Not your typical Nantahala Kokes

[Dr. Oc]

Hey, Rgarbar and Trollmonkey. My wife and I took our daughter to a school related conference in Chicago over the weekend. Heard about the fishing in Lake Michigan and had to give it a try, particularly since I couldn't make it up to Nantahala this year. Beautiful day on a beautiful lake. Fishing was great to us even though the Capt. apologized for the "slow bite". The top pic is of a double header on King Salmon, biggest about 17 lbs. The second pic is of a 13 lb. Brown trout. Bottom is a limit of kings for the day. (Note the small fish nearest my wife's feet. That is a 14 inch salmon for a size reference of the others. It was foul hooked but over the size limit and therefore had to be kept). Much like the deep water kokes the fish could not be released successfully so, needless to say, we brought home a lot of fillets and I can take fishing in the Great Lakes off my "bucket list". Hope to see y'all next year.

 

[rgarbar]

Doc
Great catch and nice post. Those fish make our Nantahala kokes look like bait. I am in FL and suffering in the heat and humidity. Hope to be on the mountain in a few days for some cool dry air and a couple of small kokes!

 

[trollmonkey]

Awesome Doc,The lakes are on my list for some day.

 

[Dr. Oc]

Very fun but also informative trip. We fished 9 lines at a time only because the law limits the boat to 3 rods/angler. He usually fishes 12-14 at a time! 3 or 4 on downriggers plus 2 planers on braid; 2-4 lead core lines and 2-3 copper lines with the wire lines pulled on planerboards for spread. Each had a 50 ft. mono "topshot". I had never seen or heard of copper lines before but they sink deeper than leadcore and allows better separation and covers different depths. Leadcore lines were let out between 11-15 colors and could be as far as 150-200 yards back! Dowriggers and planers had large footlong dodgers and hoochies or flies behind them. Wire lines had spoons without dodgers. Capt. was stunned when I told him that NC had Kokanees. Didn't believe me at first so he pulled it up on his cellphone and read an article as we fished on the Swann family record(s). He seemed pretty impressed that an 1800 acre lake in NC could produce a 3'9" fish.