Got today off from work, so I decided to pull a marathon of fishing last night for the seemingly elusive July King Salmon from shore.

Armed with the full arsenal of hardware, I got to my lakefront spot in cheesehead land and began washing lures around 11pm last night.

Between the hours of 11-2am, I had seen one fish caught. The overnight extravaganza wasn’t looking that promising. Soon enough, an angler to my right yells, “Fish on!” which turns out to being a burbot. Oh well, that brought some excitment to the night.

Around 2:30 am, I had a bump, so I set the hook. Fish on! Fish didn’t put up much of a fight, so I knew right away it was something small. Ended up being a 14″ King which was unhooked and released back into Lake Michigan to grow into a 20lber.

The night was expiring, and the sun began to make its arrival. Over on the eastern horizon, I watched the jet black skies turn into a haze of lit clouds. The night was drawing to an end, and so was my fishing time. Heck, I had been casting for nearly 6 hours (minus a 10 minute break to slam an energy drink and eat a sandwich), and had nothing positive to show for it.

Then it happened.

THUMP

FISH on!!

Drag peeling, I quickly awoke and became fully conscious of what was transpiring. I had hooked into a REAL king!!!

An epic battle ensued, and slowly but surely, I was able to carefully navigate the fish to an opened net that was clung tightly by a fellow angler. To my amazement, this was a BEAST!

I’ve been reading about boaters catching Kings in the 7-12lb class. Those are fun, those are quality fish. This fish surpassed my fantasies.

20lbs!!!

I’m exhausted. This has been a long and dedicated effort of watching wind patterns, monitoring shoreline surface temperatures, and chasing kings. I can go to sleep now and realize that yes, I caught a July king from shore. What a blast!

Here are the pics, enjoy!

After going for 0 for my last 5 salmon fishing attempts, I decided I would slightly switch gears today. Seeing that a few steelies were being caught by some pier fishermen during the daylight hours, I decided to head to cheesehead land for the late afternoon/early evening bite.

My trout outfit is similar to my salmon outfit, but is a little more on the “lighter” side. I brought the 9′6” microlite with 6# test P-Line to the lakefront today, and decided to chuck a variety of spoons in the upper column of the water.

I arrived at my spot at about 4pm today, and began casting (something I’ve become very familiar with these last two weeks). At around 4:30, I felt a good thud, swung the rod back, and the fish was on! Now, after missing two steelies yesterday, I was absolutely determined to land a fish.

My spoon was about 50 yards from the pier when the fish hit, and it immediately took a 20 yard run, then did an aerial and fish tail walk. Knowing that I only had about 125 yards of 6# test, I was really hoping that I’d land this fish. After gaining about 65 yards on it, it shot to my left along the pier. I actually chased it. I didn’t want to give up any more line. A fast paced walk while following the fish led me about 70 yards to my left from where I hooked up. Like I said, I was DETERMINED not to lose this fish! I eventually tired it out enough, and led it to the net.

30.5″, 12#s. CHROME! Ahhhh, nothing really beats a lake steelie!

Note – super secret spoon is exposed in pic! Well, not really a super secret. Just some spoon I picked up in the yooper that I had never seen before. Thought I’d give it a try today…

Finally! After a tough week of missed fish, I had something nice flopping around on the pier!

So on I went, and continued my casting. Around 6pm, I felt another solid thump, but I failed to connect. I retrieved my spoon, and flung another cast out far into the lake. About 6 revolutions on the reel later, another THUMP. Fish on!

A ten minute battle went on, and I came out on top for a 2nd time today.

Another beautiful Lake Michigan steelie. 29″, 10#s.

I wrapped fishing up around 7pm and walked off the pier with my fish. That’s a very pleasant walk as all the other anglers eye you and your fish and ask, “whoa, what did you get them on???” For the last week, I was asking that question.

Not a bad day on the lakefront. Two for the smoker that will be distributed to friends and family.

I’ll be chasing trib chrome tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes…