In all my years of living in Chicago, I've never gone fishing.

I figured it was time.

14 miles offshore, the lake is a whole different kettle of fish.

- This lake was almost netted into extinction in the 1800s.

And now there's so much life out here.

- [Geoffrey] The good ship Angler is under the command of Captain Gintas and first mate Johnny Mcintyre.

- I mean, the fact that a lake can support five different species of Pacific Ocean salmon really just speaks for how healthy and amazing this fishery is.

All within view of the city of Chicago.

- Yeah.

How about that?

The fishery might be thriving, but those salmon and other species aren't native to Lake Michigan.

More on that later.

First, I need to get up to speed.

So this is your bait?

- Correct?

- You're not using like a worm.

- We are not.

- [Geoffrey] My mind was reeling from all the jargon.

- I'm setting back our lead line rods here.

Now we're into backing.

And this is called braided line.

You can feel it, it's very thin.

Sharp three-pronged hook.

It's called the treble hook.

And now what I do is put on my spreader board.

- [Geoffrey] Your spreader board.

There's too much jargon in this.

- I turn my clicker on, which is making that sound, right?

And that's polishing my drag as I set this line up.

So if you come over here, this line's going to get sent the furthest back of any line we fish today.

- Four downriggers, four downriggers, two dipsies, two lead cores- - [Johnny] And two copper lines.

- And two copper lines.

There'll be a test afterwards.

I had a sinking feeling I'd come back empty-handed, but Captain Gintas said not to worry.

- We've never come back without a fish.

- Never come back without a fish.

- Never come back without a fish.

- Well, there's always a first time.

For about 20 minutes, nothing was biting, and then, seemingly out of nowhere- - Fish two, two, two!

- Whoa, what do I do?

- [Johnny] Alright, tip up, Geoff.

Tip up.

Fight him right here.

- Stop right here.

- The bottom here.

- [Johnny] No, no, no.

Keep that rod right here.

Put this right here.

- Right here.

- [Johnny] There you go.

Reel, reel, reel.

- Whoa, I can feel that.

Geez.

I think I got a big one.

- You see him on the surface of water there?

He's running at us real quick.

Real quick.

Good.

Good, good, good.

- You see him?

I don't see him.

Oh my God.

I can feel him pulling.

- Stop reeling.

Tip up, walk backwards.

Tip up, walk backwards.

There we go.

Netted!

- [Geoffrey] Oh man.

- So this is a lake trout.

This is your first ever fish, correct?

- Yeah.

It is.

- This is a pretty damn good first fish.

- Okay.

(chuckles) My smile as i posed for those trophy photos covered up a surprising feeling of guilt that washed over me.

I mean, I was like, hey, this poor thing is fighting for its life and I'm going to kill it.

- Yeah, some people have a little bit of that sort of sentiment when they kill their first fish, but this is the most sustainable way for anybody to eat fish is to catch it yourself.

The biggest threat to any fish population is commercial, especially netting and long lining, stuff like that.

Right from the lake to the cooler to your table.

Sustainable way.

No waste, no bycatch, nothing like that.

Just clean, simple.

Done.

- Sustainable, yes.

But there are enough trace contaminants in the water that authorities recommend limits on the amount of fish we eat from Lake Michigan.

This lake might be freshwater, but Captain Gintas is an old salt with more than 30 years under his belt.

So you've seen a lot of changes in the lake in your career.

- I've seen tremendous changes.

- [Geoffrey] Gintas has seen the arrival of several invasive species.

But he's also witnessed how the lake adapts, for example, to zebra mussels that arrived in the ballast water from foreign ships and depleted the food supply for native fish.

Or the round goby, a native to the Caspian sea that gobbled up the mussels, but created their own problems.

- So then you started reading about, the goby is going to destroy this lake.

They's going to eat all the little fish and the lake is doomed.

So what's happened with that invasive species?

Now everything is learned to eat this goby.

The white fish that learned to eat it, king salmon, 48 pound king salmon, a lake record.

- [Geoffrey] Now is that a fish story?

- I have a picture.

(laughs) - Speaking of salmon, how on earth did a Pacific species end up in Lake Michigan?

Well, you can thank a scientist named Howard Tanner.

In 1966, he introduced these apex predators to restore balance to a lake that was dangerously out of whack, so bad you could smell it.

The culprit was an earlier invasive species called the alewife.

- [Gintas] And this lake became saturated with alewives.

And I remember as a kid going to the beach- - [Geoffrey] Oh, me too.

- [Gintas] And the alewives dead.

Alewives are up through your knees and they got to plow 'em and bury 'em.

- [Geoffrey] Smell terrible, dead alewives.

- They're all dead, and you couldn't walk barefoot because they would hurt your feet.

So in the '60s, the DNR decided it might be a good idea to start stocking pacific salmon, steelhead brown trout- - [Geoffrey] To eat the alewives.

- To eat the alewives to balance out that predator/prey relationship.

- [Geoffrey] Along Chicago's lakefront, nature is manmade from the fishery below the surface to the view on the horizon.

Does it ever get- - It never gets old.

But those are my mountains.

- Yeah.

- [Gintas] Those are my mountains.

That's the way I look at it.

But this is my favorite view of the city.

14 miles off shore.