October Salmon Fishing Trip

Waking up at 3:45 a.m. isn't something I do often but last Saturday morning (Oct. 9th) I gladly packed up my fishing tackle along with my older brother and a close friend for our 9th annual salmon fishing trip on the Pere Marquette River.

As the air cools, the leaves turn and begin to tumble from the trees marking the fall season, the King Salmon migrate out of the great lakes and into the rivers to spawn. During this approximately two week migration up stream small rivers like the Pere Marquette have forty pound fish filling waters as shallow as 3-4 feet.

Arriving at the river around 8 a.m. excitement builds while we don our waders, thread and bait hooks, and trek from the vehicle down the path to the river to find an ideal fishing spot. The next nearly four hours and cast after cast are spent unsuccessfully. After a brief lunch break and another half an hour of casting success at last! A thirty-three inch beautiful King Salmon was finally landed.

Although much of the day was spent watching countless salmon swim on past, headed up stream, with no avail, the beauty of the outdoors and the power and grace of these fish was not lost on our three man fishing expedition. I have fished the Pere Marquette River for nine years now, witnessing these magnificent fish travel hundreds of miles upstream to complete their spawning cycle and am still awed by the instincts and cunning these salmon exhibit.

After nearly nine hours of fishing, we exhaustively called it quits, packed up our tackle, and drove home. This year we were fortunate enough to have landed six large salmon, the largest of which measured in at forty inches.

Although we were fortunate enough to be successful this weekend (Oct. 9th) the run this season has been sporadic at times and later than normal. While fishing last weekend (Oct. 2nd) the fish we saw were few and far between. My advice would be to fish early mornings and later afternoon as the Salmon are still slow to move up stream during midday.