Mackinac Island Fishing Trip

Ok, so I actually didnt go on this fishing trip, but client Chuck Hart had some business to take care of up on Mackinac Island, I am assuming for his business Bob Grimm Chevrolet in Morton. Like most of us, he drug his family along and made a combo business/family vacation out of the weekend.

Anyhow, I have been a few places and learned the ins and outs of hiring the right and wrong fishing guides, not to mention I know a few people who know some people whose network pretty much reaches out to all the major fishing guides in the entire North America. So when a client gets stuck going somewhere whether it be for business or pleasure, I can usually always pull some strings or at the very least make some recommendations on who to go out on a fishing trip with. Its actually very fun to live vicariously through other people going on fishing trips on my bucket list. (pretty much every fishing trip possible is on my bucket list).

Nonethelesss, fishing guide requests for different areas of the country, including Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada are getting to the point that I probably should start a fishing trip travel agency and just book trips all day long for clients. (feel free to bring me along next time though) Anyhow enough nonsense and on with the story of this particular trip. I get pics of awesome fish texted and emailed in pretty much weekly and decided I should start plopping these pics and trip info online so others can potentially experience them as well.

Anyone in business knows that a referral is the best compliment (and best advertising) that you can possibly get. Here goes one for Captain Norm from Chuck-

Mackinac Island King Salmon Fishing Trip

By Chuck Hart

This July took our family to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, MI for a business trip/vacation, and a couple months ago I emailed Nate Herman asking if he knew of any guides in that area. Initially he said not firsthand, but then texted me a recommendation of www.fishingwithnorm.com. I checked out that website, sent off an email to Norm and after a couple of messages back and forth had an evening trip booked.

We only had one night that would really work, so I hoped Tuesday July 17 would turn out to be a good day. I talked with Jason Perkins (Norm’s son) a couple of times to set up the particulars and met them at 4:30 on Tuesday night. On the trip was Norm, Jason, Me, John, and my two sons Cameron and Tyson. We headed out on Lake Huron and Jason told us that we would be fishing the calm side of the Mackinac Island just off of the Grand Hotel. As you can see it is quite a view!

 

Norm navigated while Jason began setting the trolling rods and before he even had all of the lines out we had a hit on one of the downriggers. He was busy so I grabbed the pole and began to reel. The fish seemed to be hooked up OK so I handed the pole to Tyson my 8 year old and he began to reel the fish in. After about a minute the fish got off and we were 0-1. It only took about 10 more minutes until fish #2 hit one of the dipsy diver poles and Cameron was hooked up with a nice King Salmon. He reeled hard and when the fight was over he had caught his first King about 7 pounds and we had one in the cooler!

 

Things then got a little interesting as we swung around the west side of the island and the waves picked up a bit. Tyson began to look a little green and soon he was hanging on to me telling me he was feeling sick. Now I had given him some motion sickness medicine, but it wasn’t working and he was asking to go back to shore. My friend John was kind enough to walk him back to the hotel room and once he was in the room with mom he was feeling much better.

Back on the boat we made another pass with no luck and then I was able to catch my first lake trout. It was about 5 lbs and fought just like a walleye. I’m not sure why I didn’t get a picture, but back to fishing for us. The kings had seemed to move as we hadn’t had a hit since that first pass. Jason suggested we make a larger swing around the west side of the island and that must have done the trick because Cam was able to reel in another 7lb King!

We were resetting the rods and that’s when it got a little crazy. Jason showed me a fish about 80 feet deep on the Lowrance and about 10 seconds later we had a hit on one of the planer board rods, which was running over 100 yards of lead core line, so I began the task of reeling that in. The fish felt a little nicer and was staying down, but did not feel like a trophy. My fish was about 100 feet out when BAM one of the down rigger poles went off. Captain Norm reeled up, set the hook and handed the pole to Cam. This fish had hit a bait only about 30 feet deep and it was on the surface right away, that’s when we all got a look at a very big tail and realized this was the big King we had been hoping for.

I sped up, trying to reel my fish in and stay out of Cam’s way, which I did successfully and we netted our third King a 10 pounder, but we were more concerned about that fish with the big tail that Cam had on. He did a great job of fighting the fish, he let it run when it wanted to, didn’t horse it and after 5 minutes we had a beautiful 16 pound King in the boat! According to the captains, this was a very nice fish for Lake Huron at this time of the year.

 

We greatly enjoyed talking with Captain Norm and Captain Jason and with 4 King Salmon and a Lake Trout in the cooler we headed in to the dock.

In summary thanks Nate for the referral, and if any of you are heading up to Mackinac Island or the Les Cheneaux Islands be sure to hook up with Captain Norm and Captain Jason. They will put you on fish! You can check them out on Facebook by searching for Island Charters LLC or just click this link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Island-Charters-LLC/144962142205367