Did I ever tell you about the time my dad took me fishin’ up at Whitefish Point?
Did I ever tell you about all the fish I saw?
How about all the fish I caught?

It’s true – my dad and I went fishing at Whitefish Point.
It’s true, I did see a lot of fish in the water.
What isn't true was catching fish.…frustrating as all get-out.

We were fishing out on a pier and whenever I looked down into the water, there were all these fish…25-30 good-size fish just swimmin’ around the bottom. Wow! So I threw my line in and waited. Here came the fish, up to my line, looking at the worm, taking a sniff, turning their noses up, and swimming away. What the heck! That worm was just dangling there and the fish kept swimming around it like “who cares? It’s a worm, big deal.” What a frustration.

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Whitefish Point is just about straight up from the Mackinac Bridge, all the way to Lake Superior. The Whitefish Point Lighthouse and Station were established in 1849 and have been in use ever since. The lighthouse remains the oldest, still-operating lighthouse on Lake Superior.

The tip of Whitefish Point is the end of the lake’s 80-mile long “Shipwreck Coast”. Out of the 500-600 shipwrecks in Lake Superior, 200 of them are near Whitefish Point. This includes the Edmund Fitzgerald, which still lies buried underwater just 15 miles northwest.

In 1980, Whitefish Township got ahold of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society for some help in preserving the lighthouse and the surrounding buildings. The Coast Guard granted a license for a museum, and the Shipwreck Museum opened in 1987.

Make a trip to Whitefish Point this year…you may have better luck fishing than I did.

Whitefish Point

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Sunken Locomotive in Lake Superior, 1910

The Real Edmund Fitzgerald

Michigan Fishing: 1900-1943

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