We have reached that critical mass point in the summer where fellow bloggers are apologizing for not posting more often due to busyness or 'unblogworthy' content. Surmounted by work, too busy with play, 57 channels (& nothing on), etc.
I'm guilty of all of those things but won't apologize here. Instead I will try to distract you with photos from my little excursion to Coon Lake with the boy a couple of weeks (already) ago.
The shakedown went well. The motor ran, the depth finder worked, the boat didn't leak, and everyone made it back to shore safely. Sunfish were caught and the fishing bug is now coursing through the boy's veins.
Of course so rarely are things perfect. The lake itself was a haven for jet skiers, tubers and drunken party bargers. These guys actually were some of the tame ones... I just took their photo because I thought their pontooon modification was impressive. In the second photo they are very close to a fishing boat though in all fairness I don't know who approached who.
Ultimately the boy needed to be dragged kicking and screaming off the lake, which secretly pleased me to no end. On the way home we stopped for a dilly bar, which seemed to go a good ways toward smoothing things over. As a man, I have the inexplicable need to take photos of my vehicle and my rig. I believe it is the Y-chromosome equivalent to females needing to take pictures of the food whenever there is a party.
Last Friday night as I was cooking dinner for my family a big thunderstorm system moved through our area, wreaking havoc on small towns west of the metro. Fortunately for me our community was unscathed. A few hours later I was riding shotgun in my friend Al's car, leading a caravan of four cars across Wisconsin, with the lightning still receding off to the East.
We were sharing a charter on the "Angler Managment," a 32-foot Trojan, out of Kewaunee, Wisconsin. We arrived in Kewaunee right at 6AM, when our charter was to begin, but because of the recent high winds we decided to delay until 8 to let things die down and to get some breakfast. When a Great Lakes charterboat captain suggests that you wait it out a bit, you don't really argue.
I wish now that I had actually eaten some breakfast in town -- But as it were, I had some greasy sausage sticks and other assorted pogey bait that I had brought along. I munched hungrilly on those sausage sticks as we motored out of the protected harbor. Out on the lake it was better than I expected but still pretty rough seas. After about 15-20 minutes of wave crashing I began to feel very very hot and very very queasy. I looked over at Al and he was worse off than me
I have only been seasick one other time in my life, and it also involved a hastily-scarfed breakfast of dubious components. I had to hurl a couple of cookies over the side but by and large held together. Thankfully my friend Faron had some Dramamine with him.
The first four hours of our charter were fruitless. In all that time we had one bite, which my friend Jet lost. It wasn't for a lack of trying; the skipper threw everything he had in the water save for Al's puke bucket. It was getting to be so bad that I suggested that we anchor the boat and fish with bobbers. About then the next bite hit. I was up.
At first I thought I was into the fish of a lifetime. He certainly felt that way. But as it turned out there was a problem with the planer board on my line, and I was basically trying to reel in my fish with the planer board turned sideways in the water. Making it worse we were still maintining trolling speed; so once the skipper saw what was wrong he slowed up the boat a bit and that helped. I boated the first fish of the day, about a 7 or 8 pound king.
The action picked up after that, and Jay, Faron and Al each boated fish. It was starting to look like things were picking up, but when we got back to the top of the order, it was Jet's turn and we didn't get anymore bites. So in the end we returned to port and Jet was empty-handed. Poor guy.
Here is the full group of us. From Left to right: Jeremy, Siegfried, Faron, Yours Truly, Jay, Al and Jet.
Siegfried and Jeremy were on a second boat with Sieg's grandkids. They boated three, so they didn't do much better. We're a pretty diverse group: A South African, a German, three Americans and Two Filipinos.
Here's a photo of yours truly with the skipper and his mate. Ironically the guy dressed for fish cleaning is the skipper, and the more 'skipperly'-looking fellow on the right is the mate.
Here is a picture of Faron and his King. Faron took a lot more pictures than I did (I wasn't really in the mood once I started puking) so maybe he will get some more photos for me to post at a later date.
Here's me with my king. Easily the smallest fish, he was pretty easy to find at the bottom of the cooler.
Big or no, he sure did make for a tasty dinner.
Charter fishing is not really fishing. Oh, some fishing does go on, but it is the skipper and the mate who do all that. That's what you pay them for. All you do on a charter is reel fish in. If there aren't any fish to reel in, then all you are left with is pretty much an 85 dollar an hour boat ride. I booked this trip before I knew that I was getting my boat. I probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't already committed a non-refundable deposit. I would have spent the money fishing around home.
I function better as my own skipper, and my rates are more reasonable.
4WH Report Who, What Where, When and How. Who went fishing, what they caught, When the action took place, where they went and how they presented. See Also:The Law of Diminishing Returns
A
As good as skunked No fish worth keeping.(See Also: Keeper)
B
Bad Hand Eveleth / Ely Lake colloquialism - in a fish house, a condition that occurs when a fisherman finishes his Hamms, puts down the can, and is left with an empty hand.
e.g., "Hey, I gotta bad hand over here!"
Bait Rape When a fish takes your bait while avoiding the hook.
Bombing Run Going in to town either for a drink or to purchase off sale liquor for later consumption.
Butt F'N Cold! When it's so cold that a freshly cleared hole ices over in about 10 seconds - it can only be considered that cold when a person is angling without a shelter.
e.g., "It's not just cold, it's butt f'n cold!"
C
Crowd Three people crammed into a two person house.
"Eel Pout, Eel Pout, Eel Pout!" A chant issued by a competitive ice fisherman with the intent of magically transforming the large fish on his partner's line into a lowly Burbot. It works (Much to the recipient's chagrin) - approximately 25 percent of the time.
Extreme Old School No shelter, no electronics, Hand Auger
F
Free Range Maggot A waxworm or eurolarvae that is dropped in favor of a bite on your second line. Said creature is then free to crawl away from wherever it landed.
Free Range Minnow A minnow that becomes unhooked while landing a fish. Still alive, the crippled fish swims in confused circles in the hole until either it is retrieved, finds its way down the hole or succumbs to its injuries.
Harvey Wallbanger Any loud drunk capable of shamelessly approaching a stranger's portable shelter and engaging in a semicoherant conversation with the startled occupants inside.
Hole Hypnosis A trance-like condition induced by staring down a hole drilled into the ice, while ingesting moderate to severe amounts of carbon monoxide. Accute cases involve abrupt loss of depth perception, especially when uninterrupted attention is focused on a bobber or stike indicator in excess of 45 minutes.
Jaques Cousteau A person who owns an underwater camera.
K
Keeper Any fish capable of providing fillets larger than a vandekamps fish stick.
L
Law of Diminishing Returns, The Close friends or relatives have approximately a 50% chance of receiving an accurate 4WH Report. Strangers have virtually no chance.
Making Ice The popping and cracking of lake ice caused by expansion and contraction. Typically occurs at night or on extremely (Hardcore) cold days. (i.e., "Boy, she's really makin' ice today!")
Spoon-on-a-Stick Antique Swedish style cutting device (Not an auger proper) featuring an offset shaft tipped with a cup shaped bore.
Spud Common name for a large heavy ice chisel used for starting or creating ice holes. Also used to describe the person operating said chisel when they a) start chiseling the ice with 20 or 30 feet of your shelter or b) operate it during the morning or evening bite or other prime fishing hours.
Steve McQueen Any lake ice motorist who travels in excess of 30 MPH with little or no regard to the proximity of other anglers or property.
T
Territory Marker Those patches of 'Yellow Snow' you see out on the lake.
Tons going on in terms of my non-blog life. Overwhelmed by work, family health concerns, Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, so on and so forth. Patiently waiting to get the data cable for my phone so I can start pulling photos off of it. I got the thing over six months ago and promptly filled up the memory. Haven't taken a picture with it in months.
Going Ice fishing tomorrow. Don't expect to catch much but plan on having a blast in the warm 36-degree weather. Not taking the house, fishing old school in the open air.
Stopped by a local sporting good mart over my lunch hour and hit the clearance racks. I picked up a nice pair of convertible pants for $15 and an ice fishing rod & reel combo for $11. Score!
I don't know how much if ever I will blog about the movie Jaws again so I will also mention in passing that this movie contains one of the best monologues of all time (Though performed by co-star Robert Shaw, not by Scheider).
Scheider was an accomplished actor who appeared in a lot of other stuff too, but I note his passing due to the formative effect that the movie Jaws had on me. I very much identified with Brody's fish out of water (No pun intended) sense of insecurity and misplacement on Quint's boat. The conflict between Quint and Hooper reminded me a lot of the conflict in my family between my two brother in-laws. In fact it was the Quint-like one who took me to see Jaws while it was running in the theater. That would have made me maybe 7 years old at the time. That's a pretty heavy movie for a second grader to try and process.
Around that same time my family had just put a temporary end to our gypsy approach to camping & fishing and had settled into a cabin on Leech lake. The cabin was owned by my sister and the Quint-like brother in-law, so much like the movie, we had the similar experience of trying to coexist in Quint's domain. And all the while I was confronted with Leech lake - this big, wonderful yet mysterious body of water, dangerous as any ocean and scary as heck to a seven year old. Local resorts and bars contained photos and mounts of enormous Muskellunge, which saturated my subconscious with fears of swimming, fishing and even boating in that lake. A bigger boat sure sounded like a good idea to me. Yet like Brody, some conflicting sense of duty and curiosity called me out on to the water to confront these hobgoblins of my mind.
Predictably, around that time I went through a brief shark craze, a lot like the kids nowadays are into dinosaurs. All my reading and attention went into studying and understanding this phantom limb of my subconsciousness, voraciously eating up books as often as I could get to a library. Then snap, the informational feeding frenzy was over and I was on to something else. It's amazing how there is always something available to personify whatever fears we are dealing with. In the movie Brody went through a shark craze too, and came out the other end alive. Thanks Roy, for helping me get through mine.
Well, we survived the big saturday fishing trip, and we brought home some fish to boot.
Unfortunately my camera was not so fortunate and died out on the lake so I only managed to get these two photos. I put us right on top of the fish as you can see in the second photo of my friend Roberto and his first crappie ever, plus the first keeper ever pulled up in my home made fish house. All said and done we kept 1 decent crappie plus three others I would have tossed back if we weren't trying to piece together a modest meal for Roberto and his kids. A little fruit off the tree is good incentive for planning another trip.
Oh yeah, I also got me a small walleye, who got sent back to grow some more. All in all it was a great trip, I even talked on the phone to one of the guys who canceled, who seemed a little dismayed to hear that not only had we NOT frozen to death but in fact we were so warm in the fish house that we had to shed clothes to stay warm, and that the fishing action was, well, active.
Some more pictures maybe later of when we got back to Roberto's house and his kids saw the fish.
Fishing plans for tomorrow were originally for 6 guys in three houses. Yesterday the two other guys with fish houses canceled because of the weather. One of the ride-alongs was similarly convinced not to go. That left me and two ride-alongs, one of whom was gracious enough to bow out, even though I could tell that it really was in his heart to go.
We Few, We Happy Few.
What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmorland. No, my fair cousin: If we are marked to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It ernes me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires: But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: God's peace, I would not lose so great an honour As one man more, methinks, would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more. Rather proclaim it presently through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart. His passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is called the Feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall see this day and live t'old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian": Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
After enduring much teasing and good-natured derision from Eric I finally got around to snapping some photos of the much-ballyhooed fish house. It's going to get some work this Saturday as I am taking a buddy out for his first ice fishing experience. Weather.com is currently predicting a high of 0 degrees that day so I guess you could call that a baptism by ice. I also took a picture of my auger (Over there, to the left) which I got from my dad when he hung up the jig sticks. It was actually my dad who inspired me to build my own fish house; I have vivid memories of watching him construct his 4' X 8' version when I was a kid.
I think my dad has inspired a lot of the behaviors I engage in that my beautiful wife finds to be simply inexplicable. Like solo hiking, building fish houses, ice fishing in general and ice fishing in sub zero temperatures specifically.
It never hurts to let your spouse think that you're a little crazy.
In my previous post I was not exactly truthful when I said that the design specifications were "contained entirely in my own head" - My notebook operates as an extension of my head. While these aren't really designs (You wont find any measurements or list of supplies here) here is a peek at my concept drawings. The fish house turned out pretty close to this except that I haven't had a chance to do the windows yet and I need to add a second vent.
I can't wait to get back out in it.
(60) Deck and Substructure (61) Front view (Radius approximate)
(62) Rear (Again radius is approximate) (63) Window assembly concepts
Just a really busy December, which is hard to fathom considering a good hunk of it was spent burning off my remaining vacation hours. Between the caroling group for my church, the son's big holiday musical, hosting a couple of holiday get-togethers and all the frantic home maintenance that goes with that, I really didn't have much time for writing.
But I DID find the time to construct a fold-up portable fish house, based on design specifications contained entirely in my own head. That included a frantic after midnight push to be ice-ready for new years day. I got skunked but one of the fellows I was with brought the first of what I hope will be many fish through the floor of my new shack (a potato chip-sized bluegill)
Hopefully some of that will make some good post material which I can post date a la the father of five style. Heck, I think I'll even post THIS for now.
Thanks again for writing and I hope that you are getting some good winter adventures of your own in!
Preamble At least once a year, usually in the fall I take a nature trip into the woods. It is my chance to clear my head, reset the scale, shock the system, pick your analogy here. Basically I get to unplug from my real life for a period of time, plug myself into some wilderness and find out just exactly who it is I am again. All this to say that I don't get out much, I guess.
This year I set my sights on a solo hiking trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. There are several trails available in the BWCAW, but I chose the Angleworm lake trail because it is a 14-mile loop, the distance seemed about right for an easy three day hike and based on other trip reports I had read (You can find them if you Google for them) the Angleworm truly looked like a beautiful hike.
I live a sedentary life, which is a fancy way of saying that I am a fat guy who works in an office. I knew that I would have to prepare for this trip, so I did so primarily by training on an elliptical machine in our basement that has for the most part served as a coat rack over the years. I also did a lot of stretching and a fair amount of bicycling.
In addition to physical preparation I did do a fair amount of preparation in terms of planning my gear and studying my map. In all fairness, everything that I did to prepare for the trip could probably fill a different post; I just didn't want to give the impression that I threw my pack in the truck and drove up north on an impulse.
Day 1
Getting There I'm not what you call an early riser, but with the trip at hand I was off like a shot when the alarm went off. After some last minute fumbling and a hurried good-bye to my groggy wife, I was out the door just before 5AM.
The drive was unremarkable for the first couple of hours, save for the volume of southbound early bird commuters, making their way in to the cities. I grinned and breathed a quiet prayer of thanks that I wasn't one of them. The sun greeted me just south of Cloquet and lit up the Birches that tower on the hill just west of Interstate 35. The colors were so brilliant that I was momentarily startled and feared that I may still be laying in my bed, dreaming. By 8:30 I was passing through my fellow blogger Eric's neck of the woods and by 9:30 I was refueling in downtown Ely.
As I made my way to Echo Trail I was very pleased that everything seemed to be going so well. I thought of the day's hike and imagined what sort of wildlife I might encounter. Daydreaming, I was shocked back into reality when I rounded a corner and a large bird leaped up off the road and into a nearby tree. I stopped, dumbfounded because I had interrupted the breakfast of a family of Bald Eagles. I managed to snap off a couple of shots at these shy fellows (They seemed aware of what I was doing and would move before I could get a shot off) before they were spooked off for good by some thick-faced rube who came barreling down the trail from the other direction, driving a pickup truck and wearing blaze orange. In spite of the abrupt ending I took the encounter as a good omen and moved on.
If the Eagles on the way in were a good omen, the volume of cars in the parking lot at the trail head were a bad one. The parking lot looked like.... Well, a parking lot. I was the fourth vehicle, and one person was still in the parking lot, wearing blaze orange and brandishing a shotgun. I chatted with the fellow briefly and it turned out that he would not be camping on the Angleworm but was going to hook up with some adjoining trail. Unless he meant a portage to one of the nearby lakes I wasn't really sure what he meant. I was just happy that he wasn't going to be shooting up the woods I would be sleeping in. After he headed down the trail I changed into my hiking clothing and donned my pack. I gave him a good 15 minute head start before I started down the trail.
The Hike In My initial thoughts as I walked down the first hundred yards of the trail were, "Wow! I'm finally here!" , "Wow! This is really beautiful!" and "Wow! What is all this crap I am carrying?" It did not take very long at all before I was faced with the contrast between conditioning on an elliptical and hoofing it up a hill with a pack on your back. It also became suddenly so wonderfully clear to me why exactly it makes perfect sense to shell out $200+ for a tent that weighs less than 5 pounds. I took it easy on the way in stopped as needed for breathers. During one of these rest intervals I spotted a cottontail who had frozen, anticipating that I would pass. Unnerved, he made a break for it. If I had the gun with me he would have been dinner. During another stop I was leaning against a boulder when I caught the ever-so-pleasing fragrance of skunk. From behind a tree stump across the trail I could hear the pitter-patter of small feet in the leaves. It may have just been a red squirrel (The area seemed to be the capital of their hostile little empire) but I wasn't going to wait around to find out. I continued.
I had my home made rod tube with me. It was a liability in low-clearance areas, especially around dead falls, just as I suspected it might be. All the way in I kept thinking about those other cars. My original day one plan called for me to march all the way to the northernmost campsite on Angleworm lake. The only catch was that if the campground was taken, I would have had to continue another mile or so to Whiskey Jack lake. By the time I reached the fork for the lake loop I decided to play it safe and make my way up the west side of the lake, where the campsites are more numerous. I finally decided on the second most southern campsite on the west side of Angleworm lake.
Camp Setting up camp was a breeze. Having the pack off of my back gave me the temporary sensation that I could fly like Peter Pan. The site really was nice, set on a rock ledge about 50 feet up from the lake. I sat down on the ground with my back against a boulder and ate my lunch of salami, sharp cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers. And an apple for dessert. I was assailed by a bold pair of whiskey jacks who tried everything they could think of to get food from me. They were so tame that I'm pretty sure that they would have eaten out of my hand if I had offered. After lunch I busied myself with taking pictures.
I spent part of the afternoon fishing, throwing Clouser Minnows from shore in an attempt to entice any walleyes or Northerns who may have been interested, but in all honesty I was far more content to just sit there and take in the site and sounds of the forest and the lake. I never had a strike and I gave up after I 'bat-hooked' an overhanging branch. In the end I took more pictures.
Dinner was Middle-Eastern. I fried up some falafel in a little olive oil and ate it with pita bread. I enjoyed some Turkish Coffee as an after dinner treat. I grinned to myself as I considered what kind of moron packs a copper kettle miles into the brush just for making coffee when he has a perfectly serviceable plastic press at home.
These mysteries and others I pondered as the sun set behind me and I watched the shadows slowly lengthen over the lake. When the stars came out they were absolutely brilliant. I had chosen my trip to be as close to the new moon as possible so that I would have the best look at the stars and chance to catch the Aurora Borealis. The Aurora let me down but the stars did not. I do not know for how long I gazed at them. I spend my life as a slave to the hands of the clock and for this one night I was most assuredly -- Off the clock. After I hung my food pack I climbed into my tent, changed for bed and crawled into my bag.
Sporting goods are just getting to be too darned expensive these days. Magazines and media are quietly preaching consumerism to us, leading many to think that they cannot enjoy the outdoors without spending a fortune on all the latest gadgetry. I say nonsense! To anybody out there who is as fed up with the nauseatingly stylized and commercialized industry of outdoor equipment & apparel, I want to encourage you to try making your own wherever possible!
My installment project is a very simple one. Simple but beautiful. I used 2" PVC to create this home made fishing rod tube. It's pretty self-explanatory, really. For those of you budding diy'ers who need a little more instruction, you can click here to see some other guy who did it, too. All the materials are available at your local hardware store for less than ten bucks. Mine cost an extra $2.50 because I added some extra components (See below).
What's different about mine is that I chose the the ever-more popular black PVC (I haven't let go of style completely yet). Mine needs to accommodate a two-piece fly rod that breaks down to two 50" sections, so it's pretty long. When you make yours, make it to the necessary length to accommodate your gear. If you look at the photo to the left (Click to enlarge) you will notice that I incorporated four couplers to create lash-down points. This way the tube can easily be attached to my backpack as shown. Yes, you too can look like a redneck ghostbuster! With the straps firmly set into the notches created by the couplers, the tube will not dislodge or slide around. The only issue I can see with this setup is that I am going to snag on any low-hanging trees. I will have to field test this to see how it goes.
It turns out that I am not the first person with this idea. In addition to probably many others who have done this and not written about it on the web, John Plozizka from San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico did the same thing on a grander scale, using 4" PVC to transport a larger quantity of rods. I like his idea of using the stickers to personalize his creation. Kind of like how we wore those dorky little buttons in the '80's, to show everyone that we were unique, just like everybody else. Create your own fashion statement, man!
In parting, I ask you to please make sure that you know what you're doing before you try this or any other DIY project. Read the instructions carefully on any adhesives or chemicals before using. And remember to always use PVC for good, never for evil ;-)
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke, "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
On Saturday 08/11/2007 I went on a road trip to Northern MN to flyfish for trout. This is what I saw.
Friday night to Saturday morning it stormed. I drove north through the aftermath with lightning crackling through the clouds above me as I drove. The river was going to be muddy and I knew it. But there was nothing else to be done. My fishing day was my fishing day, and I had to take it come rain or shine.
I had several potential entry points circled on my map, and as I prowled the back country roads I happened across a whitetail family set up near the road. They gave me all the time in the world but by the time I had the presence of mind to dig out the camera and snap a photo, they were all but gone.
After exploring several of the tributaries to the Nemadji River, I finally settled on an entrance point on the river proper, where Highway 23 passes over it. There was a nice parking area that was empty, except for a fellow who was scouting for grouse hunting spots.
I wasn't much in the mood for company. It is hard enough to find a free day to depressurize once a quarter. Added to that I recently lost a cousin from complications involving a gall bladder removal. She was 43, died three days after my 39th birthday. She still is 43, and always going to be 43 from here on. I had been been easing into the mindset where I realistically know I could go at anytime, but now the 'easing' phase is officially over.
The river was muddy as I suspected. I spent a long time along the banks, watching for activity. It looked pretty dead. Given the lack of surface activity I started out nymphing, using a black wooly bugger with a strike indicator. After only a few casts I had two separate hits on my strike indicator. I quickly switched over to a #12 wolf adams and promptly hooked this little baby through the nose.
I worked the river for a few hours and that chubby little shiner was the only luck I had. I practiced my casting. I listened to the world around me, paying no mind to the occasional bridge noise in the distance.
There was no sense to be made from my cousin's death. I hadn't seen her since my mother's funeral, had scarcely even spoken to her then as there were just too many people to talk to. I had no idea that she was even having the surgery. I was not a factor in her life, nor she in mine really. And that is what the sadness is about, the guilt. The feeling that yes, we played together as kids and that somehow that childhood friendship should have carried over into adulthood. Up to now I had been able to live with the idea that there was time to make that connection, that it was ok to put it off for now. Except that now there isn't any more time.
I finally crawled up a muddy bank and set back to my truck for some lunch. There was no real trail to speak of so I bushwhacked through the forest, keeping the the river in earshot. I have humped through some tough brush in my day, and this was some of it. It was definitely not a friendly environment for a chubby guy lugging a flyrod.
After I ate I broke out the camera and explored for some good shots. Several attempts netted me some local insect life. Insects live hard and die fast. They don't have complex emotions like guilt and angst. They just get on about their business and make way for the next generation. The local plant life echoed that sentiment, as the air hung thick and sweet with the smell of pollen and nectar. Every plant and tree was in the midst of a giant bender, drunk to the gills on the rainwater from the previous night. The cicadas trilled from the treetops, like an alarm to let us know that September is coming. And when it does the nights will turn cold, and no insect plant or tree will wonder why nobody told them that it was coming.
I didn't have much heart to try the river again in the afternoon. I packed up the truck and made my way a few more miles up 23 to a scenic overlook. I have passed it a few times and never taken a picture there. Since I had the tripod with me I did a panoramic. After that I turned to the south and made my way back to my family like a homesick puppy.
... From my usual smart-ass commentary, in lieu of the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last night. It may sound like a cliche, but my thoughts and prayers are with the survivors and the families of the victims of yesterday's tragedy. I was on southbound 35W taking the Stinson exit at exactly 6:00 PM yesterday. If for whatever reason I had been heading into downtown, I would have been right on the bridge when it went down.
Back in my 20's I used to fish from the bank of the Mississippi, in the shadow of that bridge. I used to relish the contrast between the busy hum of the cars passing overhead with the slow pace of catfishing. It's hard to imagine such a large structure, whose presence I have taken for granted my entire life as simply not being there anymore.
It will be more than a year, possibly several years, before things get back to 'normal' here. I don't know about anybody else but I will think differently each time I cross the river from now on.
Pictures (All 3 are Copyright of the Star Tribune):
Miskowic caught himself a pretty big walleye out on the pond a few weeks back. Right around that same time Chris was taking pictures of his thumb and Miskowic accidentally got into the background. It was my job to correct this injustice for all to see.
Another example of better living through Photoshop.
"Never get out of the boat. Absolutely right. Unless you were goin' all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole program. " - Willard, Apocalypse Now
Another story about roaming the woods as a kid (Briefer version originally entered as a comment in the previous post)
Near a place where we fished there was an abandoned resort, hosting a large cache of wild asparagus. In the heat of the day (When walleye fishing can get slow) my brother in law would beach our boat in the old harbor and we would go ashore. I was allowed to wander around while he harvested.
The entire place was blanketed under huge maples - even in broad daylight the place had a shady and sinister feel to it. As we entered the harbor I felt as though I could feel eyes upon me. The moment that I swung my leg over the side of the boat and set foot on that ground I had the uneasy feeling that comes with knowingly trespassing, the sensation that any second some pissed off landowner's hell hound was going to come charging out from the trees and maul me before I could retreat.
I remember rummaging through the junk that was strewn around, and peering in through the dirty windows of the cabins. The place had not been used for some time, maybe 20 years. I imagined the people who had stayed there, wondered where the former owners were now and why the resort had closed. Had there been a tragedy, or a terrible crime? My 10-year old mind had a flair for the dramatic and did not process concepts such as economic viability or bankruptcy. Death and or dismemberment seemed quite likely to me. In my mind's eye I could see the bleached bones of fishermen and 10 year old boys beneath the floorboards of those cabins.
It was the height of dog days and there was no relief from the heat, even in the shade. It only served to encourage the mosquitos, who bit fiercely, even in the middle of the day. I don't know if it was all the bloodletting or just the creepy feeling I got from trespassing in that place, but I was relieved when we retreated to the boat and departed for the evening bite.
We made three incursions that summer. Each time afterward our dinner consisted of fresh Walleye, baked potatoes and asparagus from that haunted place. At night I would go out into the dark woods near our cabin to relieve myself under the stars. Like Juvenal Urbino in the book Love in the Time of Cholera, I enjoyed the immediate pleasure of smelling a secret garden in my urine that had been purified by lukewarm asparagus. To this day the smell associated with asparagus will take me back to those woods where I felt my hair biting into my sunburned neck as I stood with my face pointed to heaven, gazing at the milky way and wondering where we all end up when we dump our junk and shutter up our cabins for good.
I got to spend a few hours out on the ice this past sunday. It's been a couple of years since I ice fished at all, and the even that time it was in one of those grand hilton suites out on Milacs. This time it was just me and the elements - No shelter, just an old-school outing, like the old days. Daytime high was only 8 degrees, jack. This wasn't some balmy March day jigging for perch. In a previous life I used to get out 8 - 12 times a winter. It's not like that anymore. Comes with the turf when you have kids.
I picked a lake that I used to go to all the time, for three reasons:
Familiarity. I would know where to set up without having to move around (the terms of my work-release made time a constraining factor)
Good reports. This could be my only trip of the winter so I did my homework. I shot the breeze at a couple of bait shops during the week prior to the outing. I actually bought some stuff while I visited, so the information exchange was friendly and turned out to be quite honest. Never underestimate the value of greasing the palms of your informants.
The space-time continuum. Seriously. A signifigant deal of my thoughts (Or maybe a deal of my signifigant thoughts) in life made their maiden voyages through my skull during the times I spent sitting on a pail out on that lake. If I am truly going to recommit to my old fishing habit it only seemed logical to me to start up back where I left it off. Back to the well, to drink once more.
Any way.
The journey which used to take 1+ hours from my NE Minneapolis crack house now only takes about 45 minutes from my posh north suburban junior Mcmansion. Yeah, life's been good to me, as the song goes. That 45 minutes does not include the time to stop and pick up a couple of scoops of crappie minnows and a salted nut roll -- a true ice fishing necessity (The salted nut roll, not the minnows).
Out on the ice the first thing that I noticed was that there are a lot more people ice fishing these days. I couldn't get in to my old sweet spot where I would have been sitting in 20' of water (Unless I wanted to stand on one foot between a couple of tip-ups) so I was forced further out on the drop-off, in about 25 feet of water.
People may tell you that angling is an art form or a skill, either of which can be augmented by the inclusion of technology. To some extent that may be true but I submit to anyone who has stumbled across this blog that angling is nothing less than a priviledge. Think about it. There is a connection to nature that no form of food gathering or hunting can match. Even shooting fowl or beasts of the woods fails to approach the relationship that a man must establish with his foray if he hopes to eat. Yes, angling is a gift straight from God, and the overuse of technology difuses the signifigance of this gift.
Nobody fishes outside anymore. Everybody's got shacks. Cardboard shacks. Plywood shacks. Tin shacks. Robo-shacks that transform into trailers and who knows what else, possibly Jappanese arch-villans for all I know. A few old-timers here and there were in fold-up portables, which are what I grew up using. And then there were all those in-fisherman types with their Fish traps and portable sonars and underwater cameras, all pulled behind a snomobile or ATV.
Feh. Damned kids.
I'm probably just bitter because I had to clear the slush out of my holes about every two minutes, and slip bobbering was a joke. Even the rod & reel combo I brought out was useless, as it was so cold that I could barely get the crank to go around on the reel. It was outdoor bare hand-over-bare hand fishing, baby, a la jigsticks. Told you I was old-school. Did I mention that I was a phi beta kappa jig-sticker? Well I learned it from the best.
All told I spent maybe three hours out on the ice, including startup and takedown time, and within that period I iced six black crappies, four of which I kept. They made for a tasty after dinner snack which nourished my soul more than I can express. Fried crappie is like manna from my childhood.
The dharma bum posted a nice fly-fishing piece on his blog today. Just reading it left me with river hypnosis, that mild vertigo-like feeling that you get after you've stared at running water for too long. I first experienced it on the rum river in the 90's, skipping spinnerbaits under overhanging trees for smallies from a jonboat. More recently experienced these past two summers an streams in southern MN doing a lot of what the dharma bum described (Especially the part where he 'Indiana-Jonesed' an overhanging branch on a back cast).
His ending point, where he was at the end of his excursion, at the end of his fly fishing for the summer - that we cannot take it with us - Is a universal experience that I think all lovers of the outdoors can personally relate with. In the end, we are just visitors and eventually we have to go home. But the feeling is not unique to fishing - Everyone goes through the same thing at some level whenever they awaken from a particularly nice dream or a meaningful song comes to an end. Fisherman (& their partners) come and go with the seasons, but the land and the stream remain, and the fish that was released or spooked today will be back at his rock tomorrow and life will go on.
I choose to be encouraged by that thought rather than disappointed by it. Allthough that was not always the case.
In my younger years I foolishly considered any time spent on the water (or out in nature in general) to be my own personal experiences, with a beginning to be anticipated and an end to be dreaded. I never realized that my time was just a brief interval in a much larger experience, one that started eons before I was born and will end long after I am dead.
In the end, an "experience" may be the only way that we can rationally describe our finite interactions with things timeless and vast. It's no easy task to shift one's perspective of thinking of an experience as being anything more a minute unit of measurement, describing something that is still going on even now, minutes, days or years later. It's no easy task but it does make for interesting writing.
Music and dreams - Along with any other inspiration to the human spirit - flow like streams in our minds, just as surely as nature goes on around us with or without our participation. The rocks, the silt, the weeds and the fish are all still there, even when our lives take us elsewhere. That's what staring at moving water for hours at a time has taught me.
"What'll you do now, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one? I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin', I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest..." -Bob Dylan I went fishing this past Saturday and this is what I saw. Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)
My kind of sign.
Storm Clouds looming to the North...
...but balmy skies to the south.
The catch of the day. I got this rainbow trout with a black Wooly Bugger. Maybe keeping him wasn't the most sporting thing to do, but he sure tasted good cooked fresh, stuffed with herbs and blanched in butter & lemon juice.
The Big River. Roadside photo, taken between Winona and Wabasha.
The sun, setting over a Farm. Taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between Red Wing and Miesville
A cool cloud formation. Also taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between Red Wing and Miesville.
The sun, setting over a corn field. I pulled over to get this shot. Taken North of Miesville (Home of the Miesville Mudhens).
The sun's last gasp. Taken from a moving vehicle North of Cottage Grove.
Disclaimer:This was written in one "take" over lunch.
The smell of dead leaves beneath my feet, the bite of the wind against my face as winter, still far off, begins to grow it's teeth. High spirits glide between the trees and my mind throbs in the silence of the forest, voices music and the sound of machinery still echoing in my skull. In their absence I am aware that my ears are ringing.
The wind thrashes the treetops high above, but on the forest floor it is like a conversation overheard in an adjacent room or a crowd as heard from outside a stadium. 100 feet between peace and torment. Somewhere nearby the same wind rips across the open waters of a lake and churns the bottom of a shallow bay, covering and uncovering the rocks in an endless cycle. Elsewhere it flattens the tall grass of a clearcut meadow and scatters the voles and rabbits into hiding. In the middle of a tamarak swamp deer take refuge, and the wind is hardly more than a suggestion that something is going on outside the walls of the compound.
All of these things I picture in my mind's eye as I stand on the path in the forest. There are more places than I can imagine, each alive and vibrant in this moment. We break down where we are going and where we have been with units of measurement to indicate our movement. A mile down a path, a hundred feet up a tree, 12 feet deep in a lake, etc. But isn't each step of a journey from "Here" to "There" a new "Here?" With each footstep and branch the "Here" changes and is a little different than the previous or the next. Or would you entertain the thought that the entire planet is one giant "Here?" The Superior National Forest contains Three million acres of land, water, rock, and trees. That's more "Here's" than you could hope to visit in your lifetime. And it's just a speck on the map compared to the rest of the planet. Also consider this: Each "Here" has a history and a future. While it is important to study these, I wonder if we spend enough time studying the "Now."
As I listen to the wind I wonder what is happenening below the leaves in a thicket a half mile up the trail at this very moment. I wonder what is happening six inches under the muck in the eastern edge of a duck slough near what used to be my family's farm in western Minnesota. I wonder if anyone is freezing to death on the side of Mt. Everest right now. I wonder how many scorpions per square mile live in the Sahara desert.
I wonder. I wonder. I wonder.
I wonder about this world that God has given us, and how we march through it in such straight lines without ever taking the time to enjoy all three dimensions. I wonder about the time that each of us are given, and how we waste so much of our lives worrying over the future and dredging up our pasts. I wonder if any of us ever really learn to use history as a learning tool to prevent mistakes in the future, leaving us free to focus on the here and now.
That fish dates back to the Carter administration and the first Star Wars Movie! It never occurred to me to wonder how long these fish might live if they are not harvested or predated upon. Or Gill netted.
1:00 PM - I removed the photo of Mace Windu and the reference to 'Going out like some sucka." Not everyone might get the Samuel Jackson reference plus I don't want any trouble for linking to a SW.com photo.
OK, I had a boatload of work to do tonight - Another client meeting that goes right up to 5:00. It pretty much forced me to write work tickets for the changes from home, since I won't be in the office tomorrow and the work is time-sensitive.
No sense whining about it, the tickets are done. Now to catch a quick nap before we blast out of here in 4 hours.
The Dharma Bum & I hit on an interesting topic, that of why fishermen are reluctant to disclose where they fish. I maintain that it is about as natural as giving a buddy your girlfriend's telephone number. Selfish? Yeah. Insecure? Maybe a little. But it is what it is, dammit. I am really looking forward to not seeing anyone besides my friends for a couple of days and I don't want to jinx it by telling everyone from here to Thailand where I'll be. I may be irrational but my heart is in the right place.
The guy's annual fall trip is set. We met this past Sunday and poured over a map of Superior National Forest and picked our spot. Meals were planned, to-do lists were created.
The plan is to be at our campground by early afternoon. We are bringing a canoe and some rods to try to coax some walleye out of the lake. The shotguns are coming with too, for self-defense against any ruffed grouse that we may stumble across. Guitars will be packed for doing the cowboy thing around the fire at night. I am looking forward to seeing the stars without the interference of city lights. I am praying for some good northern lights. I cannot wait to breathe some air that hasn't been breathed before.
We meet at my house early Friday morning and leave from there. Somehow I don't think waking up will be a problem like it is on a regular work day.
Preamble (10:00 AM): Today will be my first attempt to angle for trout by fly. I have had most of the gear for years and I have never used it. I want to go fishing and there is no boat in my near future, thus today I will combine the traditional joys of fishing with the new challenge of fly casting, framed by a setting of solitude, hiking and QUIET. Well, not exactly quiet - There will be all those sounds that have been there in the background that I have conditioned myself to ignore and/or tune out: The sound of moving water, birds, bugs buzzing around my head, wind blowing through trees, even the sound of my own heartbeat. In the hustle, bustle, hurry and rush of life we lose those things. Well today I am going to grab on to them with both hands and take them back. That is what this day is all about. Destination: I am going to focus my efforts on exploring a branch of a large river system in Winona county. There is a lot of bank there for the walking, and hopefully I will be able to avoid the crowds.
Summary (11:00 PM)
Incidents & Encounters The drive down south was not uneventful; as I made my way through the cities a rather large thunderstorm system fell upon me. Torrential rain and high winds did their best to stop me and did in fact slow me down considerably. Once out of the city and traffic, my journey was smooth. as paved roads gave way to gravel, my spirits began to rise as the reality that my time (for this afternoon at least) was my own. Lost in my thoughts I was barely able to slow down in time when a doe crossed the road in broad daylight. I rolled slowly past where she had come out of and sure enough I saw a confused fawn hiding in the trees. If I hadn't slowed down he might have tried to follow his mother and gotten creamed. On the water - At last With my late departure and storm delays, I did not reach my entry point until almost 2 PM. I had chosen a little county road where the bridge had been taken out, leaving a nice little dead-end. As I pulled in my heart sank as I saw three fellows sitting on the tailgate of their truck, eating sandwiches and chatting quietly. After determining that they were on their way out and not in, I geared up and headed down to the bank.
With no prior experience or mentorship with another trout fisherman, I really had no idea what I was doing. But I committed to doing it, whatever "it" turned out to be. I slowly made my way downstream, trying not to make a ruckus. The weeds were thick and almost as tall as me. in chestwaders I advanced with little fear of itchweed or ticks, leaving and rejoining the overgrown trail whenever it suited me. About 75 yards in I found a good-sized pool, about the size of a baseball diamond.
I was standing at home plate, and directly down stream on the opposite bank was second base, a small creek inlet. Third base was an outlet from the pool, a riffle where the river continued on it's way. First base, slightly downstream on the opposing bank, was a large tree with exposed roots hanging into the water. Directly in the center of the stream bed, lying at a right angle to the first base line, was a fallen tree, marking the entrance of the pool like a large exclamation point.
I stood there at home plate and took this all in. That's when I began to notice the risings. Small ones along the third base line, but the largest and most frequent over at first base by that big tree. At last, the game was afoot. I eased my way into the stream and cautiously made my way up the first base line. I stopped on my side of the fallen tree and as I did I noticed a handful of little trout scatter for the safety of the opposing bank. Fair enough. I waitied. I stood there quietly, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Blend in with the woodwork, be part of the stream. Maybe not a welcomed part of it, but at least an accepted one. In time, the surfacings at first base resumed. So I am still in the game, I thought to myself. With my manueverings, first base was in easy reach.
My casting was terrible, a real mess. I started with a 14 Adams and over the course of 45 minutes or so I started to get the hang of things. Eventually I was able to get get the fly to land where I wanted it, without the tippet and the line crashing down on top of it and creating a terrible ruckus. Well, generally speaking, I guess. Finally I was able to serve one up right down the middle - The fly drifted lazily past first base and out toward second. Out of nowhere there was a small surge and my fly was gone. My reaction was too imediate and too powerful. I set the hook like I was after a dogfish and I jerked the fly right out of the fish's mouth. I repeated the cast precisely, and this time I did not miss. Unfortunately the fish was only on for about 5 seconds before the tippet snapped.
My only other Adams was a 12 and I quickly tied it on. A few minutes later and another solid hit. I was more careful and this time the fish stayed on for 10 seconds before the tippet snapped. As I stared at the stream in disbelief a brown trout jumped straight up into the air, arced about 3 feet above the water and gracefully swooped back into the water, nose first. I may not have been meant to catch that fish, but I was meant to see him and I could live with that. He never jumped again so I assume that he was able to disgorge my barbless hook.
Out of Adams of any size, I tried a couple of imposters with no luck. Remember, I basically had no idea what I was doing. I switched to a black Wooly bugger and afer a couple of casts my luck changed. The bugger was out of site when the strike occurred, but I could see the strike just fine by watching the end of my line. I set the hook carefully, mindful not to horse it too much. After a brief struggle I landed my first trout, a nine inch rainbow. He was hooked up into the eye socket, luckily with no apparent damage to the eye. The barbless hook came out easily.
As I let him go he took a quick barrel roll to the bottom of the stream, landing belly up. I was able to get a hold of him again and I gently cradled him, facing upstream so that the water flowed through his gills. After what seemed like a long time a puff of air came out of first his right gill and then his left. Then he seemed to perk up. His head started to move side to side and his tail started moving. At last he swam away slowly, off toward the dugouts. The game was over for him today. Not long after I caught another rainbow, this one smaller. he went straight back into the rotation with no troubles.
Not too long after that I wrapped my bugger around a high tree branch and that was the end of it. I tied on another and moved up to the pitchers mound to try my luck with second and third base, but they weren't buying what I was selling. Considering myself well ahead in the game, I wrapped it up and made my way back to the truck for some lunch on the tailgate.
Homeward Bound Afterwards I tried other spots but I was unable to repeat my performance in the baseball diamond. When the shadows started getting long I packed up and headed back up to the city. I was content with the knowledge that for a few hours at least my worries had been pushed to the back of my mind. I had gone into the world and experienced the sensations that I had forgotten about - Sights and smells, not just sounds. Maybe most importantly I had heard the sound of my own heart beating once again.
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