Smith: Coho salmon provide brisk action on Chequamegon Bay

"Click, click, click-click-click!"

An interruption, yes. But a welcome one.

In fact although we had gotten immersed in talk about conservation issues, participating in one - fishing - was ostensibly the primary objective for the outing on Chequamegon Bay.

"Who's up? asked Capt. Dave Schulz of Iron River, stepping back from the wheel of his 21-foot boat and motioning to the bucking rod.

None of us - Bill Smith and Dave Zeug, both of Shell Lake, and me - jumped up.

But Zeug was seated closest and also mentioned first-fish honors might as well go to the "smartest and most handsome" on board.

While Schulz, Smith and I chuckled, Zeug grabbed the rod with an agility honed from decades of hand-landing steelhead in Lake Superior tributaries and nabbing poachers in Wisconsin's woods.

Capt. Dave Schulz of Iron River lifts a coho salmon aboard after Dave Zeug of Shell Lake reeled it in during a May 1, 2025 fishing outing on Chequamegon Bay near Washburn.  "By golly, I think we've got something," Zeug said.

After reeling in about 100 feet of line, Schulz freed it of its planer board and Zeug worked the final 75 feet to the stern.

There, in the clear water of this sheltered portion of Lake Superior, was a silver gem of a fish: a coho salmon.

The fish was about 18 inches long and perhaps 1.5 pounds in weight.

Schulz took hold of the line and flipped the fish up and directly into an open livewell.

"That's what we're after," Schulz said. "And where there's one, there's almost always a bunch more."

The calendar had flipped to May and like most birds and many snowbirds, Smith, Zeug and I had traveled north. Our destination was Washburn for a fishing outing with Schulz, owner of and licensed guide with Casting Nets Guide Service.

And we hoped to intercept some of Lake Superior's wild fish that make an annual southern migration into Chequamegon Bay.

An angler trolls May 1, 2025 near a lighthouse on Long Island in Chequamegon Bay.  My three companions for the day were all retired after careers with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  But none of them is gathering dust.

Smith was a DNR engineer and manager who at one time also served as deputy secretary. In retirement, he was appointed to the Natural Resources Board twice and is now in his third year as chairman.

Zeug was a DNR warden and warden supervisor who later won election as mayor of Shell Lake and now is on the board of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin and pulls part-time duty as a reporter for various state publications.

Schulz was a DNR forester for 31 years, including his last post as state lands forester in the Brule River State Forest. He retired in 2024 and pivoted from the land to the water: he started Casting Nets Guide Service.

Schulz is a life-long angler and hunter but between work and family obligations didn't get to fish northern Wisconsin waters as much as he wanted.

This is the first spring, for example, he has been able to get out to fully experience the coho run in Chequamegon Bay.

"What joy," Schulz said.

Coho salmon are stored in a livewell during a fishing outing on Chequamegon Bay near Washburn.

Coho salmon aren't native to the Great Lakes but were introduced by state natural resources agencies. In Lake Superior, coho were first planted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in 1966 and subsequently by the Minnesota DNR in 1969.

But within just a few years it was clear to fisheries managers that coho grew slowly in the cold Lake Superior environment and didn't make strong returns to tributaries in fall.

So coho stocking was halted and resources were turned to other species, especially lake trout, the native top predator fish that was focus of a multi-agency restoration effort.

But the coho didn't vanish. In fact they proved to be tenacious survivors and kept naturally reproducing, generation after generation, in the cold, clear streams that feed Lake Superior.

Cohos typically live for a year and a half in streams, then migrate out to Lake Superior where they spend another year and a half before returning to spawn.

These spawning waters include the Bois Brule and Onion in northern Wisconsin and many streams in Michigan and Minnesota.

Coho salmon caught in spring or summer in Lake Superior are often between 16 and 22 inches and from 1.5 to 3 pounds.

It's quite a different story in Lake Michigan.

Coho caught in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan are almost all hatchery-reared fish stocked into the lake (some coho are naturally-reproduced in Michigan streams and landed in Wisconsin). The hatchery work is expensive and time consuming; anglers foot the bill through purchases of fishing licenses and Great Lakes Salmon and Trout Stamps.

The Lake Michigan coho also grow larger than their relatives in the biggest Great Lake, mostly since Lake Superior is colder and less productive.

Schools of baitfish, likely rainbow smelt, are visible on the left side of the graph during a May 1, 2025 fishing outing on Chequamegon Bay.

The Wisconsin record coho weighed 26.12 pounds and was caught in 1999 in Lake Michigan off Milwaukee. The Lake Superior record coho weighed less than half that, 12.31 pounds and was caught in 2024 off Duluth, Minnesota.

Cohos are caught in much greater number in Lake Michigan, too. In 2024, anglers caught 210,891 coho salmon in the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan, according to the DNR.

That included 60,394 alone in the waters of Milwaukee County.

In fact each county from Kenosha to Manitowoc recorded more coho landed in 2024 than were caught last year in Wisconsin's primary Lake Superior management zone (10,790 fish).

Coho in both Wisconsin Great Lakes are identical in two very important respects, however: they are aggressive (angler speak for "relatively easy to catch") and make outstanding table fare.

Growing up in Racine and fishing on Lake Michigan I learned coho would sometimes even hit lures trolled in the prop wash.

And the food quality makes them in my opinion and that of many other anglers the finest eating of any Great Lakes salmon or trout.

In northern Wisconsin, coho have earned the nickname "Lake Superior candy." I particularly like coho filets grilled lightly with olive oil and crushed rosemary.

But I (and we) had lots of catching to do before any eating would be done.

Schulz began marking more fish as well as many large balls of bait, likely rainbow smelt.

The smelt spend most of the year in the deep water of Lake Superior but in spring migrate into warmer, shallower Chequamegon Bay to spawn.

Capt. Dave Schulz of Iron River, right, speaks with Bill Smith (center) and Dave Zeug, both of Shell Lake, during a May 1, 2025 fishing outing on Chequamegon Bay near Washburn.  The coho follow, Schulz said.

He ran a spread of 12 lines, 10 with minnow-imitating crankbaits on planer boards, one downrigger with a spoon and one dipsy-diver with a flasher and fly.

Schulz made a few turns and zeroed in on the main coho concentration.

True to their reputation, coho began hitting with abandon.

Our rotation was set: Smith was up next, I was on deck and the mayor was in the hole.

Over the next hour we had three doubles and one triple-header as well as many singles.

Most of the hits came on the crankbaits.

As is also common with coho, about six came unbuttoned halfway to the boat. Brown trout are also often caught in the bay in spring. We did not hook any.

By noon, though, we had our limits of five coho each.

As we fished we also were gifted tremendous vistas of the Apostle Islands, lighthouses, the bay and bird life.

And we were joined by other fishers, some in boats and some with wings. We spotted about a dozen common loons and several bald eagles.

The bay was alive above and below the water line.

One 17-inch coho came in with a 6-inch smelt sticking out of its throat.

"Hungry fish usually make for happy fishermen," Schulz said as we motored back into the Washburn marina at 1 p.m.

Now that is a description we could all agree on.