We went up to Kenosha, WI, last week to do a little fishing up on Lake Michigan. We hooked up with Rich at Stellar Charters to do a little brown trout fishing.

The day started out great at around 6am. We left Kenosha harbor and turned south along the shore to start trolling. Waves were topping out at about 1 to 2 foot and the fishing was slow most of the day. But for late April I was pretty happy that we landed 11 fish. 12 would have been better since I was fishing the anchor spot, but it was still a good time. We took the wives with us for their first trip out to Lake Michigan to fish. After a few quick lessons they settled right in and had as much fun as we did. Which always makes it easier to go again

The water was still pretty cold in the morning, 44 to 46 degrees, but with a decent chop we managed to land a few on silver/blue and silver/green spoons. Around mid morning the wind dropped and the lake with real flat. The fish went flat too. We went without a hit for about 90 minutes before the wind started back up and the fish started feeding again.

Dave from CrankyDave.Com had the only real lost fish. got it clear to the boat before he choked and let it go. He gets to fish the anchor spot next time as punishment.

Check out the pictures in my gallery and if you are ever interested in a Lake Michigan Fishing Charter heading out of Wisconsin near Chicago, give Rich a call and say hi for me.

Apparently most state’s DNRs can’t..

I decided it would be a great idea to go fishing this weekend.. I’m loosing my mind at work and just sitting on a dock drowning worms would be a welcome relief.. So I figured I should get a new license for 2007..

Apparently the new licenses aren’t good until April 1st.. And the 2006 license is good until March 31st.. That would be fine if I had any idea at all where last year’s license was.. So a quick call to DNR and sure enough, even with a 2007 license in my pocket, if I go fishing this weekend I’m breaking the law..

It’s not a huge deal, I can wait another week I suppose.. But the though of having to buy a 3 day license just to turn around the next weekend and have my ‘07 license kick in seems somehow stupid to me.. Oh well, I suppose it’s better to wait than risk them taking my truck from me

Took a bunch of great guys up to Lake Michigan (St. Joseph. Mi) for a day on the lake fishing for salmon..

The day was great.. The water was reasonable with about 5 to 6 foot rollers coming through.. We didn’t get the big haul I was hoping for, but we did boat our share of fish.. Total fish count was 11 with 1 Coho, 2 Lake Trout, and 8 King Salmon.. Russ got the biggest fish, and the easiest to boat while I got the hardest fish.. Took almost 20 minutes to get him in the boat.. He simply refused to come to the boat.. The fish we did land were all deep (except that one crazy trout).. We were fishing 46 to 55 feet deep in about 58 degree water.. And most of what we caught was on green striped spoons..

And last, and definatly not least, CrankyDave gets the hero of the day award.. This poor guy started feeling the rollers about 2 hours in to the trip.. And he spent the next 5 hours chumming the water for us and not complaining about it at all.. A less dedicated fisherman would have asked to be taken back to the marina costing us at least an hour, possibly 2, of valuable fishing time. So next trip, more Dramamine and less Tequilla seems to be a good plan..

And of course the trip wouldn’t have been any fun at all without our charter captain.. Gary Gamble runs Sundowner Charters.. He’s based in St. Joseph, Michigan and runs charts on both the big lake and the St. Joe River.. This guy knows how to find fish and we’ve been with him on every trip out of St. Joe.. Definatly worth the money to hire a professional charter.. Besides, he cleans the fish after the trip while we sit and drink and tell stories..

Dave, Bill, Me, Bob, Russ, Pete -

~Fey

So the wife has a damned cool boss.. He’s in town from Arizona and invited the folks to join him at Back Forty Sporting Clays for a morning of target shooting.. For those of you not familiar with target shooting sporting clays, skeet, trap, etc., you basically move through several, in this case 10, stations taking 10 shots at each station..

Each station is different with targets moving left to right, righ to left, toward you, away from you, and at various speeds.. And for today’s event we have 7 people show up..

I admit that I never was a hugely accurate trap shooter.. I never really precticed enough to get great.. And the last time I shot was about 3 years ago so I didn’t expect to do more than have fun.. Which I did.. I did fair, 49 out of 100.. The best shooter was the boss, Mike at 70/100 so I don’t feel too bad about my performance..

But the best part of the trip was discovering Back Forty Sporting Clays.. I didn’t even know that they existed.. A few miles outside of Bremen, IN., they were just 45 minutes from home.. They have set up a fabulous area for safe shooting complete with automatic tossers, comfortable stations, club house, gun shop, even gun rental for those that want to try it out without having to invest $1000 or in a shotgun.. And it’s affordable fun..

$28/person and husband/wife teams get a discount and if you are early enough they even have a free youth model 20ga loaner for the women and children donated to them by the NRA.. Allin all a great place and a great time.. Can’t wait to go back and get some practice in for the next “competition”.

~Fey

I love to fish.. Never get to fish enough.. Well, hardly at all this year..

The problem is that I pretty much suck at it.. I’m fabulous at sitting in the boat, driving the boat (or is it piloting?), even parking at the pier next to the tavern with a 26′ pontoon in a current.. But actually catching fish?? Not so good..

Anyway, I was out looking for things to make fishing a little more fun when it comes to actually putting fish in the boat.. I found this great site with animated knot tying videos.. The videso are a series of images, not really video, but you can step through them one frame at a time and each frame has a description of what is going on.. Excellent help for people that tie 6 or 7 square knots in a row to tie a lure..

People like me –

Fey~