Today I woke up nice and early to head over to Kenosha to try my hand at harbor fishing. The alarm went off at 4am and within 20 minutes i was on my way! I was planning on meeting a few people over there, both of which have some experience in the harbors so I was eager to learn how to fish for the monster brown trout that are in the harbors right now.
It's a bit of a drive to Kenosha from madison, about 2hrs 20min, so I got there at about 6:45am. I saw Damien and his father and pulled in near where they were fishing. I open the door to get out and get my stuff ready and as I'm opening the door Damien hooks up! Talk about perfect timing! He ended up bringing in a nice fat brown trout! Huge for my standards, but an average lake michigan fish. We continue to fish, primarily using spawn sacs and within 45 minutes of getting there I hook my first Lake Michigan brown! After a good fight Damien netted the fish, another "average" brown, which was my personal best brown trout, and first lake michigan brown trout! After that we missed a few more hits, but not a whole lot of action for an hour or so. I decided to try out a few different crank baits, but for some reason wasn't expecting any hits. I kept casting though, and kept switching up my retrieves and all of a sudden it felt like i hit a stump! Fish on! I ended up catching my 2nd Lake Michigan brown, which happens to be my new personal best brown trout! Several more misses on spawn sacs over the next few hours then Damien hooks up again and brings in another brown. A little while after he caught his, I had a take close to shore on the spawn, i set the hook only to miss the fish. I quickly threw the bait right back in where I just missed the fish and I saw my spawn slowly sinking, then it disappears and in it's place is a nice trout! I set the hook and ended up landing my 3rd harbor fish ever! another healthy brown! I had to get back to madison and ended up leaving at about 1pm. I had a ton of fun fishing the harbor and I know I'll definitely be back soon! Thanks again Damien for showing me the ropes and hooking me up with some spawn sacs!
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| The first fish of the day! you can see the eggs pouring out of her. |
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| My first harbor trout! |
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| My 2nd harbor trout and new personal best |
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| Damien's 2nd fish of the day |
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| the 5th brown of the day! my 3rd Lake Michigan trout! |
Some excellent looking fish guys. I couldn't imagine trying to pull something that big out of the creeks I fish. The ole 3wt. would snap in half :) Tight Lines.
ReplyDeleteTrout -that's what we were saying all day!
ReplyDeleteNice trip and nice report. Glad you guys had a memorable day. The harbors tend to beat me up.
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