the forum, so I got to take home seven of the fish... the majority of the catch! It was a combination of Kings and Cohos.
On shore, Keith expertly filleted and skinned all of the catch in no time! Like Captain Bob from my last trip, Keith is an expert with the knife! So not only did he let me do all the fishing, he even cleaned all the fish for me! What a guy! :)
When I got home, my wife and daughter were anxiously waiting to see the catch. They were surprised at how many fish were in my cooler! We'll be eating salmon for a while!
I had a great time and am so lucky to meet such wonderful new friends. I'm comfortable around Navy guys as it reminds me of my years of living in San Diego. I've told Keith that if he ever needs a guy to fish with to just give me a call. I can't wait to get back out there! (Be sure to click on each image for a closer look.)
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