The following is a detailed description of my fishing day on 5/10. I didn't originally include the detailed nuances of my trips on Tuesday because I really didn't think it would be necessary, as I didn't expect I was going to be on trial for putting up a couple of fishing reports. I was, obviously, wrong about that, as I not only received the push-back that I did on this forum thread, but also received a call from a Detective in the Investigations Bureau of the DNR yesterday (It should be noted that, at the conclusion of this conversation, the Detective assured me the matter was closed, as it was apparent to him that no further action was necessary beyond the aforementioned conversation). It astounds me that a person's go-to reaction when reading what I wrote is to contact the DNR and blatantly accuse me of being outside the regulations of the law. So, without further ado, here is the full, detailed account of my fishing day (with photos attached for reference).
Fished in the AM with a friend/co-worker. We caught 10 coho (five each, per the law). At the conclusion of our AM trip, I returned home to drop off my friend. After dropping my boat at home, and cleaning my fish, I stopped over at my Mom's house and gave her my catch so she could enjoy some fresh fish for dinner. I spoke to my brother while en route to my home, and he mentioned that we should grab my nephew (who had never fished out there before) and go back out for the afternoon bite. You see, I fish out of a 17' Bass Tracker, so my opportunities to fish are slim, requiring the perfect wind and weather in order to even get out. This was a perfect weather day, AND the fish were biting, so it seemed like a great time to take out someone new to the Big Lake. After my nephew got out of school at 3pm EDT, and my brother got out of work, we returned to MC and went back to the same place I had fished in the morning (thus the PM report stating "we started out where we left off this morning"; "we" being the boat, in general). I've been fishing Lake Michigan my entire life (third generation fisherman on Lake Michigan), and I am well aware of the laws that govern and protect our beloved fishery. For this reason, I went along on this trip to drive the boat, which allowed my brother and greenhorn nephew to do all the fishing. As stated in the PM report, they caught eight fish (seven coho and one small king) - NONE of which were caught by me, and all well within the regulations of a two-man daily limit.
I've attached photos for clarity, so that everyone is aware that there were different people in the boat for both trips. Additionally, these photos (all taken by me) show that the photos were taken from the vantage point of the driver's seat, where I was planted for the entirety of the afternoon trip.
I don't suppose I'll post anymore fishing reports on here. In my wildest dreams, I never expected this kind of result in trying to share information with the fishing community. Forgive me for not including mundane details in my reports...I just didn't think it was necessary and I try to stick to the pertinent information related to fishing. In the future, it might behoove anyone wanting to contact the DNR in a knee-jerk reaction to reading a post to actually do the gentlemanly thing and contact the person-in-question directly to get the whole story.
Tight lines...good luck out there.
