Muskegon Pro/AM - Part 2

On day 2 the captain was all in for running our program which I was thrilled about. There is so much chasing other peoples reports in salmon fishing and it is refreshing to fish on a boat that avoids all of that. We didn’t get all the rods out and it was confirmed we made the right call. The kings were back and after a somewhat lengthy battle we were on the board (rasta goose standard spoon). Not a big fish but it was in the teens and a great start. Our next bite was a 20 pounder on a flasher fly setup and things were looking up. 2 small cohos were good for points and Cameron was happy that he was going to get to eat them. Then it all kind of died on us and we went out deeper. I could finally put the 300 copper out and since Trevor won’t stop talking about a 300 copper and a plug that is what it had on it. There was some panic when the drag started ripping on it with a big king. Another 20 pounder was in the box after quite a bit of back and forth. We made a turn to get back there and the diver rod started jacking with another big king on it. Unfortunately this one never made it to the boat. But we had 5 fish and just needed 2 more solid bites for a good weight in the amateur tournament and one more bite for a good weight in 333.

On the next pass the plug went again, this time with a nice post spawn steelhead that would weigh over 10 pounds. We stuck with the steelhead theme next and boated a 3-4 pounder that would at least look better than the shaker coho we had in the box. If we could just get one more of those king bites. Fortunately the diver rod would go off again (carmel dolphin stingray spoon) and after a very tense battle. This fish was in the mid teens and was really going to make us think about what we weighed for the 333. Plenty of boats had caught big ones on day 1 and it seemed like you were probably going to have to have around 60 pounds to get anything in 333. But that 10 pounder could hold up for big steelhead prize if we elected to weigh that instead of the king.

Eventually that area died out (we did get one more fish a nice lake trout) and we decided to pull and spend a half hour close to our other productive zone for the morning. We did lose one fish there but it looked to be a medium sized steelhead when it was jumping and wasn’t going to help us at all. Regardless we were going to move up after today but would we move up enough to get paid? We also had that decision to make weigh the steelhead or weigh the 16 pound king. They weighed them all and then we had to decide. We had a 20.00, 19.95, and then a choice to make. We chose the steelhead and we chose wrong since an 11 pounder came in. I don’t have any regrets with that and it was a good gamble but if we weighed the king we would have gotten some sort of prize pack. Our total weight was over 79 pounds but it unfortunately wouldn’t be enough. We would finish in 11th (first out of the money) by less than a point. I still think it was a success and a big time rally since we really are still just learning. Traver is doing awesome as a captain in only his 2nd year or salmon fishing and I think every single trip we get a little better at figuring it out. We’re going to need to acquire some fancy tricks though if we are going to keep doing these tournaments.

I might have a couple more trolling trips in me but I’m getting ready to get them on a P-Line Jigging spoon. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few fish could have been caught jigging during this last lake flip and I’m sure a few snuck into the river. We’re getting pretty focused on bass fishing again for the next couple weeks though. I want to win one of the next couple events bad so it is time to put the work in.