By Nate Winters, My Fishing Partner Contributor
Nate Winters displays his Brown trout from this week
As I’m sure most of you have begun your preparations for ice fishing, maybe even started your augers and tied on new line to your micro reels, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Don’t store those open water rods away too fast there is still a great bite worth chasing!
Lake Michigan has been on fire all season long with a fantastic bite, and as the temperatures drop and ice starts to form the bite hasn’t slowed a beat. Wednesday I meet up with good friend and Captain in the Milwaukee area Tim Hyvonen of WiFinlander Guide Service at the Milwaukee Harbor to see what the buzz was all about.
With blustery cold conditions, I must admit that I was a little skeptical but once we started poking around the docks I quickly changed my tune as we spotted plenty of fishing boiling and surfacing throughout the harbor. We started the morning casting crank baits but quickly determined that the fish were not as aggressive as we thought and decided to change up our approach.
Tim being a veteran of the waters in the Milwaukee area knew right away spawn sacks were the way to go, his go to set up for fishing them is the use of floats to target fish in various depths. Once I got the hang of the set-up I decided to target specific fish I spotted off the docks as these seemed to be the most active fish.
It proved to be the right strategy, I spotted a nice brown trout and after a few casts adjusting my depth to match his I got to watch my very first brown trout strike the spawn sack and with a flick of my wrist the fight was on! After a few moments of the enjoyment of the fight I wore him out and was able to land him a beautiful 4lb brown trout from Lake Michigan in the Milwaukee Harbor. So as the sad reality of your last cast coming in without a strike starts to set in take a second chance and head down to Milwaukee area and try that last cast of the season one more time you might just get that strike you’ve been waiting for!!
By chance if you have put those rods away already WiFinlander Guide Service has you covered with all the best gear ready and waiting for your hands!!