Grand Marais Offshore Challenge Report

[A-Fishy-Anado]

A little late on the report, but been a crazy couple of weeks here for me.

We went straight through 3' - 4' waves:mad: to the area of the big reef that gave up the 41 lb lake trout to us the week prior in the vicinity of 80 fow. We found a good concentration of fish on every hump we crossed so we decided to drop down the lead head jigs and dropped on them and within 3 jigs a piece we were all hooked up. Picked a couple in the low to mid teens jigging and decided to troll on them and see what happened. Within a half hour of trolling a full core and two downriggers parked 5-10' of the bottom a rigger fired pulling a 8" prochip and a bugeye fly and we we hooked to a 24 lber that we got into the net before 9:30 am. These would be the fish we took to the scales for the biggest box on day one. We picked at about 20 more fish, all being smaller and released, until around 2:30 pm to make the 30 mile run to the pier heads by 4:00pm. We weighed a 24, 15 & 13 and would end up 9lbs over second place and 14 lbs over 3rd at the end of day 1.

Day 1 Pics

24 lb Lake trout

Day 1 Box

Second day we went right back, through very calm seas:thumb:, to the same place as day 1 and couldn't believe the sonar screen showed nothing at all on any of the humps we fished. Tried trolling right off the bat because we found ZERO concentration of fish here. Started to pick up a few small fish from 7 -10 lbs and then a rigger fired and we pulled an 18 lber to the net. Still marking nothing, keep in mind superior lake trout fishing is usually an sonar game unlike Salmon, we headed deeper and picked up some more 7-10 lbers and decided to pull lines and run over to some rock piles and set back down this time with wire divers w/clean spoons on each side added to the spread. Within 5 minutes we get a rip on a diver and bring a dandy 27 lber to the boat. At this point we are really feeling our legitimate shot to hold on to our top spot! Picked away at about 15 more with nothing else over the mid teens for the remaining time.

Got to the scales and found out that we increased our lead on 2nd place to 27 lbs and won the $4000.00 guaranteed first place check the Grand Marais Visitors Bureau puts up for the tourney as well as the $360 for the 27 lb big fish of the tourney:thumb: What a ride!!

If any of you consider doing a tournament in the UP seriously consider this one. Great area, as I'm sure nailer will attest to, great campground and a very well run tournament with a rather large purse up for grabs. 2nd place ended up with 2k and 3rd place ended up with 1k. That is a better top 3 purse than some of the TT events. Anyways, great place to bring a family, camp and catch big lake trout. Feeling very fortunate after the last couple of weeks out on the reef with a 41 lber soon to hang on the wall and a big win in the offshore challenge.

Day 2 pics

Lady superior at her finest after the shotgun start

27 lb Lake Trout

Day 2 box

Weighing in

C-man & I collecting the BIG $4000 check:thumb:

Our "Bosses" had fun on shore all weekend as well:grin:

[Legend]

Nice Job Bromley

I was waiting to hear the details!!! Sniper told me you won but wasn't sure of the weights etc.

[GLF]

Great job Bromley. Congrats on the nice payday!

[Priority1]

^5s Brom:)

[mattmishler]

WTG team

[Nailer]

Great to here you did so well Bromley. You boy is growing up!. I have spent many of days at Grand Marais, and will attest to the fact that it is one of the most pleasant spots in the State of Michigan. You are a lucky man, nice job on the win.

[N II Deep]

Very nice