Jim Munoz smiles with a grandpa’s love and chases trout with a young man’s zeal.
“I’m blessed. My body is 82 but my mind is about 40, and I can’t quite accept that fact,” Munoz said.
The years have taught him when — and when not — to speak.
“There are two things I’ve learned over the 52 years I’ve been doing this,” said Munoz, who barely bests friend and fellow captain Jack Duffy for the title of longest running charter captain out of Fishtown. “I don’t talk politics and I don’t talk religion. We’re not going to change each other’s views. I don’t care what your views are, and why cause an argument over that?”
What Munoz does care about is family. That’s been the key to his success since he and investment partner Larry Glass bought their first boat in 1972. They christened the craft after their wives, Carol Munoz and Dee Glass. Larry passed away in 2019.
“This is my fourth Carol Dee,” Munoz said while looking over his 31-foot Tiara. “My first charter I charged $75. I thought it was an incredible thing, that anyone would pay me to catch a fish. That was the start of it.”
It’s that boyish joy of fishing that keeps him plying the waters of Lake Michigan — as well the chance to pass his passion down to future generations.
“ I’ve always tried to use my family rather than hire anyone else. I had (son) Jimmy for years as first mate, my grandson Michael, and now my grandson Jack. I enjoy teaching them and hope some information wears off on them. I can’t do the physical things, but I can teach them the physical things that need to be done,” Munoz said.
Jimmy Munoz is now owner of Manitou Island Transit along with his wife, Megan Grosvenor Munoz, and her brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Sarah Grosvenor. Jimmy got his start plying the waters of Lake Michigan aboard a Carol Dee, as did his son, Jack Munoz. Carol and Jim have two other children: Gwen Martin, who owns Miss Gwen’s Daycare in Leland; and Beth Osorio, who teaches kindergarten in Leland. Their husbands are Terry and Gil.
Jack at the age of 23 has a state license to skipper the Carol Dee and even occasionally takes the wheel of the Mishe Mokwa, the transit company’s ferry that services North and South Manitou islands.
Jimmy and Jack appreciate the opportunities they’ve been given by their father and grandfather.
“He’s been there for me ever since I can remember,” said Jimmy Munoz.
Added Jack, “Being able to learn from him has been special.”
Jim Munoz originally had no intention of spending his entire education career in Leland, which offered him a job in 1968 within an hour drive of Platte Lake in Benzie County where his family had a cabin. Fishing moved from a priority to an afterthought while Munoz coached baseball in the fall; seventh, eighth, JV and varsity basketball in winter; and baseball again when the sport transitioned to spring.
“I was young and dumb and enthusiastic and everything was new,” Jim said about his early teaching schedule. “After that first year we asked ourselves, ‘Why do we want to be anywhere else?’” Carol quickly became immersed in the community, where the Munozes are members of Leland Community United Methodist Church. Carol and Dee joined Jim Telgard in organizing the Leland Booster Club in 1973.
While Munoz did not create the fantastic fishery that continues to sustain a fleet of charter boats in Fishtown, he had a lot to do with discovering it.
Lake trout were the target fish in 1972 for the original Carol Dee. Back then there was no need to venture farther than a few miles out of the Leland harbor to fill a cooler.
“Instead of marking an individual fish (on a graph) you would mark a line of them. Lake trout were everywhere. It was obscene. I kept track of the number of fish and day I caught and displayed it where the Diversions store is now. It got so high that people thought I was bull (blanking). So I stopped recording every fish,” Munoz said.
Although plentiful, lake trout could not control the run-away alewife population. Dead alewives piled up along county beaches . The MDNR in an experiment planted Pacific salmon in the Platte River that returned to spawn in 1967. Seemingly overnight a salmon craze consumed Great Lakes sport fishermen.
Not so in Fishtown. At least for a while.
“Jack (Duffy) and I spent several seasons at the first bank. Mike Grosvenor (then owner of Manitou Transit) kept telling us he was seeing all sorts of fish at North Manitou. Well, we finally tried it out, and Mike was right. There were huge schools of salmon over there. That was good because we could lay off the lake trout for a big portion of the season,” Munoz said.
The seasonal charter fishing rotation started with lake trout, turned to steelhead, and then on to salmon starting the first week of July. The MDNR started its experiment by planting coho salmon, which mature at 10-15 pounds, but then switched to king salmon.
“That’s a glamor fish. You catch a 20-, 25-pound king and that’s a prize. People would go to Alaska to catch one fish a day. People who came here said we had a world class fishery. I had one charter and we had a late start. My dad was still with us. We got to the first bank and my dad said to stay there. We started catching salmon two, three at a time. I called the other (charter) boats and before they could get back to Leland to fish we had 20 mature kings on my deck.
“That’s how good the fishing was then,” Munoz said.
Charter captains running out of Leland have had two close calls with Lake Michigan, the last occurring in 2015 when a wind shear blowing 100 mph winds snapped off 100-year-old oaks. All charters out that day returned safe.
Charter crews and clients also survived hurricane force winds that in 1985 blew through the Manitou Passage and beyond.
“All the charter boats were at North Manitou, and we could see the weather coming … by the time we got behind the island for cover it was going 80 mph. It came across, hit the mainland, tore out cherry trees and went over to Grand Traverse Bay where it knocked two ladies off a sailboat. They died,” Munoz said.
In the days before cell phones, communication was difficult. Eventually the captains accounted for nine out of ten boats They chugged 100 yards apart with searching eyes toward the mainland, where the missing charter was discovered safe. He had outrun the storm.
Fishing out of Fishtown remains solid for lake trout, and more salmon are being caught than in previous years. The biggest change in the charter industry over the course of Munoz’s career may be in the type of clients he takes.
Trips with fishermen are being replaced by fisher families. It’s a change welcomed by Munoz.
“I really enjoy taking families out. I like to have kids learn how to catch fish. I like to put a kid on the cooler and have dad behind him because small ones aren’t able to bring in a fish that big. Most people just want to enjoy a day on the water. Of course there are people who want a fish on all the time, and they are not the people you want on your boat.
“With some people, you have 20 salmon in the boat and they want 21,” he said.
Like his evolved clientele, Munoz — who has been host to magnates and paupers — finds himself taking life as it comes to him with the shores of Leelanau County as a backdrop.
“I have a great family and there is nothing more important than my kids and grandkids. I’ve had a good life, and there are people who are envious. I’ve had so much more good than bad,” he said.
