Salmon, Salmon and more Salmon

The last few weeks have been just shy of excellent for jigging when the winds cooperate. Average outings have yeilded 5-10 fish in just a couple of hours. The harbors have all but shut down after the past Northeast winds but there are still fish to be found, if you work for them. I was forced to fish Mckinley Marina in Milwaukee Sunday due to a stiff NE wind. We put our time in but in the last spot we worked it finally paid off. My client had three quick strikes jigging a Gulp Minnow with a Gamakatsu darterhead jig but wasn't able to fully connect. It wasn't much after those first hits that I heard him say "oh boy!" As I looked over I saw the 13 Fishing Muse doubled over and I knew he had a monster on. Despite trying to keep this hog away from the piers and pillons, it managed to chafe him off. It didn't take long for the first skein rod to fire with a 6-7lb chinook which Mike was happy with seeing it was his first salmon ever! We had a few more hits jigging and 6-8 more takedowns with skein before the big pig that got off showed herself. This 25+lb chinook came close to the boat and I could see my jig still stuck in her face. All I could do was point and say "told you that was a big one." As she swam back down we decided to call it a day. From talking with many other boaters it sounded like we did the best with just landing the one fish.