Salmon fishing on the Bon-Shell

So, I get back from my trip to the Mississippi Fruit Jar &Missouri Crappie Camp, and my buddy Ron Mihevc gives me a call and tells me the Salmon are biting off shore on Lake Michigan.
Ronnie is a Charter Boat captain out of the port of Waukegan in Illinois. I've know Ronnie for years, even since I first created his website back in the late 90's. You see, I had a boat on Lake Michigan for a couple summers, and I fished for Salmon. But when I stated to get into designing and hosting websites for some of the captains on Lake Michigan, Captains like Ronnie would offer to take me out fishing. And since I would catch one Salmon in 5 hours on the Great Lake, they knew what they were doing and would fill 6 limits in that same time frame. Well, I finally got smart, got rid of the boat, and just went fishing with my charter boat friends.
Anyway, time had passed, jobs got in the way, and I had not gone out on the big lake in a long while. It was good to hear from Ronnie.
I know this is a Crappie fishing site but I thought you all would be interested anyway. Partly because you may be interested in coming here to try this yourself, and partly because of the technique used to catch Salmon. You see, one technique used on Salmon is fishing with planer boards, and now the use of planer boards for Crappie has become very popular.
Ronnie's boat is a 32 foot long Stamas Sport Fishing boat. It has two V8 inboard motors, bathroom, and enclosed cabin. This is a nice boat, and the kind of boat you really need on Lake Michigan. The wind can come up fast, and the waters can really whip up. Sure you can go out in an 18 foot V Hull, but only when the wind is calm and the fish are near shore, and even then you have to be careful. The weather can change in the blink of an eye. I know, I've been out in my own 26 ft boat and barely made it into the harbor. You see, when there's a storm and the winds are right, that entrance into the harbor can turn into hell, even when the rest of the Lake is relatively navigable.

So my daughter Jessica, my close friend Al and I go out on a charter trip fishing on Lake Michigan, out of Waukegan Harbor with Ron on his boat The Bon-Shell. We had asked some others, but we could not get anyone else to go on such short notice. The fish were biting, and we wanted to catch them NOW.
The fog was thick, so Ronnie called another captain that was already out on the lake. He verified that it was indeed foggy everywhere. No sun, and no signs of the fog burning off any time soon. Ron was out the day before, and it stayed foggy for most of the trip. He seemed a little ill at ease, but he turned on a fog horn, and we proceeded out. The fog horn was not loud, but it signaled every couple minutes just to let others know of our presence.

Check out Ronnie's collection of flies and spoons.

We headed out, got to our spot, and Ronnie put out 14 rods. In Illinois you are only allowed to fish with two rods, with the exception of Lake Michigan, where you can use up to 3 rods each. Including the captains license, we could fish up to 16 rods.
Ronnie put out 3 Yellow Birds (planer boards), 2 Dipsy Divers, and two down riggers, on each side of the boat for a total of 14 rods. The down riggers had 16lb lead weights on the end of a steel cable let down to near bottom. You would clip the line from one rod to the lead weight, leaving about 5 feet of line behind it to the lure. If a fish bit the bait, the line would release from the lead ball, and you would reel the fish in.
The Yellow birds and Dispy Divers had releases as well, when they would release they remained attached (but with less drag) while you reeled the fish in. The bait consisted of a fly, or a spoon, with a flasher to give it action, about 18 to 24 inches ahead of it.




At this time of the year Ron generally used flies everywhere except on the down riggers, where he used spoons. Rons recent catches came from the the boards and the Dipsys. The Down riggers caught only a few, but the few caught deep were big Kings. On top he mostly had been catching Coho Salmon and Steelheads (Rainbow Trout).
We fished in about 35 ft of water all the way out to 60 ft of water, right outside the harbor, and just a little North. We caught our limit. 17 fish in 3 hours, all Coho, with just one Steelhead. The limit is 5 fish per person (3x5), so we caught all ours, plus 2 of the captains limit.
The Coho were about 2-3 pounds. All the same size, seemingly from the same mold. Well, there is a reason for that. The state stocks these fish, so they were likely all from the same hatchery, planted in the lake at the same time.
Jessica did a great job catching these fish for the first time. She was too young to remember fishing on my boat. While trolling Salmon, as we were doing, you don't set the hook. All you do is hold the rod tip up, and reel. You let the rod tip do it's thing. What you don't want to do is yank up with the rod, and then reel. You'll end up yanking the hook right out of the fishes mouth. Salmon have soft mouths.
We had a great time. Ronnie cleaned the fish, and we went home for a fish fry. Thanks Ronnie.
Book your charter with Ronnie now, visit www.Bonshellfishing.com.





CHECK OUT THE VIDEO of Jessica bringing one in.


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