Jungle Jim

I was using a camera flash, but I us IR flashlights, and spots as well.

All I can say that if you're SERIOUS about summer time Salmon fishing, then you HAVE to be out on the water, AND fishing, BEFORE THE SUN RISES! Sure......you can show up at 6:00 or 6:30, and go wash your lures while you pick at them here and there, but you will never experience the fast and furious action that we had this morning at 4:00am! WOW.....we could not keep a A101 Glow spoon in the water for 5 minutes! We raced off NE and set up in 80fow right off the nuker. Kings were just slamming these lures left and right, and at all depths. Riggers down 40 and 60, wire Dipseys set on 3 back 100 and 150 on each side, and a J-13 painted A101 Glow Green on a full core. At no point in time while the sun was below the horizon, could we get all 6 rods set at the same time (it was just me and my friend Dieter). It seemed like we had a fish on, at all times, for an hour straight. Reaching for a camera was about the last thing on my mind, as we were in a constant battle with Kings. I did manage to get it turned for a few shots though. We had only been fishing for a few minutes and had just 3 rods down when this King slammed this wire dipsey with a Green/Aqua glow spoon. Deiter fought her well, and I wrestled her into the box 5 minutes later. That was the last picture I took for a while for there were a$$es and elbows flying everywhere--lol.......... I did manage to get Dieter to take this pic of me after a great battle with this beautiful Steelhead. She crushed a green glow spoon on my rigger down 40, and just started screaming, and then jumping. What a rush! What a fight, and on my Musky combo! Here is my G-Loomis Medium Bucktail, and my Calcutta 400 TE. I battled Kings, Steelies and big Coho on this combo this morning. What a flawless combo....a real high quality fish fighting tool. (Bought it at GAT). The sun is just starting to rise, and we have 7 large fish in the box. 5 Kings and 2 Steelies, with Dieter losing a big King and a big Steelie. What a great pic of a beautiful morning. We got a big Laker that we intentionally shook lose at the stern, and then that was it for that spot. We picked-up and the shot south to the reef, where we searched for baitfish. The second ball of bait we found had a pack of hungry Coho working it. We ran over them several times, and picked up 3 nice Coho in the 8/9lb range, and then we went in with our 2 man limit at 7:30am. Here is me with a King and a Coho. Had a great time on the big pond this morning. Felt like I was fishing on some kind of secret trophy lake. What a blessing it is to have Lake Michigan. The pre-dawn summer bite is phenominal All Pre-Dawn fish came on A101 Super Glow spoons, and came fast! The 4 fish after sunrise came on either green or blue Dolphin spoons, or Dreamweavers. We ran 2 flasher fly combo's after sunrise. They did not get hit. JJ sailor

You know how dem Coho are. Their scales pop off and they die immediately upon netting. (especially when yours flips out of your hand, and break dances in the bottom of the boat, before the pic ). It's really hard to release a Coho in good shape! Kings are MUCH more durable

This entire outing was planned thoroughly, right down to the small details. We were gonna meet at 3:30 am...... BlueIce, Jeeze, and myself, and by 5:30am, my "proto type" A101 Glow Trolling Spoons were going to be the cause of a full cooler of Kings !!! Well....it was Friday the 13th x 3.....Black Cat, Ladder...the whole shabang.....because everything that could have went wrong...DID. Without getting into all the gruesome details, I will tell that we didn't START fishing til about 7am or so, and when we got out there, our 2 main weapons, our downriggers were %$#@ up. Damn.....looks like we missed the pre-dawn King bite (by hours). We did switch from Plan A to Plan B to Plan M, and that's when we finally got into some very nice Coho in only 40ft. The bite was very difficult with the sun almost directly overhead, but we did manage some nice fish. Dipsey's and spoons at various depths. All fish were between 6 an 8 pounds...Nice for Coho! Here are the pics. Here are two pics of the only fish I reeled in. We were pulling rods, and it was one of the last two rods out, so I decided to catch one myself. I love the tasty Coho, don't you? I absolutely love Lake Michigan, and can't wait til the next out! JJ