YouTube Fishing

The northern waters of Lake Huron teem with fish. At least, according to some.

There’s northern pike, walleye, lake trout, salmon, bass perch, and various pan fish to be caught.

My memories of the fishing in this area recalled that there was a lot of fish up here when I was a kid, but there doesn’t seem to be so much now.

Some say it’s due to more fishermen, but I think it’s due to another theory.

Cormorants.

When I was a kid growing up here, you never saw a cormorant.

And you could catch dozens of perch then by yourself.

You had your fishing ducks like grebes, but cormorants were something you only saw in the southern states along the gulf and east coasts.

In the last 30 years, cormorants have come into the Great Lakes and according to several studies by various state fish and game organizations, cormorants flourished to the point that they decimated the bait fish and smaller pan fish populations.

Decimating the bait fish means decimating the bigger game fish too.

Cormorant abatement programs have started, the cormorant population has dwindled and the fish are coming back.

The first few days while we were on our trek, Libbie would grab her pole and various lures and try her luck. Her luck was nonexistent, however, not even a nibble.

Libbie was getting a little bit frustrated.

Luckily, the cell coverage was enough that we could search the internet. We pulled out Google and searched “fishing for bass in the north channel”.

Sure enough, up popped a YouTube video.

The video talked about drop shots for bass, different kinds of baits, and how to fish for bass with drop shots.

Many of you who fish regularly may know what a drop shot is, but we had never heard of it.

I googled how to tie a drop shot.

I found a YouTube video.

I tied some drop shots and gave them to Libbie with some lures.

Libbie proceeded to cast for fish from Selkie.

The sixth cast, she pulled in a monster smallmouth bass.

Since then we’ve been tying drop shots.

Libbie has caught fish and has been a lot happier!

And if Libbie’s happy…