What's better than catching a trophy specimen of my favorite fish, the mighty lake trout? Catching a trophy just a few miles from your front door. The Colonel (formerly the Smoked Fish Guy) and I headed out on the big lake just outside of Duluth early Sunday morning determined to improve our Lake Superior luck. Since he acquired and outfitted a big lake worthy boat, we had caught a few fish, but nothing really notable. I think Superior is tough to learn, but we are sticking with it.
This morning the Colonel decided to try a dead-bait rig he had used to catch salmon in Alaska. He had tried the rig in Lake Michigan a couple times with no action, but we thought it might be a good day to try it in Lake Superior. So, we put out three lines with more traditional spoons and stickbaits and we rigged the dead cisco on the final line. We put it on the downrigger below us at about 80 feet as we trolled over 150 to 200 feet of water.
Not much happened the first hour or so of trolling, so we decided to lower the cisco rig another 40 feet or so. As the Colonel completed that task, the line released from the downrigger clip. Son of a Biscuit! He had over-tightened the line when lowering it and it accidentally released. Or so we thought. He began reeling the line in so that it could be re-rigged. But the line tightened. What the heck, it didn't release? Our confusion was immediately cleared when the reel's drag began pulling out. Fish on! It must have hit just as we lowered the bait.
Well, the fight was an interesting one to say the least. After the initial tussle, the fish began acting like the Colonel had caught a five gallon bucket. Not really fighting, but not coming up, either. I started to think that the fish had wrapped around the other downrigger ball. The Colonel stuck with it for quite awhile, and the fish slowly started to come up, but it was still acting like a lead ball. After hemming and hawing about what to do, we decided to pull up the other downrigger and see if it was tangled. It wasn't. Now we began thinking we had a serious fish on. I pulled in the two surface lines and shut the motor off. Soon we had our first look at the fish, just a splash of the tail, and we could see it was a dandy. After a bit more of a battle, we cleanly netted the lake trout and hooted and hollered a bit.
The laker was 35 inches long with a 21 inch girth. The internet formulas translate those measurements to 18 pounds. The Colonel stated that the boat had just paid for itself. It was a great moment.
We fished a few more hours and I finally caught a Lake Superior fish. It was a one pound coho salmon. That really hurt our average size for the day, but I was excited to eat salmon that night for dinner (the whole family loved it).
We wrapped up the outing in the early afternoon with no more bites, but our day was already made.
Quote of the Trip: "I think you caught the downrigger ball."
Hubs' Flub: I didn't really check with the Colonel about how long he wanted to fish that day. So, I told my wonderful bride that I'd be home early afternoon so she could go have some fun at the knitting store. When I met up with the Colonel, he had brought a ton of food and beer...he was planning on staying all day. Oops. I tried to figure out way to stay out, but it didn't happen. So I screwed that one up. Sorry, Colonel.
Nature Moment: There were no really notable nature moments on Lake Superior that day, so instead I will mention one that happened yesterday as I was driving to a site on Rainy Lake (just outside International Falls) that we are trying to turn into a park/picnic ground. As I neared the site, a bald eagle swooped low over my vehicle...and crapped all over the hood and the windshield. It was impressive. The wipers got the windshield cleaned pretty well, but the hood needs some intense attention from the people at London Road Carwash. Sorry, people.
