J & Ariel's Lake Trout

J and Ariel had a great day catch lake trout...
Longest was 27"... Delicious...

Ariel's Steelhead

Ariel had a crazy awesome day catch Steelhead in April...
The longest fish he caught was 30"!! They're beautiful!




"Trophy Fish: This was by far the largest Steelhead (30 inches) and prettiest one I caught. I did not catch this on a fly rod, got this one bottom bouncing the deep part of the river, hooked this fish on a 20 foot hole, fought for 10 minutes, fish ran up and down the river, by the time we got this fish on the net, we were half a mile down the river and my arms were jello. I wanted to keep this fish but in the end decided to release it for someone else to have fun with it. Enjoy the pic. "

Jim's Baits and Boats

Called Jim's Baits and Boats: 586-329-3811
The guy said he couldn't guarantee that he would be renting out boats this upcoming weekend because it's still a little cold outside.... but he did say that we could call... he said that we could rent as early at 7am and maybe be out on the water as late as 6pm.

Congratulations to For The House

For The House defeated The Fisher Kings handily in 2009.

The stats below show how the drama unfolded.
Essentially Hong's 13" sardine was the fish to beat from February to September. In fact, sadly, The Fisher Kings never beat that damn sardine. By the end of September The Fisher Kings had a big push for the cumulative length prize with Eric's 7 Largemouth Bass. But For The House squashed those dreams with a very strong showing in the middle of October. With 5 fish over 16" and the cold Michigan weather basically shutting down fishing for November and December, the Fisher Kings were sunk. One of those 5 fish was the winner of this year's largest fish prize.
That would be Hong's 23" beautiful Bonita. According to Hong, that Bonita put up an excellent fight. The Fisher Kings wouldn't know what a fight like that feels like.

There were some wonderful fishing outfits in 2009. I personally enjoyed Hong's use of the blue with white stripe windbreaker throughout the year. Desiree's cutoff sweats and striped tube socks in September raised the bar a bit. Kimmie's blue and white bathing suit with white shirt and black gloves while gutting fish will not soon be forgotten.

Photo of the year is a close call between Hong's bird catch and Eric's fish in a fish moment.

The Fisher Kings feel good moment of the year came in September when Kimmie broke the teams streak of consecutive unsuccessful fishing. Her 8" Crappie caught on 9/4/09 will be immortalized in Fisher King lore as the first fish blessed by angler royalty.

For The House also had an excellent feel good moment when Ameer took time off work to fish with Hong on his birthday weekend. That, my friends, is what it's all about.
That, and catching some big ass fish.

2009 was a successful competition.

In 2010 the Fisher Kings will ready to go. We've procured a motor for Gary's boat, so tooling around his river will be easier. Trolling for big fish may be an option.
With the whole ocean coast to work with including the Lion's Den and all of La Jolla, For The House will be competitive if not dominant for years to come.

Negotiations have begun for the 2010 Fishing Competition Rules.
2009 is in the books.

Here's to 2010... Good luck!

For the House	Length (in.)
2/2/2009	10	Rockfish	Hong
	13	Sardine	Hong
10/12/2009	13	goldfish	Hong
	9	Baitfish	Hong
	10	baitfish	Hong
10/14/2009	16	Sandbass	Hong
	17	Sandbass	Hong
	23	Bonita	Hong
	16	Mackerel	Hong
	16	Mackerel	Hong
	13	Mackerel	Hong
	14	Mackerel	Hong
11/13/2009	13	Sheephead	Hong
	13	Rockfish	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	12	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	9	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	8	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	9	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	7	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
	7	?	Ameer/Gene/Hong
Total	248

The Fisher Kings	Length (in.)
9/4/2009	8	Crappie	Kimmie
	6.5	Crappie	Kimmie
9/6/2009	7.5	Crappie	Gary
	6.5	Crappie	Kimmie
	6.75	Crappie	Kimmie
	6.25	Crappie	Kimmie
9/21/2009	11.5	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	11	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	11	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	11	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	11	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	11	Largemouth Bass	Eric
	10.5	Largemouth Bass	Eric
Total	118.5

(sigh)

Me and Kimmie and Ariel went to Lake Saint Claire on Sunday on probably the last fishing excursion of the year. The weather was a beautiful 68 degrees. Kimmie and I called around and tried to find a boat for us to rent. We found a place called Jimmy’s Baits and Boats, but it was so close to the end of the season as well as there was a high wind, so he said he probably wouldn’t be renting boats any more this year. He said he’d probably start up again in April. But I asked him where to do some shore fishing and he said to check out the Harley-Ensign DNR access point. He said to go all the way to the tip of the peninsula and that people have caught walleye and pike from there.
We left my house around 3:30pm. Annalisa and Kelly were still on their high from the awesome mom 2 mom sale they hit up earlier in the day. So they were kind enough to watch all the babies while we went fishing. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We thought the sun would set around 5:45pm, so we had a couple hours to try and beat Hong’s 23” bonita. We started out fishing the Texas rig. In the end, I snagged twice and I think Ariel did too. I don’t think Kimmie snagged at all, or if she did, she had a 20# test line so the line wasn’t breaking, the hook would bend first. I think it did actually. We set up shop a couple hundred feet away from some duck hunters with their camo and guns and fake ducks and duck calls.
It was looking like the most we were getting from this fishing trip was some laughs and a beautiful sunset that turned the sky purple. The laughs came when Ariel met his desperation point. Nothing was working and Ariel heard that the big carp like corn. So he proceeded to take a huge hook and he ran the hook through a bunch of pieces of corn. So essentially he had a corn hook. He held it up and all I saw was a desperate man that was feeling the effects of a 2009 season going by without himself or any of us catching any legit keepers. So corn hook it was. I compounded the acts of desperation when I turned to the water and saw what I thought to be a very big very slow moving fish. I excitedly pointed it out to Ariel who excitedly cast corn hook in front of it. Had it been a huge fish rather than a piece of driftwood impersonating a fish, I can’t imagine that it would not have gobbled up corn hook instantly. But, alas, good times are just good times that could have been better times had we just caught a huge fish.
(sigh)
However, we did bump in to these two old men that were willing to share a lot of general fishing knowledge about Lake Saint Claire. They said that we were generally in the right place, but we need a boat or a float tube to get to where the schools of small mouth run. They said we just need to get about a hundred feet off shore and the half square mile or so of the water that leads into the bay is one of the best places to fish in the whole lake. He said come back between the middle of April and the middle of June and fish the white 3” tube lure. He said to make sure you let it crawl real slow on the bottom and the small mouth bass love it. He also went on to tell us how where the channels are below the water that the fish run along. He also told us how float tubes help you get to where the fish are. He tried to point out the importance of finding the weed beds where the small mouth lay their eggs as well as the bull rush that provide lots of cover for the large fish.
Unless some magic happens up north in Cheboygan, I really don’t see us being able to beat Hong’s bonita. I thought for sure we’d catch something that day. It’s a tough loss and it’s going to be a long winter. But my theory is that Christ chose fisherman because even though there should be absolutely no hope, we hope.
We’re not gonna let one or two or fifty-three fishless fishing trips get us down. We forge on to 54! Those are the kind of guys He needed. That’s my theory at least.
One day I will catch that 30” salmon. On that day you’ll see a grown man cry.

Glory is yummy.

Annalisa cooked the bass I caught and it was so yummy. She fried four of them and stuffed and baked three. The whole family ate including Kimmie and Annalisa's mom.
I learned that Largemouth Bass is delicious. I want to catch more!

Go Fisher Kings Go!

Fishing Regulations

Michigan Regulations
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/full-no-ads_272056_7.pdf

California has different Regulations for Ocean or Freshwater... crazy
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/regulations/