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!