Urban Shore Fishing for Lake Michigan Steelhead

Let's get a fish man. It's about eight o'clock. We gotta rig up. It looks like it's gonna be a good morning. It's gonna be a cold morning. It is definitely going to be a cold morning. I believe it is 16 degrees out right now. A little below freezing but we're prepared for it and so are these steelhead. So let's get ripping. I got a good feeling. I got a really good feeling. I'm gonna hook up right in front of all these boats. I actually know one of the guys out there. He's my buddy. Feeling good out man. Feeling good. I don't even got my hood up. What the heck am I doing? I don't even have my hood up right now. All right now, now we're in business. But even if I get one man, I'm thankful and I'm just here to have some fun. A little catch and release action. I want these fish spawning and I really encourage catch and release. I always heckle a lot of the guys down here. Let them go. Snagger. These are some beautiful fish man. And we, I mean, it's gotten to the point where some of these fish are actually really naturally reproducing every year in these systems. And those wild fish naturally reproducing are going to be a little bit more efficient than those hatchery fish. Some of the hatchery fish, I mean, if you just think about it black and white, it's just, it's really just inferior genetics. You know, if they make it to spawning potential and they do have a successful spawn and they have offspring, that is awesome because a lot of those fish will be wild. They're wild fish, you know? So that's cool. But we, we got to let these wild ones go, man. We want those ones repopulating. If you're going to keep any of them, I'd keep like a five to six pound hatchery, hatchery fish. If you're going to be choosy about it because there's a lot more of those for sure. We just want to let those wild ones go right here, baby. Come on. That's such a good drift. I got that right in the run. Dude, that's a perfect cast. Oh yeah. I'm feeling nothing yet. Oh yeah. There we go. Dude, that's a light in the run, man. And that's a fish, baby. What the frick did I say, man? What did I say? It's a freaking ice skate out here, baby. And we're locked up. We're locked up. What did I say? That was right in the run. That was right in the run. And look who's having fun. The guy on shore, baby. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. We're locked up, baby. He's in the... Get him out of there. Oh, he's right there, man. Right there. Colored up beautifully, man. Right in the chomps. Look at this, guys. Let's get you in here. Surfing on in. We got a nice hen and we have landed a fish once again. And would you look at that, man? If that ain't a bead take, I don't know what that is, brother. Because that is textbook. I'm going to keep her in the water. Don't want her head banging on the rocks too much. There we go. Look at how beautiful that fish is, man. Wild. That's how you tell it's wild. That fin right there. That's the adipose fin. Probably a nice five, six pounder. And she's going to live another day. And she kicked off strong, baby. Let's go. On the boards. And I tell you what, man. This ice is dangerous. There are plenty more of those to come, baby. Let's get it, man. That's another one, baby. That's another one. She's hot. She's hot. She's hot, baby. Oh, she's hot, baby. She's hot. She's hot. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude, let's go, baby. Dude, she's going downriver. You got to be careful on this ice, man. We got another one, baby. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Hammering them. Hammering them. Hammering them. I got her coming at me now. Got her coming right at me. Oh, she's swimming right at me. No way. Come on. Give me it. Give me it, baby. Give me it, baby. She's right here. Oh, it's a buck. What did I say? What did I say, bro? When there's hens, there is bucks. This is probably the prettiest buck I've caught all year. Two for two, baby. What'd it do? Two for two. What'd it do? What'd it do? And look at you, my friend. That is a beautiful Great Lakes, Lake Michigan steelhead right there, my friends. I tell you what, there's a three catch limit here in Michigan. If you catch, if you can keep three trout right in the chomps, dude, right in the chomps, and we have a beautiful, and I mean absolutely beautiful buck steelhead right there. That is as good as it gets, my friends. Look at how beautiful that fish is. Now, do you notice how this one doesn't have the adipose fin right there? They clip them when they're a hatchery fish. We're going to let her, let him go to live another day, baby. Goodbye. Let's go, baby. I got fish slime freezing to my jacket right now. I don't know if you guys can see that. Dude, this is awesome. All right. I like to check my leader after catching a couple because they like to run into the rocks. This right here, guys, I would like to show you is an indicator that they are taking the bead. Now, when I set this bead up, as you guys probably remember earlier, I had it set up here. You want to have it three inches above. What happens is they're going to, you know, my hands, the mouth, they grab it. You've got tension on the line and it pulls the hook right into place. So what happens a lot of times is sometimes when you get a hookup or sometimes after you catch a fish, you'll notice your bead is down here. That means that they took the bead. And as you guys saw, that was right in his chomps, man. He wanted all of that. So we're going to slide it back up three more inches, pull it tight to make sure we've got a flush, a flush layout with our hook to our bead right there. And we're going to go get another one. We got our medium drift. Oh, did you see that? Oh, my God. Oh, my God, dude. Oh, man, that didn't feel small, guys. That did not feel small. Let's see the bead. Oh, dude, he crushed that. I almost literally lost the pole out of my hands. That is insane. That is actually so insane. That thing took the pole out of my hand, guys. That hurt. That one hurt. I'm not going to lie, guys. Feels bad, man. One of my buddies I met down here the other day, he's like 55 years old. Maybe I'm overshooting it. I don't know, man. He's a good guy, though. He's a catch and release fisherman. He's driving like two hours just to come here. We're going to be out here just slaying it this morning. Right on, dude. That's a fish. Oh, yeah. She's nice, bro. Uh-oh. Got to get her out. Careful of that pad right there, bro. Be careful right there. Seriously. Head shakes. She's right here. It's on something right now. Oh, this might be nice, dude. Oh, it ain't that big. Right in the chumps, baby. Chunker, man. Stop freaking out. Another super big one. Trying to not let it smack its head on the ground. Beautiful colors. Got my limit. That's my limit right there, baby. Yo, what is going on, guys? Just got off the water. I have got to say that was an absolutely outstanding morning of fishing. I could not have asked for a better morning. Perfect sunshine, a little bit of clouds rolled in at the start, opened up a really nice morning. We got three fish, which is actually the limit you can keep for steelhead in Michigan. We didn't keep them any. We let them all go. If I can get one fish a day, one steelhead a day, I'm honestly a pretty happy camper. We got three today, man. Unfortunately, I'd probably keep fishing, but I got to start up my stream. I go live every single day at 12 p.m. on twitch.tv, but I hope you guys enjoy that short video. I had such a blast recording it. It was an awesome start to finish, and many more to come, guys. Peace.