(07-21-2025, 02:56 PM)FCD Wrote: Ricky - Grouper are excellent eating fish, some of the best of all fish, IMO. I didn't taste any of that particular fish, because it was sold to a local restaurant which was a super-expensive place to eat (the kind where you had to wear a tie and a suit coat, if that tell you anything).I was about fourteen, and I would go fishing in Dollar Bay Michigan when my dad worked at the flooring mill all day. I would do that in the spring almost every year, in the summer, we had the farm, so I couldn't do that so often, but before the strawberries were ripe, I was out there all the time fishing all day and I would cook some of what I caught on a small fire in my mess kit, timing my cooking so I could give my dad some fried fish when he was on lunch or coffee breaks...he came down to check on me. Carried butter and flour and salt and pepper with me when I went fishing.
Regarding Sturgeon, I lived in Michigan for a while, but I've never caught a Sturgeon. I've heard they can get huge, and can be quite the handful to reel in. Never hooked one, so I don't know personally. I used to have a friend who had a cabin at Houghton lake. He raved about the fishing there.
Best fish I caught in MI was a big Muskie. The wife and I were fishing for Perch one day using some ultra-light rods and reels. The water was so shallow I didn't even have to anchor the boat. This was in Lake St. Claire (which is pretty shallow all over). I figured being as shallow as it was we'd be fine fishing for Perch with ultra-light gear. All of a sudden my rod tip fluttered like I had a Perch. I went to grab my rod, and the whole rod suddenly bent over to the snapping point, and the line started peeling out. I backed the drag off and thought..."what the heck, I'll give it a try!". It was something really big. Forty five minutes later I boated a 39" Muskie! I didn't have a scale, but I guessed he was 20-25 lbs or so. I thought it was huge! But looking at the regulations for that area (which I usually have a copy of when I fish), I saw the minimum legal length for Muskie was 40" (Wow!). Still, I was pretty impressed being able to land that fish with ultra-light gear. So, I turned him loose to fight another day. Muskies aren't that good to eat anyway, from what I understand.
I think what happened was I'd hooked a small Perch, and the Muskie saw this and gulped him down. So, I'd gone from reeling in a small Perch to fighting a big Muskie. It was pretty fun.
Mostly what I fished for in MI was Walleye and Perch, which are both excellent eating fish. I've caught a few Steelhead too, but not a lot of those.
Well, one day I was fishing and I had this pesty fish nibbling on my bait under a bobber, just a worm which I would toss out over and over again because that fish would suck it off somehow. I got kind of pissed eventually and was running out of worms so I Yanked on it the last time, figuring I might snag that tiny fish. To my surprise the pole bent way down, and a tail at least twenty inches wide when spread out with about a eight inch thick body at the base of the tail fan which was about six inches thick came about a foot and a half out of the water and slammed down and the line broke. I have never seen a tail like that on any fish around here, It was not a pike or bass, it was not a salmon and from where the line with the bobber entered the water to the end of the tail was about three to three and a half feet away. I often wonder what it was, it was not a trout, very familiar with those fish, the scales were really big, not like anything I have seen around here. It was about twenty feet from shore where I was fishing, the water there was about seven feet deep and my bobber was about two feet deep, the seaweed is just in from that, and that time of year, if the wind pushed the bobber in, it wouldn't get tangled and lose a hook.
Maybe it was a huge carp, I have seen small ones and some have the big tail. But I have never actually caught a big carp here, so I don't know what the tail shape is. Back then, carp were very rare around here, but I suppose people set their gold fish free or other aquarium fish and it could be one that grew big. I let some of my fish free when I was young, almost everyone did that back in the early sixties figuring something would just eat them. Someone would have dumped almost any kind of fish into the canal there. Now there are a lot of carp up in the copper country so I am guessing that and people using gold fish for bait introduced them into the lakes. Later on, they started regulating baits at the stores, but that started in the late sixties or early seventies.
I think the biggest fish I ever landed was only about twelve or thirteen pounds, I kind of lacked the patients to play the big ones and tried to get them in too quick. The tail on that fish looked like a mermaid tail on those TV shows that had mermaids. Whatever it was, it seemed to like eating worms and was good at taking them off of the hook, but again like you said, it could be that I actually got the little fish, and a big one grabbed it too. There are some huge fish up there in the copper country.
Those small sturgeon were definitely a sports fish, they fought way harder than a bass and would jump and glide a lot over the top of the water. I wonder if the big ones are as sporty as those young ones were, it would be a hell of a fight. Muskies and northern pike do that jumping and gliding/flying too. I never got a legal musky. but over the years I have caught over a hundred assorted pikes. Never swish your fingers in the water around bass nests, they come after them when fishing off a boat. Never been bit, but had some close calls, got to look when washing your hands in the water while fishing, or before eating your lunch. Just a little info for people who haven't fished before in a boat. Most times they just bump your fingers and leave, but I did see someone with a bass stuck to his fingers when I was a Boy scout on a river trip when I was young.
Did you get a decent price for the fish?
I caught a Grayling one time at the mouth of a river in Lake superior. There was another old fisherman there and I asked him what it was. It had a high and big fin on top. The guy said it is a rare and protected fish, so I put it back in and it swam away...no phone cameras around back those days to take pictures. It is not supposed to be in Lake Superior anymore, but nobody told the fish he was not supposed to be there I guess. Kind of a weird fin they have. I suppose they became extinct after they planted the coho in lake superior. Not many people liked when they planted those Coho in lake Superior in the copper country, they were right, they really impacted the numbers of smaller fish, they might grow fast, but can wipe out most smaller fish really quick because they eat so much. The DNR wanted to plant fish that sports fishermen liked, as a kid, I liked fishing for the smaller fish like crappies, bass, and Lake Superior Perch. A quick tasty meal, just skin them, season them, andwrap them in foil and toss them onto the grill for twenty minutes. Easier to skin them than scale them using one of those crank fish skinners.