For the Love of Fishing
Every summer we wait, wondering when or even if they will show up. Some summers they don’t show up in big numbers until the 4th of July. Sometimes later. When they do come, you never know how long they will stay. They may be with us all summer, or they could be...
If you want to catch some big, maybe even enormous walleyes, here’s what you should do. Go to Lake Erie. Or Lake of The Woods. Perhaps northern Minnesota. Don’t bother with Green Bay or Door County. Nope. Nothing to catch here. Just pass us right by. Oh, who am I...
I have evolved into a “Gentleman Angler”. Meaning that I tend to target fish who have the good sense to actively bite during a reasonable time of the day. I typically am not out on the water until I have had time for a cup or two of coffee at...
We can close the books on the 35th Annual Baileys Harbor Brown Trout Tournament. This year’s tournament featured plenty of big fish including the top five fish coming in over twenty pounds. The top twenty-five fish all measured over 30-inches, with most over 34-inches. Of those twenty-five largest fish, eleven were registered...
First, I want to state clearly that any angler who legally catches a brown trout has every right to harvest that fish, adhering to the relevant size and bag restrictions. Whether anglers choose to keep or release a fish is up to them and others should not pass judgment. It’s none of...
It was bound to happen. After almost six weeks of imposed abstinence, it was inevitable. A red-blooded angler can only take so much. There are desires that must be attended to. Since hip replacement surgery earlier this winter, my fishing opportunities were much limited. Open water options were non-existent. Ice fishing...
I took a road trip this week with tournament director Cynde Ploor to the southern ports participating in the Baileys Harbor Brown Trout Tournament. This gave us an opportunity to meet some of the business owners and staff at the various locations that support the tournament. It also gave me...
You don’t need a boat to take part in the Baileys Harbor Brown Trout Tournament. The vast majority of anglers participating each year fish out of a boat. Most of the top fish caught over the years have been by trolling various artificial baits near shore or just offshore. Boats...
Up until the recent winter storm, the bayside and much of the lakeside looked like we could be getting out on open water chasing brown trout by early March. The satellite image from February 19th (see below) showed the lake and much of the bay ice free. Most of the...
As we rumbled out onto the ice of Green Bay, where in a normal winter, we would gaze out over a sprawling “WhitefishTown”, all that could be seen was a modest whitefish hamlet, comprised of about a dozen dark red guide shacks surrounded by a menagerie of blue Clams, red...