I should call it the maiden salmonoid voyage for my 1750 Fishhawk, but in truth she's been out on Lake Mich with the casting specialist (captain me) and kids 4 previous trips at SH with spectacular musky numbers in flat seas - 0/1, 0/2, 0/1 & 0/2...too bad we were after salmon. To help explain my degree of newbieness towards this open water trolling deal I actually pulled in lines and jigged live bait (6" chubs) for a bit. Did lose a GIANT on a chub later, which was trolled at that time, but I'll save that awesomely embarrassing rig and story for face-to-face meetings when beer is involved. I was happy and content getting skunked out there in this new world, loving every minute of the blueness since as a musky nut I've learned that time in between action makes the action all that much better. That first 0/1 trip had me hooked on this new sport believe it or not...even after I pulled in lines to find roughly half were being run in a spiraling bait ball of spoons and flies. All the while, I was not concerned with the emptiness of my fridge since I knew that I had my ace in the hole, Corey K, to take me out whenever necessary to help explain the little nuances of salmon fishing - like to avoid speeds in excess of 6 mph and which end of the dipsy to tie to. Sooo...the gales of August came calling a bit more than anticipated in the pre-dawn light...probably would not have dared such seas in October! My cobbled down-east rod holders worked better than I was counting on, as did my newly installed budget rigger. My 15$ eagle claw rods may be on their way to Goodwill however. We lost some giants, I assume that was my fault, on flies with an odd spinning dealy that looks about as fishy as a hubcap, or a tennis shoe being dropped through the water column. Actually, come to think of it, it looks more like one of my 12" musky lures fouled up. We caught fish on long skinny overpriced spoons with hilarious names (wish I could remember one, but they were white & glow & green & black mostly). A blue cow (do remember that name) meat rig put a few more fish in the boat for us. The hits came fairly evenly on our spread of wire & braid dipsys set on 2.5, boards with 300' of copper (seriously, copper??) and 50' back on the downrigger 50' down. Overall we went 10.5 for 20 (more on that in a bit), with the majority of the lost ones being operator error...and again they were on average much bigger than the 8-15 lbers we landed. I need a new technique for fighting those fish since standing my ground with good pressure while they go deeper and deeper really didn't pan out. Giant waves and the eagle claws bending past the reel mount are my excuses I guess. We fished 80-130' for the most part, but did get a 10 lb coho in 60'. The last 0.5 of a fish came after we limited and were pulling in lines & she was holding onto the rigger line...thankfully it was a perch which kept our 100% law abiding records clean! 13.5 inches of pure barred thunder latched onto that big ole moonshine spoon - wild stuff! We'll have to see if this new bug sticks with me...waaaaay more fun than I would have thought, and pretty cool to watch a master at work...for the most part talking in a different language, but cool nonetheless.
