My son and I spent Saturday at a pier on Lake Michigan looking for some stray summer runs, kangs, browns, or whatever else might bite.

The water temp was just under 60*, so I expected to find some bait lurking around and possibly some predators. Bucket full of alewife, we're ready to rock!



After we got our bait collected, we set out three rods with sliding pyramid sinkers. It didn't take long to get some action.

First fish of the day! It wasn't what we were looking for, but we'll take it!



Next fish was Dad's, and while it was a decent fish, I was still falling behind.



Kid gets another fish on, another nice one!



The last fish of the day was a screamer, I thought for sure it was gonna be a kang. He easily had a 100 yards of line out before my son got him turned around. Ended up being this feller...



We ended up spending about 12 hours out there, catching sheephead until our shoulders hurt. It turned into a beautiful day with lots of barely dressed ladies.

We might not have caught our target species, but sometimes the bi-catch can be just as much fun.

Good job Dad!--your boy is rockin it

Some questions, and comments:

1. Nice catches, dad!

2. What's a kang? Some midwest version of a king?

3. Where are the pics of the barely clad wimmins?

Thanks!

Fish on...

Todd

A kang is midwest slang for a king.



I felt like my spank bank was full with enough images that I didn't need to exploit the female populous any further. There was enough drunk bros trying to do that.

I bet your son had a blast! What a great way to spend the day.

LOL

Good report Ale, better than most. Kang ON!

Like it.

Those Sheephead look like they haven't missed many meals.
Good report and pics. Thanks for posting that up.
SF

Solid work!

The sheephead are thriving right now because of the zebra mussels. They absolutely gorge themselves on them.

They should be careful though, eating zebras cause prolapse...

nice work Al, look forward to seeing more this year...

Looks like a great day!

congrats,

Wow! Very cool!
Those fish look like they would be a handful for a little guy. Seems he's up to the task!

The Okuma SST's can handle big fish. The thing I like most about them is they're universal.

I run them bobber fishin' kangs, bobber fishin' cats, and doing the bait and wait deal on the pier.

What does one do with a sheephead once they catch it?

Does one eat them? Release them? Turn them in to fertilizer?

Looks like a carp. I bet Rico and Doc would eat it. Twice.

Some people do eat them, but I haven't tried. I've heard of a few recipes that include boiling them in 7up and dipping in cocktail sauce like shrimp.

From what I understand, the loins are about the only thing worth eating on them, but since I haven't cut one up to try, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

We gave one away to an older lady who was ecstatic over it. The rest we released.

We catch tons of catfish every year too, but we always release those too. We're definitely not fish huggers, just prefer to fish for sport.

They taste like poop.

You can smell the ale when they hit the deck. After the 4th of July, I will rarely eat them.

They're diet is almost entirely composed of alewife. And alewife got the stank.

Lake run browns, coho, and chrome steelhead definitely eat well.

As far as the kangs, they choose a species that stayed in the lake the longest to create more recreational opportunity for the sport fleet. We do have a couple of rivers that have created some early runners, those fish are worth eating.

The largest portion of our run comes after Labor Day, mid-september'ish. And those fish are usually already bootish from hanging out in 70* bath water.

Here's a bag of alewife I brined up to use for baitless days or catfishing in the river.

Wow they look familiar. Lay out flat, Freeze, vac pac and send to me.

The Marlboro Brine!




Got a light bro?

Do you catch your own bait? If so, how do you do it?