Tag Archives: carp

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on by Captain Ben Wolfe

This Thanksgiving, I have a lot to be thankful for. An incredible amount, really! At Sport Fish Michigan, we are extremely blessed and lucky. We get to do what we love—we get to fish for a living, taking people out on the water for a memorable fishing adventure in the form of guide trips and charters, and we get to experience these memories with our customers as they happen. Not only this, but we are fortunate to be booked almost every single day of our seasons. And no bluffing here—we have tremendous customers!

From our Traverse City Bass Guide Service, Manistee River Salmon Guide Service, Wolfe Outfitters and on behalf of the others at our statewide network of the top Captains and guides, please accept our very heartfelt THANK YOU. Thank you for a wonderful season. Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for helping to make our jobs a pleasure. Thank you for making our fishing seasons wildly successful yet again. Thank you for being such loyal customers, and thank you for your continued support and interest in our services. We look forward to having you aboard our boats next year, and wish you all the best until we have the pleasure of fishing together again.

The weather forecast for Thanksgiving looks like it’s going to be close to 60 degrees and sunny. Perfect for a day of fun fishing. And if that happens—I’ll be even more thankful.

Yup, it’s a bruiser carp from Grand Traverse Bay. And what a fun fight!!!

Guide’s Day Off! Let’s Go Fishing!

Posted on by Captain Ben Wolfe

On a rare guide’s day off from salmon and steelhead customers, what did I do? I went fishing of course! Not only did I have the day off from my busy guide schedule, but another guide friend also had the day off. It was mid October, with the fall steelhead run in full swing. Following a hugely successful salmon season on the Big Manistee River, it was nice to have a day’s break. Driving down to the Muskegon River to meet my guide buddy, it was filthy with rain. Just pouring. No matter, we were going to enjoy this.

After a relaxed breakfast at a local diner, we hit the water in my buddy’s jet sled. Backbouncing egg sacks were clearly the way to go, as we boated 17 or18 beautifully chrome steelhead. We tried a few drifts with a float fished by a center pin rod, but that only yielded a carp. The highlight of the day was a hot steelhead that actually jumped in the boat. I’ve been fishing for salmon and steelhead for a long time, and I have to say—this was the first time that a steelhead has literally jumped in the boat. I’ve had salmon ram the boat, and steelhead leap and hit the side of the boat, but this chrome buck turned and ran straight at the boat, launching itself a few feet from the boat, landing squarely inside the boat. Absolutely a first, and absolutely no net needed! It also so happened that I was trying to do some filming and caught the entire thing on camera. Check it out!