Milwaukee Brownies
I remember vividly the first time I heard about the brown trout fishery in Milwaukee harbor. Each week I DVR any shows with “fishing”, “fly fishing” or “trout” in the titles. I was checking through that week’s show list and saw one that mentioned trout in the show description so I put in on and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The show featured guide Eric Haataja pulling in monster brown trout after monster brown trout on light line spinning tackle. I hit the back arrow once it was over and rewatched the entire episode. Could this be for real? Maybe they had edited the show over many months to get all of the footage? I jumped on the net and started googling around and low and behold… this place was for real!
I knew I had to get a piece of the action. I was working with Oregon fishing guide Rick Arnold at the time filming the monster trout DVD series and knew this was a perfect fit. I set up a trip and off we went. We landed in Chicago and after a detour on a Friday night through Gary Indiana, (note to self… never, ever, ever do that again) we met up with guide Mike Orr to play around in his neck of the woods before heading over to Milwaukee. We trolled for browns but they didn’t want to play so we settled for quick limits of coho salmon.
The next day we headed up the west coast of Lake Michigan to our digs in Racine… just south of our target area of Milwaukee. We hooked up with local guide Jason Woda who promised to put us on the big fish. We met him on the ramp on day one and it was cold! I have fished many times in sub-freezing weather but there is something different about the great lakes cold. It cuts right to the bone. I didn’t bring gloves in hopes of getting a better feel for the reel and line ala Ray Johnson but regretted that decision as the day progressed. I couldn’t feel my fingers from 11AM on.
Back to the fishing… that first day was unreal! I had 3 browns over 10 pounds to the boat in several hours, including a beast in the 15 pound range that we lost at the net. I did manage to land an 11 pound domestic and a 12 pound seeforellen. I also landed a bunch of quality lake trout including 2 over 20 pounds. We probably had 20 quality fish to the boat that day. Most of the guides fish spoons but I was able to get Jason to put an AC Plug on one of the downriggers. I would love to go back some day and fish it west coast style. I know we would knock them dead.
It is amazing how quickly the weather can change in that area. On day two of the trip the harbor was an angry beast with 10 foot waves breaking over the outer sea wall. The inner water colored up quickly and fishing got very tough. As quickly as our trip had begun it was over and I was headed back to Cali to dream of a 20 pound seeforellen that I hoped to hook someday. I knew I had to go back.
I made it back several years later with my friend and business partner Ryan Stott. We hit it during a poor weather pattern and only managed fish to 9 pounds. One neat thing about this second trip was that Ryan and I were able to spend some time exploring some of the bank fishing opportunities and couldn’t believe how accessible the area is. We mapped out some spots for the future and plan to be back again very soon.
If any of you get a chance to fish this area with a guide or on your own I would try to make it happen. Prime time is in April when the fish are drawn to bait in the warm water discharges in the area. 10 pound browns are common and 20 pounders are caught every spring. They are not the same as a west coast brown but are awesome in their own right. I know where I am headed next spring!
Mark Knoch
