Co-Port Captains Henry Nabors & Dave Hutton: The Saturday August 15th Manistee Salmon Tournament ended well! Nine boats with 27 crew participated on a beautiful day on Lake Michigan. Lots of boats fishing out of Manistee this morning; the 145’ of water had a string of boat lights for several of miles. It look like a long slender city street full of lights! Going out a 5 am to find a spot in line is not always easy but always a bit exciting. Salmon anglers on the Great Lakes have a lot of expectations when going for the MORNING BITE!
The Alternative, Sara Ann and Fish Stix went North and the other six boats went South. At 7:30 the wind started picking up significantly! It went from 5 to 10 mph to 20 mph in a short period of time; I measured gust of 24 mph and the waves building to big 4’ers. The three north boats talked about this being unfishable and that we should consider calling the tournament; the boats down south said they did not have the same conditions. The North boats headed south toward the port in a slow process with the agreed understanding that we would stay out until the 9 am fish-call to see if it was safe for the tournament tp continued.
At the 9 am fish call all but The Alternative had a least one fish in the cooler! We knew that Bobby’s Toy had four because we hear them talking about landing a triple (3 on at the same time) and then another king before the fish call. At 9 am nine boats had thirteen fish landed. AND all agreed that the lake was very fishable and the tournament should continue!
All pulled lines by 1 pm and were in line for weigh-in at 2 pm!! Co-Port Captain Dave Hutton and family had our individually boxed fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn ready for lunch when we showed up! Boxed lunches from Family Fare worked out very nicely and allowed for social distancing while enjoying a meal together!!
Bobby’s Toy Captain Bob and crew held on to the lead to finish in first place catching six fish and weighing five for 68.4 pounds. Captain Larry – 2nd with 3 fish for 49 lbs and Capt. Dave Z – 3rd with 4 fish and 41.6 pounds. Capt. Dave H. caught the biggest fish of the day – a 26.75 king! In all 20 fish were caught and 19 weighed for 283 pounds. As you can see, there were some very big fish landed; eight kings were over 20 pounds!