Having Fun With Freshwater Drum

It was late morning, probably close to 11 a.m., and the sun was beating down on us. I was sitting in the back of the boat with my friend Bill, silently watching the rods as we trolled in front of a local creek mouth. Our friend, Capt.

- Tom Berg

Mike, was driving the boat, and we were fishing the southern end of Lake Michigan for early-returning chinook salmon in late August. It was getting hot. Sweat beaded-up on my forehead and I could feel a trickle running down my back.

We’d hooked and landed a nice 17-pound salmon just moments before sunrise, but that was hours ago. Another salmon hit one of our downrigger lines an hour after we caught that first fish, but after a short run and a spectacular leap he threw the hook. Since then, we’d not had another bump from a fish.

We were fishing at the beginning of the annual fall salmon run. It was still summertime, but salmon often congregate just offshore of their spawning streams near the end of August. Early salmon action often provides the best fishing of the run, and we wanted to get in on it.

Suddenly, one of the back downrigger rods sprang to life and the reel’s drag started to scream.

“Fish on!” I yelled. Bill was closest to that rod, so he jumped up and wrestled the fishing rod out of its steel rod holder. All he could do was to hold on while the fish stripped line on its first run.

I was sure it was another big salmon, so I cleared the two rods closest to this one at the back of the boat to give Bill plenty of room to fight the fish once he got it up to the boat. But the fish had other ideas. It stayed down deep refusing to come up.

This must be a pretty big fish, we all thought.

Bill kept cranking and finally started gaining back some line. The fish didn’t make any more strong runs but continued bulldogging in the depths. It didn’t seem to be fighting like a typical salmon, but we didn’t know what else it might be.