Testimonial; 37.1 Pound Master Angler King Salmon --- It Was Just Our Time

August is like a national holiday for salmon fishermen.  Every August my son Derek Schulte, son-in-law Tim Shreves, and I head up to Manistee pulling my own boat where we’ve booked our reservations one year ahead of time at the Riverside Motel and Marina.  I’ve been doing this for 35 years with my Dad and now my son and son-in-law.  Upon arriving in Manistee this year in the third week of August, fishing was fantastic.  The second day there, we had a charter reservation with Paul Schlafley from Riverside Charter Services.  I’ve known Paul for 35 years and have fished with him a lot and have learned a lot.  This was like every other fishing trip… fish with the best, learn what the fish were biting on that week, and try to duplicate it.  That particular day that we went out fishing with Paul, he was fishing with Big Water Meat Rigs, commonly known as cut bait.  They were all working good, but the one that seemed to out fish all of them that day was a Big Water Meat Rig called “U.V. on Ice.” Fishing these Big Water Meat Rigs was all new to me.  Believe it or not I had never fished them before.  We’ve always used J Plugs, Spoons, Dodgers, and Flies… everything but cut bait.  While on the charter that day, Paul explained the complete setup of how to fish these Meat Rigs.  I was listening and watching very carefully.  Our charter was about 3-1/2 to 4 hours long.  Five of us were on the boat, including two friends of mine from Scottville, Don Bedker and his son Don.  Our charter was done early because we put 25 king salmons in the box long before dark on an afternoon charter.  Everything came on the Big Water Meat Rigs.  The kings averaged 16 pounds to mid-20 pounds in size.  It was a real good day on the water. 

After the charter boat came in and the fish were cleaned, we went into Manistee to Tangled Tackle and Insta Launch Tackle and bought up the rest of the Big Water Meat Rigs that were hot that day and a selection of Spin Doctor flashers made by Dream Weaver.  Again, U.V. on Ice seemed to out perform all of them that day.  We went back to the motel, tied everything up that night on our down riggers and dipsy rods as Paul had instructed us, and we were ready to go.

The next morning, we didn’t get up early like all other fishermen do.  We left the harbor around 9:30 am.  We went south, set all our lines up with the Big Water Meat Rig and herring strip with the Spin Doctor flasher, and 3-1/2 hours later, we had close to 3 limits in the boat.  We couldn’t close the lid on the cooler because they were so big.  We went back to the Riverside Motel boat slip, which I rented for the week, we cleaned our fish, and we thought the day had started off pretty well.

Later in the afternoon, Derek and Tim said, “Come on, let’s go back out.  We can still go back out and catch a few more fish to make our limit.”  I was done, but they convinced me to go back out for the evening.  Thank God they did.  We headed back out to the same place we were fishing, same depth, started to put all of the lines down, and all hell broke loose instantly.  The first was dipsy set.  While setting the second dipsy, the first dipsy went off.  A 20 plus pound king was in the boat.  Tim was re-baiting and setting that dipsy down when the dipsy I had set popped off.  At that point, I thought we had a good size fish on the Meat Rig.  The dipsy line was out 150-175 feet, and when the king hit it, he ripped off another 225-250 feet of line before he stopped.  My arms were already killing me from the day before and that morning, but it was a good pain.  At that time, I looked over at Tim since he was setting the down riggers and my son Derek was steering the boat, and told Tim, “Hey, I think it’s your turn.”  He said, “No, you take it.”  I replied, “No, I think it’s your turn!”  Then Tim jumped on the rod.  At that point, because the fish had so much line out, we pulled everything in and made a big turn to gather line on my reel and to set the boat going with the waves rather than against them.  Forty-five minutes later, we had the fish close to the boat.  I had my smaller net out, just because it was easier to use on the 20-pounders, but when I saw this fish flash in the water, I wished that I had the bigger net out.  Tim winds the dipsy to the rod, we started hand-lining to the Spin Doctor, then we started hand-lining to the Big Water Meat Rig, where the big king was hooked.  At that point, I went in with my smaller net, I couldn’t get enough of the fish in it to lift it up, and it actually rolled over and out of the net.  I thought, “Oh my God it’s gone!” because so many fish are missed at the back of the boat.  We were lucky that we got a second chance, got the fish back to the boat, and this time there was no messing around.  I stuck my hand right inside the fish’s gill and thumb around the corner of his mouth, not wondering or even worrying where the hook was.  This fish was not getting away.  At that time, Tim grabbed the big salmon net, which was in the front of the boat, he netted the fish, and we took it in to Captain Chuck’s in Ludington to be weighed…. 37.1 pounds…. The fish of a lifetime!

I received the Master Angler certificate and patch already.  It was exciting to see that 6 Master Angler kings have been submitted this year, and ours so far is the biggest which was caught on a Big Water Meat Rig.  Hope it holds for the year, but it doesn’t really matter… because it’s going on the wall.

Although if someone caught a 40-pounder tomorrow, I’d be just as happy for them as everyone has been for us.  Fishing…. Gotta love it!