TOPIC:

Now that winter is approaching and things are getting slow, lets hear how fishing on the big lake became an obsession for you?

What is your story?

For me, it started in 2011. I was a bass fisherman all my life. Bought my first (crappy) boat at age 16 and started fishing local bass tournaments. I was often humbled but occasionally did very well. I bought my first "real" bass boat at age 20, just before getting married. My future wife to be was pissed beyond belief . Over time I became an expert on a few local bodies of water, mostly the Kank because it was close.

One September day in 2011, my bass fishing partner (Northwoods) and I decided to fish burns ditch in my 18' Triton Bass Boat.........because there is just not alot of bass water around us. We probably caught 20 largemouth that day, and a few smallies to boot. We were rather shocked.......The next weekend we went back again. We were casting in the ditch and there was a boat going out. A guy screamed at us - "are you going for Salmon?" and we said no we are bass fishing! He shook his head like we were idiots. We then looked at each other in confusion.

We eventually got to the mouth of the ditch and the lake was glass. I said hell lets go out to those rocks (No. 4 area) and see if we can find some smallies. I dont think I had ever fished water that deep! I was casting a blue and white Fat Free Shad Crankbait and hooked into a 8lb (give or take) Steelhead. I had the fight of my life on with a full air show. Somehow got him in (no net) I didnt even know how to hold this "crazy" fish that had teeth!

I had no idea what was even in the big lake. How the hell could I not know, living here all my life??

The next spring we trolled for coho. Each holding a rod as we had no holders etc. We took a limit of coho in about 4 hours with 2 rods. By May I had sold my bass boat and bought a Stratos Walleye Boat with intentions on mostly fishing the big lake. Man the prospects were exciting after spending all winter on the forums....

I travel a ton (driving) and do alot of website work on the side. So I decided to make a website with a ton of weather information so I could get it all with one click while I was driving home and decide if I was going to pack the boat up for an evening of fishing. After working on it off and on for a year, I eventually thought, wow - I bet other guys would find this useful. I spent alot of time dressing it up and TheSouthEnd was born.

I am absolutely thrilled with all that have found it useful. I am more happy with all of the fantastic folks I have met over the course of the last 5 years. So many wonderful people out there!

Here is my first LM fish - didnt even know how to hold it haha

Great story Jeff. Mine isn’t quite as good. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. My dad had a 17’ Citation runabout that he bought from Holiday Boat Sales. We used it for skiing and tubing mainly but my dad fished from time to time as well. A friend of his took him Salmon fishing on his boat and my dad had a blast. He is a Tool & Die maker so the next winter he made 2 Down riggers in the shop. We still have them and I’ll post a picture later when I get a chance to take one. Anyway he completed the riggers in late August and we fished a few times during that fall King run. We liked to troll along the rocks right in front of the MC Nipsco hot water discharge. I don’t really know why but that is what we were doing. It was getting dark and one of the riggers fires. We only ran 4 rods. Two riggers and two flat lines. I grabbed the rod with my heart pounding out of my chest. Fought the fish and had it at the side of the boat. It was dark at this point and my dad had a flashlight in one hand and a way too small net in the other. The dark brown King looked giant with the light shining on it. It was a big fish but I cannot even guess how big really. Thinking 18 pounds today. Anyway he went to net the fish and it didn’t go well. It didn’t fit into the net and one of the hooks got caught and the fish was gone. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. That was it for me!! Today I love fishing the big lake for Salmon and Trout, but I equally enjoy Perch, Crappie, Walleye and other species. I’ll never forget that evening and the one that got away. That was 1979 or 1980. Still fishing and loving it.

Like Jeff I was mainly a bass guy although I never got the success the did (still not a great bass fisher). My wifes uncle passed and I was offered to buy his 16' pike hunter for a really good deal. I ended up getting it and doing some fishing on the local lakes (was a shore fisher before this). I did ok and found I really liked having a boat and fishing but it was a really narrow boat with a 25 HP so it was not good for more than two maybe three people. I started looking at boats at Cabelas just for fun but they were way out of my price range with kids in school and what not. Anyways a few years passed and the wife was liking being able to go out on the boat and the kids were out of school so we ended up getting the Alumacraft in 2014. I talked to a few buddies of mine about boats and their contacts and they helped me out with getting the boat. My one buddy asked me if I was going to take it out on the big lake for salmon and I was like no, I don't know anything about Salmon or Lake Michigan. It took me about 1 month before i went out on the big lake to try trolling for late kings that I was told were hitting out of pastrick. I tried it out with a couple of bass rods and holding them by hand. We didnt get anything but I had ventured out. I had fished the ditch with the old boat but it was so narrow if there were any waves at all it got scary, so I stayed in the ditch. Anyways more talking with my buddy and he ended up giving me the basics so I could get some CoHo in spring 2015. I went out and the first time out we got a few and it was fun. Through out that year I added more stuff, got my cousin to come along (he was a big Salmon guy in the 80s). We did fairly well and after having a few nice Coho and a Steelie or two, I was hooked harder then the Salmon. hundreds or thousands of dollars and a couple years later, I love Salmon fishing more than any other. I still enjoy bass and pan fishing but nothing like seeing that rod pop with a fish on. I am new addict but it is a bad addiction..

Most have heard the reasons why salmon had been put in Lake Michigan - to clear up the overabundance of alewives. It was horrible. I remember swimming at Michigan City one summer day in 1968 and there was a dead fish floating every 10 feet or so in the shallows along the beach. I was a college kid, had a summer job with the DNR and was actually partying with a bunch of DNR employees, one of which told me about the Michigan DNR stocking coho salmon to eat the alewives. The salmon were in the lake, no one knew where.
The next spring they showed up in Indiana and people actually started catching them. It was big news. I remember seeing a photo in the Chicago Tribune, an aerial view looking down on the lake at what I realize now was a cloud shadow, but the photo caption proclaimed it to be a huge school of salmon swimming near the surface. Fake news even back then!
But I was convinced. It was spring break. A friend and I drove up to Odgen Dunes. No gate, back then. We parked as far north and east as we could and then hiked over the sands between there and the mouth of Burns Ditch, sat along the edge and cast bass and pike lures out into the ditch water. No fish. Probably 1969,
In 1973 I met the brother of a friend - Dave Baker - then principal at Chesterton High School. He told me he fished every morning from a boat at Michigan City and invited me along. I went, we caught four or five cohos and I was hooked. I fished with friends a couple of times in the next few years but in 1979 I got my break.
My dad had traded services for a 50's era 14 foot, Glastron “speedboat” in the late 60s. Originally it came with a “Gale” outboard (sold at Montgomery Wards). He repowered with a 35 HP Johnson and I inherited it in 1979. (He was tired of mowing around it in the back yard.)
I nursed it back to health - barely - it would only pull start. Eventually, I built some home made downriggers, home made rod holders, home made down rigger weights and became a “salmon” fisherman. I caught 56 salmon that first year in probably 10 trips. That sounds good, except back in those days, any mope with two rods and an orange J-9 could catch an easy limit. After the second season, now repowered with a 50 HP Evinrude - I caught many more fish including several 20 plus pound kings.
That winter I bought a 16 foot Sylvan SeaMonster, slapped the Evinrude on it, rebuilt my downriggers, rod holders and fished that boat from northern Wisconsin to Port Clinton until 1987 when I traded up to an 18 ft Sylvan with a 3.OL Mercruiser. Great boat. I wore it out by 1995, sold it for more than it was worth and went back to buy an identical boat. By then, Sylvan didn’t make 18 footers with I/Os so I moved up to a 21 footer with a 3.0L. Horrible boat.
It rode like a john boat, the seats fell apart, motor mounts collapsed, hull rivets popped loose. The only good thing was it was large enough to comfortably hold four people and myself so I earned my captain’s license and started Brother Nature Fishing Adventures. I chartered out of it in 1998, found a sucker to buy it that winter and bought the current Brother Nature in 1999.
Through all of this the fishing has evolved from cohos only, to cohos and kings. Browns and steelhead were added. Skamania mania swept the Great Lakes like an epidemic and Indiana was ground-zero. Bacterial kidney disease nearly wiped out the king salmon program, Early mortality syndrome nearly wiped out the coho program. Mussels changed the nature of the lake, gobies were supposed to be as bad, commercial fishing wiped out the perch, Asian carp get all the money and lake trout get all the blame.
The fishing has gone from three guys holding a rod, flatlining, to rod holders, downriggers, planer boards, diving planers, lead core, copper and fluorocarbon line. My first sonar was a flasher, then paper graphs then a liquid crystal graph. My first VHF radio had tubes and three channels. I was cutting edge with Loran-C navigation system, then a handheld GPS and now I have one unit that does it all and two back-up units.
It’s been a wild ride, fun, exciting, enjoyable and I’m as excited about my first trip next spring as when my college friend and I marched across the dunes almost 50 years ago.

I started fishing with my dad when I was about 12. We mostly fished small inland lakes in south west Michigan. We were very good large mouth fisherman. We fished tournaments together from time to time and we held our own. By the time I was 19 I stopped fishing except for a couple times a year. A young women caught my eye and little did I know she had already stuck her claws into me. I bought my house when I was 22 got married when I was 24 and had my first daughter when I was 25. Real life set in fast. At this time I was starting to fish a lot again with my dad. Realized my parents were right about just about everything in my teenage years lol. I had my second daughter when I was 27. At this time I realized 2 kids were enough and I could not risk having a third girl lol. I was going to turn one of these cute little princess into a tough little fisherman. Well my youngest is coming along nicely lol. In 2014 after a lot of research I found a boat which is the boat I have now. I wanted to smallmouth fish Lake Michigan. I figured small mouth fishing was the same as largemouth, just fish by the rocks. Well I was dead wrong I caught 1 small fish in 15 trips. I started noticing the salmon guys coming in with boxes full of huge fish. This was the beginning of the end for me. Come to find out a coworker was a salmon fisherman that was struggling to find guys to go out fishing. By September I had I think 4 plastic rod holders and 2 trolling rod combos. As greg taught me the ropes of the lake and salmon fishing. I hooked up with my first salmon on sept 1st 2014 on the inland steel wall. It was a 18lbs king that destroyed my arms and just wore me out. That day foward I was hooked. Then on September 14 of 2014 I caught another king casting with my bass rod it was a 19 lbs king. Since then all I can think about is salmon fishing. I have spent hundreds of hours reading learning and testing theories and tactics on the lake. Here are some pics. Notice in the beginning plastic rod holders, no riggers, no kicker motor, no marine radio or antenna. Now I have 10 Cisco rod holders, 2 riggers, wire divers, 22 trolling rod and reel combos with about 12 reels in a bag ready to swap out on to rods. Marine radio with an 8 foot antenna, kicker and recently 2 new hds units that I am hiding from my wife haha. I'm a dead man if she finds them before they are installed on the boat. So needless to say I got hooked big time.

It was October of 1973. The old part of samuleson road Portage between I94 and Rt.12. Noticed alot of the same fishermen fishing the east branch every evening. A friend and I was clay target shooting getting ready for fall bird hunting. So, we walked down to the river to see what was going on. KINGS, almost everyone had one or more. The next evening there we are bass rod in hand casting a very small cd-blue and silver rapala. As the sun went down the fish started moving up river. Schools of kings going past 20-30 fish sometimes more then wham-o. I got one on, I couldn't belive the strength of this fish. Finally tired him enough for a fellow fishermen to net my first king. I was using a Garcia Abumatic 170 and that one fish burned out my drag system. But we kept casting. I had a couple of others on but with no drag it wasn't happening. So every fall after that,we fished for kings. Around 1977 I bought my brothers boat and trailer. It was a 14ft heavy duty seanypmh with a 1968 Johnson 10hp. I had 2 riviera downriggers and 2 flat line rod holders. An old ray jeff flasher and we were fishing. What a blast to be out fishing 4 rods between 2 guys and having a ball. A few years later that boat was sold and I moved into a 18ft starcraft on a easyloader trailer with a 115 merc outboard. Now we had 4 riviera downriggers and still 2 flats. The next year I got laid off from the midwest plant. The next morning I went down to leftys coho landing and waited for charters to come in for gas. I introduced myself to a few captains and said I need a job. Bob Cash from the Raindrops needed a mate, and the next morning I was working my first charter as a first mate. What an experience that was. Soon I was working for captains out of michigan city also. The learning curve was awesome. 2 years later I sold my starcraft and moved into a 25ft Thompson got my sixpack charter license and started to work my own buisness chartering and selling salmon flys. The fishing back then was alot different then today. Going out to deep water usually was never needed to take fish. Captain Bill Carr from the Green Hornet had taken me under his wing and taught me how to fish dodger fly combinations and helped me push my flys. Jack Perry who also received his captains license was the sports writer for the post tribune newspaper. Jack wrote a few articles about the hot new Lickety-Split Salmon Flys and the buisness took off. So still working shift work at the mill, chartering for myself, still mating for others, and making and selling salmon flys. It was a handful. I would take the first 2 weeks of July off for vacation and run double charters as often as I could during that time. The steelhead fishing was something I wish everyone could experience. It was so good that Indiana was being written about in all the fishing mags. There was no better steelhead fishing in the US, and it was in our back yard so to say. I helped in outings taking out sportswriters and DNR official from Illinois.Soon Illinois was stocking skamanias, and a 18lber that was caught on my boat, went on the wall for the assitant dirctor to Ill. DNR. Life was good and the experiences were great. On one charter of new folks I was brought to tears. I had a gentlemen ask me to see one of the life jackets. As he looked intently at that jacket I saw tears forming in his eyes. I asked "DOC" What was the problem? He said, "I wish we had jackets like these, they would of helped save lives". I asked what did he mean? The answer is something I will never forget. Doc asked me if I had heard of a ship called the USS Indianapolis? My knees got weak, and I teared up fast. I listened to the actual events that took place after they were torpedoed. How the old kapok jackets would take on water after hours in the ocean. How Jackets were dried out sitting on bloated bodies and how friends watched as the sharks took many. I am so blessed for the experiences lake Michigan has given me. So, moving on, I did get burned out after time and sold out and moved into a coachingmanger postion for my boys in baseball. But couldn't get rid of wanting to get back into fishing later on once more. At present I have 2 boats, #4 and #5. I love this lake, have seen much, experienced much and love to share when I can. If your ever in the building for district 10 you will see a picture of and older man with a very weathered face. That is Bill Carr. Bills family was one of the first homesteaders in miller and Bill taught me alot. Thats what it is suppose to be about. How to help others, and see that passed on. I was very fortunate to have been taught and helped by some mentioned and will forever hold the memories of friends long gone but never forgotten.