Superior Salmon

RLLigman

Well-known member
Received an invite from a friend to fish off his boat for spring salmon in Munising. Rods set by 5:30AM bite died about ten. We left the water at 11:15AM. Mix of spring coho and some Chinook.View attachment munising.jpg
 
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I grew fishing for Lake Michigan salmon. Spring was my favorite. We would follow the salmon from Indiana to southern Wisconsin. We would usually fish out of a small car top boat boat. We were limited to calmer days and usually fished within a mile of shore. But, we could launch off just about any beach. And, there is nothing like fight fish that are jumping higher than your head.

The boat we used was a wooden boat with fiberglass. It was 12 long and we had an old 5 1/2 hp Johnson motor we used with it. The boat eventually got retired to my grandfathers farm. It has been sitting in the grass for several decades, at least what is left of it.

Thanks for bringing back some good memories,

Tom
 

Tom, that's how I started, fishing the spring inshore fishery each year in southeastern Lake Michigan and hitting the tributaries in the fall for the spawning run. I started as a wildlife major at MSU, with the intention of becoming a wetlands biologist, so I took a number of fisheries and limnology courses as well. I eventually determined that, if I stayed another two semesters I could end-up with a dual major in both. I took a position diving on fixed current meters in Lake Michigan set off a hydro-electric facility, servicing them and changing film packs, which eventually led to a post-graduate degree in fisheries and limnology from MSU. I had a chance to work on Lake Michigan during most of the hay day era of the Pacific salmon plants, but also see the fishery's demise via overexploitation of the alewife stocks through collective miss-management by the state fish and game agencies surrounding Lake Michigan, as well as the recovery.

It's a far different fishery now, courtesy of invasive dreisennid mussels proliferation and effects, but the miss-management component is still consistent...
 
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