Achers of Breakers

Yesterday afternoon, my friend, and often time charter guide Walleye Pete called and asked me to go fishing with him.  Instead of the usual arrangement where I (or we, if others are involved) paying for the ride, and the right to keep a couple of fish each, the deal is that we can catch all we can, but Pete gets to sell them commercially.

This is  allowed because, in addition to being a licensed charter guide, Pete also has a commercial striper quota for hook and line commercial fishing, based on reported catches of a few years previous. Pete still has a couple of thousand pounds of his 2014 quota, and he wanted some help to fill it.  I was glad for the chance to go out. It's a great deal, a free trip using his gas at a time when he expects to be able to catch a lot of fish, and using his lures (at least for the most part), and with two huge coolers full of ice for fish.

We met at Solomon's Island just before 6 AM. In addition to Pete, there were three other guys, Chad, Paul and Shawn. All experienced fishermen, who also charter with Pete regularly. Think of it as the frequent flier bonus program. Winds were about 12-15 NW. Not bad but a little choppy.

We started at Cedar Point, just around daybreak. We caught only a couple of fish there, but they were both keepers. We moved onto the water north of the Dominion Gas Dock,where a small school of breaking fish under birds yielded my first couple of keepers. In hook and line commercial fishing, fish have to be in the 18-36 inch slot, or an average weight of 4 to 20 lbs. Unsatisfied with the rate of catch, Pete moved us to "Location X", where, on the basis of my catch from Tuesday he "promised" tons of big fish.  The fish did not cooperate, and we caught only a a couple of dinks. So, with a quick look at Cedar Point on the way back, we quickly headed for the other side.

Alas, my fishing camera died just before we made it to "Location X", so, other than a couple of blurry pictures of Cove Point Light, I have nothing from today.

Point No Point Lighthouse

On the other side, at the lower Honga River bridge, the water was 9 degrees cooler and muddy from our recent cold snap and blow, and the fish were absent. Similarly down the Hooper Straits, and out into the Bay near Holland Island. With nothing happening at that point, we lumped our way back west to Point No Point Light, where we caught just one fish, a keeper.

However, on our way north out the Pt. No Point we hit the first of several large schools of breakers, areas where birds were eating bait fish driven to the surface by large schools of stripers, with a pretty good percentage of good sized keepers. At one point, I had the big fish of the day with a fat 30 inch.  It was later superseded by a 31 inch Paul caught, and a 32 inch that Pete caught.  Bummer.

We played in and around 2 or 3 more schools of breaker for most of the afternoon, moving constantly as wind and fish differed in their preferred direction of travel.  We continued to put fish in the coolers. Late afternoon found us in a much quieter sea, with no birds working, but a vast school of stripers from surface to bottom on the depth finder, and most of the well above the 18 inch minimum. We stayed there until it was time to head for Cedar Point one last time for the sunset bite. The last two keepers went in the boat there, for a total of 99 keeper fish between 5 anglers.

It was an amazing day of fishing. But my arms are literally aching from all the fish.  Thanks Pete.