With so many things going on this year, I worried that I might not get in any fishing this year! But this past Sunday, some friends from church along with my nephew and his best friend gathered together on Lucky Dog Charters out of Waukegan Harbor to spend 6 hours out on Lake Michigan.
The day started out with thunder and lightning and so we wondered if the afternoon trip from 1:30 PM to 7:30 PM would be rained out. But a call to Captain Jim Kaske of the Lucky Dog was all it took to confirm we were headed out. The captain was right... it turned out to be a great afternoon... not too hot, slightly overcast day (until later when the sun started to come out.)
We were after steelhead salmon and to find them required us to hunt for colder waters. We went out perhaps 7 or 8 miles into the lake and started catching fish in pairs. Almost immediately after setting the lines, my nephew caught the first fish. A second one followed shortly after. Whenever the bite stopped, our captain started looking for colder waters. Everytime he found a patch of cold water, we'd get a fish or two!
In all, we caught 15 fish... mostly steelhead in the 7 or 8 lb range. But we also had a couple in the 10 lb range as well. For me, I caught the smallest of the group at only 2 lbs, but made up for it by catching two large 7 or 8 lb King Salmon as well. The last fish of the day was a lake trout.
Our group photo shows only 13 fish, but we caught two more after the photo was taken. A small Fuji F10 point and shoot camera was used to take these images.
Kudos to our captain from Lucky Dog Charters for working so hard to find us fish. I'd definitely recommend him to anyone looking to do some charter fishing out of Waukegan Harbor!
Be sure to click on each photo for a closer look.
