Fishing for Trout

One of the great trout fishing times I can remember is fishing for steelhead in the middle of Lake Michigan. Here we were fishing the top 25ft of water in 400ft of water for steelhead. I live in a small town on Lake Michigan and have had the opportunity to fish not only Lake Michigan but also Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

I started out about 30 to 35 years ago in the Northport area fishing for lake trout. These Lake Trout were in 100 to 125 feet of water. This was before the introduction of salmon so the idea of down riggers was not even thought of and at the time I didn't even have wire line as that came later for me. We made our first downriggers. We used 8 or 10 inch pulleys and wire that some of the fisherman used to troll with. I don't even remember how we mounted them but they did work. We would take an open faced spinning reel with 12 to 15 pound test line and then attach cowbells onto the end of the line with a lure 18 to 24 inches behind the cowbells. To get the cowbells down on the bottom we put a three-way swivel between the main line and the cowbells, then we would attach a 18 inch leader with five bell sinkers to the three-way swivel. This would usually get the bait down to the lake bottom.

You would know if you were on the bottom by feeling the bell sinker bounce along the bottom. You need to on the bottom because Lake Trout usually stay near the bottom.

By the way , if you don't know what cowbell are, they are a string of spinners or blades, usually silver and about 18 to 24 inches long that is used as an attractor and they really do flash. You drag these along the bottom with the sinkers kicking up a little sand and you can catch Lake Trout.

That was tough fishing back then but today with down riggers and a great selection of lures and all of our new electronic equipment it is much easier. By the way even with all that trouble we did catch Lake trout and after that the salmon were introduced, but that is another story.

One last note about our trout fishing sport. One important thing that must be done is to ensure our great fishery is protected. That means not only impose strict rules and regulations on the companies of the world today to protect our environment but also see to it that our governments enact strict regulations on the shipping companies, so they do not release any evasive aquatics into our waterways, such as the Great Lakes ( the world's largest supply of freshwater).

Have a nice day and catch lots of fish.