Lake Michigan Camping, Canoeing & Fishing Adventure

First time in a canoe we have Maya, we have Nicole, over here we have Ollie of course, and welcome back everyone. I'm Kyle with Adventure Chasing and in this episode we are set out to an island on Grand Travers Bay which is a bay off the Lake Michigan and we're going to camp on the island overnight. After that I don't know what this adventure is going to have in store but you're coming along with us. The canoe is loaded down it's going to be a great adventure. Ever in a canoe, Maya's first time in a canoe ever, good time to take a nap. Well I was a little bit concerned when we first started we had about a 10 to 15 mile an hour north wind blowing directly into west bay here and we had some whitecaps out but we came around our first bay and it looks like the wind has died down we have some gentle about one foot little rollers coming in but it's just absolutely beautiful. All right well we have arrived here at our island we're gonna hop out try to find a good spot to camp and then we'll get set up. Oh and Ollie's going after the geese. Our sleeping quarters are put together time to get a fire going. Let's go. Some venison backstrap. The flavor is off of the off the charts off the charts. What a treat this meal is. To end a great day we have morels and backstrap baby. Oh my gosh. Ladies first and of course okay we have them nice and tucked in. I put a couple hand warmers inside of a sleeping bag. We're gonna get some sleep we'll see you first thing in the morning. Well good morning and welcome back and oh my goodness look at the sliver of a moon and look at this beautiful sunrise She's looking right at us right now. It's okay. It's a beautiful day. You gotta sit bud. Good boy. 100 foot of water. No it's 100 foot of water out there. Oh no it's a stick. Keep an eye out below the boat too if you see any suspicious activity. Oh my god. I just had one. Shoot. Oh there's a whole bunch of them. Whole bunch of biscuits following me. Oh I see him down there. Fish. Fish. Fish. Fish on baby. Fish on. Ollie's watching this fish. I can't really film too much. There we go baby. And he's off in the boat baby. He's off in the boat. We gotta get back out there and try to get another one. Ollie stay in the boat. I saw a whole school down there so I'm gonna see if I can hit another one. Oh I just had one. I just had one. 100% just had one. Oh I just had one. Oh he's still there. He's still there. He's chasing it. Oh my god. Oh no. Oh no. One's following it. Oh big laker. Oh my gosh. Gosh big lake trout followed it in. They went that way. Fish. Fish. Fish. Oh he hit it on the retrieve. Oh it's a big laker. Oh I was cranking it in. Look at that thing rolling down there baby. Oh my gosh. Ollie stay in the boat buddy. That baby. Look at the loon. Look at the loon. I was just telling Nicole how loons will often come over and fish with us when they see us catch a fish and that's exactly what happened. Oh my gosh. There he goes. He's diving on the school of fish. Oh look at him. He's swimming right there. He's swimming right there in front of the boat. Oh my gosh. You can see him underwater right there. He's trying to get on the school of fish. Well beautiful Lake Michigan lake trout and we officially have enough fish for a great lunch. We just had a loon fishing with us. We're gonna give it a few more casts and then head back to camp. Oh there he goes. He just popped back up right there. Well as you can see the Coast Guard is flying bad out of hell offshore. They're probably going out to assist somebody in distress. Now I've been getting a lot of comments lately asking what gear I like to use and specifically what knives I've been using. Now this knife right here it's a double-edged flay knife by Rapid River Knife Company. They're based out of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and it has two blades on each side so it makes it really handy when you're flaying fish. So I'm going to take the sides off this lake trout. I'm going to flay up the cisco and then we're going to get cooking a breakfast skillet here. Sausage time. So we're transferring pans. We're going to use all this yummy grease to cook our potatoes. All these little yellow potatoes are quartered. We're going to cook them in a cast iron because it's going to give them the best crunch. Doing a little pan transfer here. Put the peppers and onions in the sausage. Sausage is already cooked. We're just transferring pans right now. We're going to add a little butter to the cast iron. Get a good base. Going in with the chunky salsa. Going on with the potatoes. On with the over medium egg. We love our cheese. This is freshly shredded Monterey Jack. Melted perfectly. Oh my goodness. What a lucky guy. We have avocado, cilantro, and sour cream. Just going to place that nice on top. I am speechless. First bite. It's so good. Oh my gosh. She knocked it out of the park, folks. I can confidently say this is the best breakfast skillet. Maybe even the best breakfast I've ever had. I'm glad you like it. I like it. You heard him. Well, that breakfast was an amazing way to end this day. We're going to panel back to the truck, go get some sleep, and get ready for our adventure tomorrow. Well, this is a great representation of the structure that we were fishing this morning. You can see how steep this drop off is. I'm going to put the GoPro in the lens of my polarized sunglasses. You can see on the left, right where the canoe is, it's about 10 feet of water. Then to the right, it drops down to about 100 feet of water. Well, good morning and welcome back to another beautiful day. Today, we're going to explore the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore by canoe. There you go, fishing. Good boy. Well, we paddled through our first section of river here. We're just getting into Loon Lake. We're going to cross Loon Lake and continue down the Platte River. We're dropping off into the lake. Well, we just passed through the lower Platte River weir right behind me here. Now, in the fall time, there will be thousands and thousands of salmon stacked right below this weir here. Now, you can't fish it, but the DNR will then release certain amounts of salmon to swim upstream farther to a hatchery, where the eggs will then be collected and used to stock and raise salmon across the entire Great Lakes region. Big school of suckers right there. Oh, look at them all going up river. Bunch of suckers and smallmouth in there. We also just saw a big steelhead. It was up by this docket shot down. Ollie's on point, aren't you, buddy? There he is right there. Nice steelhead. Oh, look at it. It's pure chrome. It is so chrome. Oh, there's a couple of them. There's another one. There's a big one right there. Oh, there's a giant. There he goes. Two of them right there. Oh, big water snake right there. Whoa. There's a big pike right there. Oh, yeah. Big smallmouth down underneath that log. And there's a pike underneath that log. Is that a fish? Oh, it is a fish. What is that? Oh, it's a big pike. That's another pike. That's a different one. That's an even bigger one. I'm going to clip you on the paddle here and drop you down Now I'm rigging up to do a little fishing and we're going to see if we can catch a fish for lunch. We're going to go with that guy and that guy. Our final destination is somewhere over there. All right, girl. Here we go. I think a little. Oh, OK. I don't know. No, I think it's just the line going out. That's perfect right there, sweetie. Here? Yep. Oh, Kyle, I do. Fish on. Didn't even make it all the way out there. OK, here we go, guys. Here we go. Oh, yeah, it's running. It's running, baby. Nice and easy. Oh, it's right behind us. Yep. Just keep reeling slow. Ollie, stay in the boat. Oliver, stay in the boat. Pull it my way. Oh! Ollie, stay in the boat. It's real. The fish fever is real. I caught it. All right, girl. Here is your fish. My first ever lake trout just caught on Lake Michigan. We're going to have this for lunch. You put your whole hand in the gill. Nicole is going to get this fish on ice and the cooler. I mean, we're not super deep water. You can see the bottom down there. We're probably in about maybe 30 feet of water. So we're just paddling along and big lake trout decided to hit our lure. I can't tell you how special this experience is, but I have so much to say. It's my first time out in the open water of Lake Michigan. First time ever catching a lake trout. First time experiencing Michigan like this. This is crazy. Just crazy. There we go, baby. Fish on. You got him, baby. You got to get the net. Ollie, stay in the boat. Looks like another laker. I'm going to put you on the net. Oh my gosh. Another nice one. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Ollie's wet. He's been splashed. And Maya's confused. Fishing in a regular boat is fun, but there's nothing as exciting and fun as fishing out of a canoe and catching big fish. Fishing in a canoe in the open water of Lake Michigan. On the dunes. With sleeping bear dunes in the background. Doesn't get much more pure Michigan than this. Well, we were going to stop and cook some fish here for lunch, but as soon as we pulled up, the wind has picked up and I can start to see some white caps coming in. So what I think we're going to do is knock out a few more miles of our paddle and get closer to our final destination, just in case we have some big waves starting to come in. Well, we're back on the road and we have a pretty stiff head wind we're paddling directly into right now. Well, we actually brought the fish that we caught yesterday and we're going to cook up our lake trout and Cisco that we harvested yesterday for lunch. He doesn't know I have this. Oh, it's game on. It's going to be so good. And that right there, folks, is a pile of fresh Lake Michigan whitefish and lake trout. I don't know what's what one Cisco and one's like trout, but we're going to find out. Cheers. Each one of these fish has a totally different texture. The Cisco is really light and flaky. The lake trout holds its moisture and holds its oils, but they're both absolutely delicious. Melts in your mouth. And we've officially ate an entire lake trout and whole Cisco.