Adventures of Fishing in Ludington

One early morning of this past July, my family woke up at 4:00 am to go fishing in Ludington. One of our friends’ Grandpa lives in Ludington, Michigan and is an active fisherman. He owns his own boat and at least ten big fishing rods with all the fancy supplies. He has taken my brother and dad out once a year for the past three years. This year I was persistent on wanting to go out too. Therefore, I found myself giving up a day to sleep-in and instead going out on a fishing boat at sunrise.

Our friends’ Grandpa asked us to bring only one thing, a dozen doughnuts. So, as soon as we made the two-hour car ride to Ludington our first stop was to Wal-Mart to buy doughnuts. Once we purchased the necessity we drove to where his boat was docked. Before loading onto the boat, we bundled up for the cold air and all took motion sickness medicine. My brother, dad, and I have only gotten motion sickness a couple times, but we decided to be on the safe side and take the medicine.

Finally, we headed out onto the beautiful blue Lake Michigan. We were all excited and hoping for a good successful day of fishing. It took awhile to get to the spot in the lake where the grandpa felt it was best to fish. Once we got to the certain location we started setting up all the rods and let the lines into the water. All the instructions were given if a fish was to start biting. We had six rods set up projecting on both sides of the boat. Now, all we had to do what wait for a fish to bite. We set up some chairs to sit in and started to eat the doughnuts.

After about thirty minutes, and not having one fish bite, we decided that we should move to a different spot. Feeling discouraged, we brought all the rods down and prepared to start the boat up again. As we drove even further out into the lake all of a sudden I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My eyelids felt like there were weights on them, forcing them to shut. I figured it was just from waking up at 4 am. I fought the urge to sleep for a while, but soon the rocking of the boat from the waves put me to sleep. Every once in awhile we would hit a big wave and I would jerk awake but quickly fall asleep again. I noticed my brother and dad were having the same struggle as me, having a hard time staying awake.

Before I knew it we were at the next destination. Hoping for better luck this time we set everything up and sat in our chairs waiting. After about ten minutes of the lines being the in water we got our first bite! We all scrambled out of our chairs and my brother picked up the rod. As he started to reel his fish in, another fish started to bite on another line. My dad quickly grabbed the rod and started reeling in. I stood back and watched the chaos continue. Yet, to my surprise my dad started handing his rod to me, wanting me to be the one to reel the fish in. Hesitantly, I strongly took ahold of the rod and started to spin the reel. The fish struggled, trying to swim away, but I kept the line tight so it couldn’t release itself from the hook.

While I was constantly reeling, my brother soon got the fish on his hook to the surface of the water. Our friends’ Grandpa took a huge net and scoped up the fish bringing it safely into the boat. Once I finally got my fish in the boat too we all looked at the fish we had just caught. My brother’s was an eight-pound Steelhead and mine was a five-pound Coho Salmon. Our adrenaline was at a high. For the next couple hours we had the rods in at different places hoping for more fish. We ended up catching two more fish. Another Steelhead and a Lake Trout.

When we started to head back to mainland, I sat in my chair again I felt the sleepiness start to come over me once again. I looked over to my brother and he was already asleep, suddenly I realized that our motion sickness medicine we took was the drowsy kind. The medicine is what made us fall asleep every time we sat down. I soon told my dad and brother what I had just realized and we all laughed about it. They joked about never letting me give them medicine again.

When we got back to the dock we hooked up the boat and unloaded our four fish. We took the fish to the gutting station and cut them up and put them into Ziploc bags. That evening we got home and my dad grilled the Lake Trout to eat. It was some of the best fish I have had eaten. I think it tasted even better knowing that we had just freshly caught it too. Overall, it was a fun day fishing and quite a new experience.