Caught a filleted lake trout on a downrigger set 55ft deep. Had a crazy drunk chick hell bent on swimming back to shore cuz she wanted to go back 10 minutes into the trip. She ended up going down stairs and passing out for a few hours and it was great we were trolling for fall king's and were doing well. When she woke up in a rage even worse then before even layed on the back deck and kicked and screamed like a little kid. She went back down stairs for a minute and my buddy tells me start reeling em in were Done we had 6 leadcore lines and two down riggers out when out of the corner of my eye I see her come upstairs and throw her life jacket down and just like that she jumps overboard in 3ft waves. 60 degree water. Luckily I threw the life ring right to her as no life jacket on her. Then had to circle back and put the boat right along side her to extend the net to her to grab onto which she refused to do causing me to have to circle back and do it again before she gave up and let us help her. We have a 26 ft cabin cruiser and we're in big waves pretty hard to do without running a person over and scary. Let's here your crazy stories from the lake!!!
General Discussion
Crazy things people have had happen while trolling for trout and salmon on lake Michigan
I wasn't trolling at the time. But we took a sailing trip to Michigan a couple of years ago, and as we were leaving Pentwater heading north in about 100 fow we ran across a planer board floating so we doubled back and picked it up. It had a hundred yards or so of leadcore line and a nice 15lbish coho hanging on the spoon yet, so we ate well that week.
We were fishing brown's in April a couple years ago in shallow water out of Racine and we had a line snag bottom and snap of of course it had a white silver hoarde on it and thought not much more of it. We ended up going back out about a week later and were fishing the same area and ended up getting snagged in the same area again but this time It popped free and as I'm reeling it in I realize that there's fishing line attached and dragging behind our bait. After handlining it in and finding a white plug attached we realized that we had snagged the line and lure that we lost the week before! Crazy
Mystery fish dragging flasher fly is one that happened to us. We tried to swing over to net it but it swam off. On a slow day my dipsey started to go, so I reel it in and my spoon had lead core line tangled around it and a fish farther back that I had to hand line in. It was a nice King on a flasher/fly rig that I was able to get in the net. Three guys messaged me with descriptions of rigs they had lost but none of them matched up. Total luck my spoon crossed the line a fish was dragging around. Early on in my experience of the big pond I used gear I had that wasn't as heavy duty as required. I put a small wire line reel on a short bent handle bait caster. Brought out a work buddy with no experience to lower the ball rig to the depths. A nice fish bites bending the rod and I watch it snap at the handle sending the reel flying and the whole thing splashing in the drink. He had cranked the drag tight and it never occurred to me to check it. Self inflicted mistakes are worse than when a fighting fish just shakes the hook before netting.
Story is out of Simmons island/kenosha harbor 2019.
Fished late afternoon, into the darkness, sunsets, we switch to our night time favorites that all glow, glow krocs,wonder bread, bloody nose, moonshine, j plugs, etc, running 9 rods, 3 people in the boat, lake is flat, cruising along, nice and peaceful, perfect cool weather, then it all changes..... port side...all rods go off, 4 poles, fighting fish, starboard side all poles fire, one screaming, we get 3 fish in on port side, both nets in use, lead core fires off, I put two poles in riggers just to hold them, 2 are just in the water, the lures, are surface planning, my brother has the screamer, which took off 100yds. Trying to drive boat, put a bungee cord on the steering wheel to keep her straight , we still have 5 fish on. We are doing a Chinese fire drill, one net tangled, with 2 fish, 3 to go, both poles that are just dangling in the current both fire,2 more fish on, we lose one, trying to get the screamer in, we do ,20lb king, lose anther one on a walleyes flip, as nets are tangled. We get all rods in holder's, anywhere we could, finally no more fish. We had 10 fish, all kings and only 2 rods, not in use, in holders above windshield, we just start clipping lines, and putting tackle in a bucket, nets are cleared. All fish in the box, we laughing and shocked at the same time, only have 2 poles tied up for use, I look at my brother and say why not. Set up 2 riggers at 15 ft, not 30 seconds later , anthor screaming reel, this time 18 lb king , action finally stops, I look at the other rigger, and something is not right, pull it off the ball, 12 inch shaker, to finish the night, went home, cleaned first for 2 hours, best adventure I ever had on the big pond.
The first year we got the big boat we were about 14 miles east straight out of Racine fishing 250ft of water south wind that day 1 to 2 foot waves when I noticed that it had gotten very black over the city. And just like that the wind started gusting and the waves were building fast probably about 4 to 5 footers now I started saying we need to wrap it up but my partner said he wanted to keep fishing. So we did even though the weather was getting worse and now there were occasional 6 to 8 foot waves we have a 26 foot cabin cruiser and when a waves breaks over the bow and hits the upper windshield that's a big wave. I look back and my buddy is kneeling on the back deck finally pulling rods cuz he was scared of getting knocked overboard. We got packed up and proceeded to try and make our way back to the harbor which was West with the waves from the south. When all of a sudden it started thundering and lightning and straight down pouring if we wouldn't have had GPS to follow I don't know where we would've ended up most likely on the rocks as it was raining so hard it felt like getting hit in the face with hail and you couldn't see a thing one of the most scary situations I have ever been in out there scary stuff.
Back in the day when I fished the big pond I had a few crazy things happen. We had coho's break off the dipsy taking the dodger and fly. More than once the coho would be splashing on the surface long enough for us to circle around and net them.
On another occasion we went out of Racine one morning and trolled till mid day with the kicker motor. When we decided to go in we started the big motor and and when we put it in gear we had no propulsion. We tilted the motor up and the prop was completely gone. We had a long 12 mile ride back to port with the kicker.
I went out with my brother one time in July with our small 16 footer named the "Lucky Leaker" To get to the cooler water we hat to head east, 5-6 miles. It was a nice clear day with slight west winds. The single outboard boat was reliable but after a few hours the motor started to run rough. We turned and started to head in and the engine got worse. The engine died and would not restart. We had no phones or radios back then. We had not seen another boat all morning. I broke out the oars and started rowing. Funny thing with rowing into the west wind and being out so far our hope of making it to land seemed not likely. After rowing for more than a hour we spot a boat on the horizon. Thank god he saw us rowing and came to the rescue. After towing us in we offered all the money we both had in a wallets and he would not take it. He only said "if you have ever see anyone in distress return the favor". A week later back out on the water we towed in a boater and I refused the money offered. I said, "help someone in distress and return the favor"
Friends story not mine. He used to work on a charter during the summer. They take two couples out on an evening charter. The couples got on the boat and seemed like they already had put a few down. They continue drinking heavily and got pretty drunk. Husband and wife get into a huge fight. Wife smacks husband and husband smacks her back. She starts crying captain yells at the guy, so guy decides he swimming back. They pullin all the lines and get the drunk husband back into the boat.Captain cancels the rest of the charter.
If I recall the sheriff’s department was waiting at the dock when they returned.
Fishing out of Kewaunee in early 80’s. Thick fog at sunrise. We were just drifting as my grandfather and his friends were setting up. Emerging from the fog was this gigantic hull coming right at us. It was the SS Badger. My grandpa swiftly started the engine and zipped us out of harms way. Whew. Well, he turned the engine off and went back to getting lines ready. A few minutes later we were set to go. He tries to start the engine. Turns over, but won’t start. Yikes. Thank God that didn’t happen a few minutes earlier or I may not be typing this. We limped in with the 15 hp kicker. No fishing that day.
