Waukegan June 5 thru June 7

[Captain Rick Bentley]

We are a week through June and the action remains solid with crews hoisting good racks of fish aboard the Independence upon our return to port.

Early, 5AM departures are the standard now and into the future as the early bite is beginning to assert itself a little more. However, as many of you know, fishing isn't always the better in the morning (but it often is). One exception was on Sunday, June 6 when we actually were not on the water but were scheduled to be out in the afternoon. Upon arrival at the harbor, the best numbers I witnessed for the AM trips were in the 6-7 fish range. Eehh! Without hesitation, I point us in the direction of the areas I had been loading up in recent days and we were off to a good start with a double of nice Kings on before we had all the lines in the water. We returned with 15 fish late that afternoon. Not bad at all.

But while that afternoon yielded good results, we came with 10 fish on the afternoon of the day earlier (with a huge Rainbow Trout though!). Not bad at all but it isn't 15 or more such as the morning trip on the 5th when we hauled in 17 fish which included three large Chinook and then on the 7th when we led a 3-boat group and returned to port as high boat with 20 fish!

Strong numbers remain with our catches balancing out more in the direction of Coho Salmon still but many, many (more than usual) large Chinook are being caught too. We are also getting into a fair number of big Rainbow Trout too. Last Sunday afternoon's 17-18'lber is the largest of the kind we have hauled on board the Independence in since I began setting lines as a Captain three years ago.

We have a couple of days off after a super-busy stretch and after a (strange) week and half lull in bookings, the phone and email requests for June, July, and August came flooding back in yesterday and today.

Thanks for reading,
Capt Rick