Lake Michigan offers stellar ice fishing
KENOSHA - Mother Nature had arranged an impressive welcome party Monday morning in the Kenosha harbor.
Pink light blossomed in the eastern sky over Lake Michigan while a southwesterly breeze ushered in 38-degree air.
After a string of bitterly cold days, the weather felt T-shirt worthy to winterhardened Wisconsinites.
But the cherries on the cake for our group of anglers came from beneath the harbor's ice.
As I walked out to meet Ken Poludnianyk of Milwaukee and Joe Boutell of Racine at 7:15 a.m., the first fish of the day was already on the line.
"Want to catch it,?" asked Poludnianyk as a lively force bowed the rod in his hands.
In any fisherman's book, we had the start of a very good day.
I waved off the kind offer and instead captured the moment with a camera.
Poludnianyk, 43, worked the fish for another couple minutes and then reached into the hole and slid a bigshouldered member of the welcoming party into the dawn light.
The fish was a brown trout, about 30 inches long, solidly built and dressed in a gorgeous yellow coat with dark spots.
The hook was plucked out of the fish's lip and in seconds the trout was returned to the lake.
"Maybe we'll see you again when you're even bigger," Poludnianyk said.
Very few places on the planet world would anglers even contemplate catching a trout longer than 30 inches.
But here on the shores of Lake Michigan, such catches occur with a frequency that has earned the fishery a world-class reputation.
And when the water turns hard in winter, the harbors along the lake's western shore provide a unique opportunity to catch what for many anglers are the biggest trout of their lives.
Perhaps best of all, the fishing is done on public waters in urban areas and doesn't require a big boat or expensive tackle.
The fish, brown trout and steelhead (rainbow trout), frequent the harbors and river mouths in winter in conjunction with spawning migrations.
Poludnianyk, owner of Jack's Charter Service, has a rare perspective on the Great Lakes fishery.
Unlike many charter captains, he runs his business year-round and focuses on the best bites of the seasons. In spring, that means trolling for trout and salmon on a 39-foot boat out of Racine.
In summer, he moves the big boat to Milwaukee and continues the trout and salmon fishing through October. He then switches to a 19-foot boat and sets up in Little Bay de Noc, Mich., to fish for walleyes until ice covers the lake.
Then in winter he and his crew fish through the hard water or in open water on tributaries in southeastern Wisconsin for brown trout and steelhead.
Poludnianyk has had customers from all over the world. He said it helps him appreciate just how good the trout fishing is in Lake Michigan.
"You never take it for granted when you have clients from China and Germany who have fished all over the world telling you they just had the best day of fishing in their life," Poludnianyk said.
The tales told by anglers are backed by facts. The waters of southeastern Wisconsin produced the International Game Fish Association all-tackle world record brown trout (41.8 pounds) in 2010 and the catch-and-release world record brown trout (38 inches) in 2011.
As is widely known, the stars of the modern Lake Michigan trout and salmon fishery are species introduced to help manage the population of alewife, an invasive fish that overwhelmed the lake beginning in the 1950s.
In 2015 (the last year for which final stocking data are available), the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources stocked 2.6 million trout and salmon in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stocked 809,103 lake trout.
It's many of these fish, now about 3 years old, that are circling beneath the ice around Simmons Island on Kenosha's lakefront.
Minutes after Poludnianyk released the 30-incher, Boutell heard the "clack" of an Automatic Fisherman and went off running to a hole 30 yards to the north.
After five minutes of to-and-fro, Boutell iced a 29-inch brown trout. The male was deeply-colored and had a slightlyhooked jaw. After a quick photo, it too was released.
Over the next 90 minutes, we had flurries of action and caught another five fish, all browns. One female oozed eggs as it was released and one male deposited milt on the ice.
Although the fish attempt to spawn, studies have shown virtually no natural trout or salmon reproduction in southeastern Wisconsin tributaries. The water is too warm, too low in oxygen or too silty for the eggs or fry to survive.
The stocked fish have both controlled the alewives and sustained a sport fishery for five decades.
"A big part of successful fishing is adapting to circumstances and making the most of what is available," Poludnianyk said. "It's really a memorable experience to fight a big trout on a short rod in close quarters through the ice."
Poludnianyk, and his assistant captains Boutell and Kyle Deavers of Racine, set out eight baits under Automatic Fisherman rigs and left another four holes available to us for jigging.
The Automatic Fisherman is a "dead stick" device that holds a rod under tension and sets the hook when a fish takes the bait.
The lines were baited with spawn sacs, shiner minnows or large fatheads. Boutell said he sometimes also uses cooked shrimp or waxworms.
Productive lures include spoons, jigs and glide baits. To ease the task of landing big fish, Poludnianyk and crew drilled 10 inch diameter holes. They also use flourocarbon leaders, helpful to draw more strikes in the clear Lake Michigan water.
Although we fished the Kenosha harbor, Boutell said Racine, Milwaukee and Port Washington are also excellent spots.
Since many harbors and marinas run aerators in winter or current runs under the ice, it's important to fish with or consult experienced anglers to stay safe.
Our group set up camp on 10 inches of solid ice. But 50 yards to the north, mergansers and goldeneyes dove for fish in an open circle of water.
The action slowed somewhat as the sun climbed into the cloudless sky.
But at 11 a.m., another trout grabbed a spawn sac and Deavers grabbed the rod. Eight minutes later a 28-inch brown trout came topside and was briefly admired before release.
We caught and released 10 trout, all browns, in four hours of fishing.
The heaviest fish we caught Monday was about 10 pounds. The day before the group landed a 20-pound brown among a catch of 15 fish.
"The next strike could be a personal best or even a world record," Poludnianyk said. "That's the reality of this great fishery on our doorstep."