Jim Shell and his son Casey are making catching big lake trout off Chicago at ice-out a habit.
On Saturday, they were able to launch from Burnham and it paid off with lakers, best going 33 inches, and coho around the Chicago lighthouse.
They started out jigging.
“On the first cast, Casey hooked a big one that bent his rod in half,” Shell emailed. “He made a big run and came off. A few minutes later, I hooked and lost one.
“We then decided to troll the breakwalls. About 10 minutes later, a nice fish slammed one of the crankbaits. The first one that made the net was a chunky 33-inch laker.”
Casey Shell just posted a video of the day at his “FishCraft” YouTube page.
FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.
To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).
