19 year old Luis Martinez purchased his fishing license Friday and now the first-time salmon fisherman finds himself at the center of a big story after he reeled in a 47.86 pound giant king (chinook) salmon on the Icebreaker Charters boat caught off of Big Sable Point in Lake Michigan.

Charter boat Captain Bobby Sullivan brought in Martinez and his family back to Ray’s Auto Marine immediately to weigh the mammoth Chinook salmon Martinez caught Saturday morning.  After initial weighing of the salmon indicated it seemed to have shattered a 43 year old record-- a 46.06 king salmon was caught in 1978-- Jay Wesley, the Lake Michigan basin coordinator with the Department of Natural Resources. was summoned and immediately drove up from Kalamazoo to certify the state record.

Luis Martinez, a resident of Ortonville in Oakland County, took 20 to 30 minutes to reel in the record catch, after his mother woke him up when his line had the hit.  Landing the behemoth has not only brought him instant fame, but will likely bring a lot more salmon fishers to Ludington to see whether this fish had a sister.  Captain Sullivan will also be sought after for the rest of the season, and you won't find him down at the public marinas, one's that were built expressly for recreational boating, not for charter boats, private businesses.  

Captain Bobby can be found down at Ray's Auto-Marine, one of Ludington private marinas, where charter boats should be moored.  Ironically, the Ludington City Council on July 12th voted to use $500,000 to replace the city marina's charter boat dock (F pier) with top-of-the-line floating docks.  They followed this up at the next meeting by approving a costly engineering firm for that project.  Fourth Ward Councilor Cheri Stibitz, whose ward is home to the city's many private marinas, but not the two public marinas, seconded both motions and cheerfully voted for both public money infusions into improving the private charter boats storefronts.  How tone deaf can you be?

It's fitting that our public marinas and the private businesses that are unlawfully housed there, greatly subsidized by millions of dollars of public funds outside of their so-called enterprise zones, get shut out of this record-setting catch.  Leave it to the little guys to shine: Luis Martinez, Captain Bobby Sullivan, Ray's Auto-Marine and Ludington's private marina industry-- which predated and made possible those two unfair competitors masquerading as 'public' marinas.  

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Your right X. I can see the City  promoting itself in the media because of this fish being caught in Ludington waters. Captain Sullivan should be given a medal for following the rules and for docking his boat at a privately run marina.

Congratulations Luis. Rumor has it that he caught two fish. He thru back the first thinking it was an undersized fresh water shark but kept the second fish which set the record

This is a picture of the mistakenly identified fish Luis released.

 

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