Posts tagged Chicago

This April, I was able to make it down a handful of times to the Chicago Lake Front.  I have been coaching baseball, being a dad, and just to busy to make it out for regular trips.  I also haven’t been keeping up with my blog a whole lot.  Baseball is now over, and the fishing should pick up, along with blog posts.

Fishing, this April, was mainly focused on the Lake Michigan Brown Trout.  I have never caught a brown trout in my life, and I was determined to get one this spring.  To be fair, I have not really made an effort to get one until this fall, in Kenosha.  After receiving the Wisconsin skunk on many trips up there, I knew this spring would bring a change of tide to my luck.  The main harbors I pursued them were Burnham and Dusable.

April 1st, 2010

It was only my second trip downtown, to Lake Michigan this spring.  After a few downed bobbers and nothing to show, my last trip out, I knew the fishing was starting to pick up.  Todd, his son, and I arrived at Dusable  Harbor around 9:30 am.  We all set up worms or minnows, under bobbers, I chose to rig my second rod with a crankbait.  After a few casts, with no hits, I began to notice bait fish schooling in the sun warmed corner of the harbor.  I gave a quick cast to the middle of the school and after two cranks I got slammed.  This fish took a little bit of my 6lb fluorocarbon line off the reel before quickly stalling under the surfacing.  Todd can racing over as we immediately tried to determine the  species of the fish.  He gave me a big smile and said brown.  It happened, I finally got my first brown trout.  I could knock a species of the list for the year.  It was not a big brown, by any means, but it was my first one.  I probably had an ear to ear smile as we put him on a stringer for Todd’s dinner.  Here’s a pic of the fish:

My first brown trout. Dusable Harbor, Chicago. Lake Michigan

April 2nd:

I was not able to get downtown today, but my buddy Todd did.  He said he had multiple hits with a crawler under a bobber.  He even tried wolf-river rig off the bottom and it also got hit a few times.  He was using roaches on that one.  For his efforts, he was able to get a small coho, which is shown below.

Todd with a barely legal coho before it gets fried on the grill.

April 3rd

Todd goes down for one more day, hoping to get enough coho for a small meal.  With his son, they once again put crawlers under bobbers and roaches off the bottom.  Todd gets a big hit and a fish fight ensues.  After his son attempts to battle the fish for a while, Todd takes over thinking “monster brown” as this fish has run multiple times and just won’t budge.  15 minutes later, the battle is still going, he has not seen the fish.  Finally, after more time goes by, Todd sees the fish, and to his dismay, his state record thoughts are immediately thrown away by the sight of a fat mirror carp.  I know carp are in the harbors, and they get big, I do not often hear of them hitting live bait such as roaches.  Congrats? Todd.

Todd's son holding a monster catch, too bad it wasn't an expected trout.

I will probably not hit the big lake for a while, at least until the perch come in.  Once school ends, I will be looking to pick up some pond bass and begin planning for my July trip to Vilas County.