End of August into Labor Day

[Captain Rick Bentley]

Just a quick update and some photos from our recent trips on the water.

In the past two weeks we have had crews come from all over the place such as Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and even as far away as China. Most of you know that I enjoy and have travelled a lot myself and what fun it is to have folks from such different reaches of the country and even the other side of the planet.

After a couple of weeks of pretty interesting weather that had us fishing in some rain but then having to cancel/cut short some trips and move others, stable weather settled in and we began fishing again last week and through this past weekend. One 'rainy' trip produced 14 fish on a pretty steady bite for a crew of folks that reside near Waukegan. But then the weather leveled out and was nice again by last Wednesday as we sailed on a late afternoon/sunset fishing excursion that showcased how the fish can get really active once the sun starts to dip below the horizon.

Unfortunately the brothers from Rockford drew the short straw of this particular kaleidoscope of recaps and we could only manage 2 fish in the box Friday morning. Every once in awhile we will unfortunately have these kinds of outings and in the interest of complete honesty from myself, I will be forthright as such while also mentioning that the same guys connected with a 20 fish limit in 2 hours back in May so they have now seen the really good and now the pretty bad. Maybe Goldilocks next time?

But anyway, fishing isn't always good - I tell people onboard that there is no "always" in fishing - however it really is usually good. And so for example that afternoon immediately following, the crew from China stepped onboard and we set out. We were greeted with a little better action with 8 fish on and ended the day with 4 in the box; their first salmon ever.

Dawn broke the following morning with a little bit of concern of my own as to how fishing would shape up and as it often does, it rebounded substantially and we were into really steady action again and managed to put 17 fish in the cooler! That quality trip was followed up by another nice cooler of 15 fish the following morning and both days we had great weather.

There are some good photos attached to this update, take a look if you have a moment. Also, there are some openings this weekend as well as the last weekend of the month if anyone is interested in getting out before we wrap up the season at the end of this month.

Thanks for reading and thanks to the crews that recently came out. All photos have been updated in the Photo Gallery on the website.

Capt Rick