Twice in One Night!

I know - in the big scheme of things - that I'm a spectacularly successful human being.  Shelter and food are well taken care of, and I'm fortunate to partake in meaningful personal relationships and community endeavors.  I'm doubly employed, and let's face it, I have the time and materials necessary to sit around thinking about these things and blogging.  When I do so, I'd like to think I'm at the pinnacle of Maslow's Hierarchy.

And yet it's still an unrelenting struggle to keep good tires on the vehicles, consistently choose healthy foods, and pay the bills while saving for retirement.  It's also the middle of winter, I'm probably a bit deficient in Vitamin D, I day-dream of warmth, and the fishing's been inconsistent.  So I was probably quite vulnerable to what I experienced the other night.

I was at a communal celebration in support of our local schools when I fell into a conversation with the father of my daughter's friend.  We know each other just a bit.  We haven't fished together (yet), but as usual, we ended up talking about fishing.  I bemoaned the lack of ice, while "H" described the new ice rod he'd just picked up.  His plans included a trip to Lake of the Woods!  He was leaving in just a couple of days!

Sweet!  Lake of the Woods should be on every freshwater fisherman's Bucket List; it's certainly on mine.  H admittedly isn't much of an ice fisherman, but this business/networking opportunity came up.  Gotta keep those customers satisfied; he had to go!

My night continued with a dinner party at which I found myself seated with several near strangers.  But "D" and I hit it off pretty well, pretty quickly, and soon enough we were talking about fishing.  D admitted he wasn't too into fishing, but he did partake in an annual pilgrimage to Florida's Keys, where he connected with his guy friends from college.  Some names and time frames were dropped, and it became pretty obvious that I'd seen (and remembered) some Saturday morning fishing shows featuring his college roommate, and at which D had been present for the taping.   Life should not be all work and no play; obviously you have to take the occasional break from filming the TV Fishing Shows to go...recreate?

I hate the green cloak of jealousy, and I try not to wear it.  I do maintain an awareness that it's in my closet, however.  So I'll carefully recognize that my evening's acquaintences are the recipients of good luck.  I'll further recognize that they likely worked hard at cultivating this good fortune.

And yet, twice in one night?  Really?

WWALD?

One of the keys to any fishing success that I might claim is, "Keep the faith!"  Simply stated, staying out there and plugging away (especially when prospects appear to be bleak) can often result in some unexpected or bonus fish.  Remind yourself to "Keep the faith!" when conditions are tough and stay out there!  If something's not working out, don't be shy about changing it up; switch species, locations, or presentation.  Every so often, a hidden pattern emerges that can be enjoyed and profitably mined again in the future.

Now, it seems as though "conditions are tough" quite a bit on my boat, and I've had a lot of practice keeping the faith in my ability to catch a fish or two.  And so an oft-asked question in my boat has become: WWALD?  That is, "What Would Al Lindner Do?"  I think of Mr. Lindner first, because he might be the ultimate multi-species freshwater angler.  But if I'm specifically bass fishing, the question might take the form WWKVDD?, i.e. "What Would Kevin VanDam Do?"; and I suppose I've even asked myself WWTDD? ("What Would ThunderDuck Do?") while I'm Great Lakes salmon fishing.

Once I get past the obvious answers (they'd probably all be fishing elsewhere; why bother with these local lakes and ponds?), I can get down to the business of bolstering my faith.  The first thing I suspect is that none of these folks will tolerate mediocrity; if there's any hint that better fishing is possible, they'll hunt it down.  My job, should I choose to accept it, is to more properly piece together the elements of a successful trip.  Mr. Lindner and friends reminded me long ago that:

F + L + P = S

Fishing success (S) is simply the proper combination of knowing your fish's (F) behavior and where they'll be (L for "location"); and then executing the proper presentation (P) for the situation.

It sounds simple enough, but the components are called variables for a reason; each encompasses an almost unlimited range of possibilities.  So in actuality, it has taken a life-time to accumulate the knowledge, tools and skills I have to manage them.  It's this process that creates the frustration of this fishing endeavor (when things aren't going well), but which also provides for the fun, enjoyment and pride along the way.  It also helps to explain all the "stuff" I've accumulated in my efforts to match the proper tools to each specific situation encountered; that's a losing proposition, for sure, but it is a moment of beauty when all is matched properly.  It's an even more beautiful moment when the match is intended, and not a fortuitous accident.

It's pretty easy to define your fishing success (S) in terms of numbers and sizes of fish caught.  Who can argue that more and bigger isn't better than fewer and smaller?  Consequently, so far I've spent most of my time focusing on my "mastery" over F, L, and P.  But I'm finally getting smart enough to realize that  I've been approaching this equation bass-ackwards.  I have total control of S.  I can define my own notion of what constitutes success.  So if I want to incorporate convenience, fun, peacefulness, or new gear, techniques or waters into the equation, I can.  All these factors, whether tangible or not, can be part of a successful day on the water.  They shouldn't be over-looked, and in fact, it's probably OK to emphasize these aspects every so often.

Acceptance of this makes it easier to "keep the faith" on the water, to realistically recalibrate my expectations of success, and empowers me to keep chipping away at my knowledge and management of the other variables.  I'll never perfect this, but I can try!

So WWALD?  I don't specifically know.  But I've got a notion; and I make my own decisions.  I thank him (and all the others from whom I've learned) for everything he's contributed to my base understanding of F, L and P.  But I now thankfully realize that by keeping my mind open about S, I'm more likely to enjoy myself on the water.  I also realize that this same mindset applies to many other aspects of my life.  I'm pleased to accept this; I'm just a little chagrined that it has taken me so long to embrace this way of thinking.

Not the biggest walleye, but part of a great November day!

Easily Amused

It seems so long ago, and in our current dark winter's night, the thought of active frogs seems so remote...

One beautiful evening last August or so I was walking the dog, when I came across a likely candidate for a "poor sap" nomination.  My nominee had a kid's spin-cast rig and was headed out on a shallow, weed-infested public dock.  I love to fish, and yet I'm always surprised to see so many others who must love it more.  They use misdirected tackle and techniques in such unlikely spots; there's no way I'd spend much of my time in such low-yield pursuits.  But they're having fun, or at least are fishing, while I watch.

Oliver and I continued with our walk, reversed our course, and finally came upon the "fisherman".  As I approached, I could see that he was teasing frogs into attacking his small rubber (hookless) worm.  At this point, I was thinking that he was a bio professor at one of our local colleges.  Further discussion with him indicated that he didn't have a clue about what kind of frogs they were.   He admitted to simply playing with them.  They were his family's "pets".  He admitted to being very easily amused.

Bull frog - from the web!

Leopard frog - from the web!

Pickerel frog - from the web!

Green frog - from the web!

He had originally stricken a chord of pity, but now he seemed like a super nice guy with simple motivations.  He was enjoying a beautiful evening out, he seemed happy, and here I was, engrossed with watching his efforts and the frogs.

So who's Easily Amused?

My Top Ten Hook-sets

I've been fortunate to catch a lot of fish so far.  I'm looking forward to catching many more.  As time has progressed, the quality and variety of my fish have both increased, and I anticipate these trends continuing, too.  Fishing as a whole has been important to me, but there have been certain individual fish that have played significant roles in my life.  Their influence on me has exceeded their physicality or our mere intersection.  These are the Fish That Shaped My Life.

********************************

1. First Pickerel - I'd already caught some fish on my own when I started fishing with my Dad at the age of 9 or so.  We always floated live shiners under bobbers, and our primary quarry was largemouth bass.  It took a few trips with him, during which he caught a couple of perch and bass while I missed a couple of strikes, before I hooked up.  The bobber went down with some authority and line peeled off my spinning reel.  At just the right moment I closed the bail and came tight.  I recall the float surging to each side as I fought my first gamefish with Dad.  As the fish came into the rocky shore, my line parted.  I stood there in disbelief, looking at my fish, a chain pickerel and the longest I had ever seen to that point, laying in the shallows, so close and yet disconnected. Dad rescued the moment when he uncharacteristically jumped in (good shoes be damned!) and grabbed my line, finally landing the fish.  How seventeen inches of pickerel could shape my life, I'm not certain; but my Dad's unexpected enthusiasm and the importance of the catch (to him) were ingrained upon me.  I may have caught the fish, but now I was hooked.

2. First Bass with Dad - How fitting, when later that night, Dad organized a family excursion to another local lake to use up the left-over shiners.  It was a beautiful August evening and we had quite a collection of floats dancing across the water's smooth surface.  At this point in my life, any trip that resulted in a landed fish was a success, and every fish was exciting.  I was struck by the seemingly near impossibility of hooking into a fish just as my sister landed a bass, but sure enough, my float was buried and my line tight.  It turned out to be a tiny bass, but it was a bass; and to my Dad, this made a difference.  I accepted his tangible pride in my catch, and I reveled in an unimaginable Three Fish Day!

3. First Big Bass at The Pond - I spent a good portion of my free time as a youth at The Pond across the street from my house.  I was perhaps 12 or so when I picked up a pre-rigged Mann's Grape Jellyworm from behind the counter of our favored bait store.  As instructed by the owner, I cut off the propeller spinner and used the worm "naked."  In fact, I used it a lot, but to no avail.  But then one quiet evening at The Pond, I felt a faint tap, noticed my line moving to the side, and missed the hook-set!  But it was a start, and so I was ready when shortly thereafter I connected with my first wormin' bass.  I wasn't ready, however, for the size of this bass. which was easily longer than my hand and fore-arm; and so remembered as at least 19 inches, as measured when I got home.  I'm sure it was an honest four-pounder, and I'll still take a bass like that any time, any day.  The intersection of quality bass and the use of artificials became impressed upon me, and my fishing horizons were broadening.

4. First Tracker Smallmouth - My Dad surprised me in the spring of my Junior year in high school with his decision to by a motor-boat.  And as it turned out, not just a motor-boat, but a tricked-out (for the time) Bass Tracker III.  A stable casting platform, 40 horses, an electric motor and sonar; what a way to start a boating career!  And when the long-awaited white van pulled in front of the house with her in tow, it was unexpectedly pretty much full of new tackle.  We took her out for the first time a few days later.  It was early April, windy, clear, and I'm sure the water was just in the low 40s.  Fishing was tough, but as the midday sun warmed the rocky shallows, I think a few pre-spawn tank smallmouth bass moved in.  I remember seeing the first one cruising; it was the first sign of a fish all day.  Soon thereafter, my Tennessee Shad-colored Deep Little N lost its vibration and moved to the side.  I came tight, some drag slipped, the boat blew into deeper water and soon a near 4-pound smallmouth was swimming in the live-well.   She was by far my biggest smallmouth ever (at the time), and in fact challenged the existing state record.  It was the first fish we caught on that boat, and I had her mounted.  She still resides with me.  I was starting to get pretty serious about this fishing thing.

5. First Salmon - I moved to Michigan in 1985 to pursue graduate school, and in mid-September of that year I found myself with my new wife at some loose ends.  School had not yet started, our apartment was not yet available, and we didn't have enough money to do much of anything.  Tired of camping in the mud near Lansing, we scratched our pennies together and took a day-trip to Grand Haven.  It seemed impossibly far away, but we got there and enjoyed a quiet day of poking around the city and water front.  The city marina was deserted and I assumed the season had wrapped up on Labor Day a few weeks prior.  Little did I know that one of the epic King Salmon pier bites of all time was taking place at the Grand River's confluence with Lake Michigan.  It took most of the day for us to wander out to the piers, but I was stunned by what I witnessed.  I specifically recall an old man struggling to drag his three-fish limit (which probably weighted over 50 pounds) the length of the pier, and at any given moment, multiple rods on the pier were bent.  All of our possessions were with us in that same white van, and so we scurried to get a license.  I picked up a couple of spoons for insurance, and soon I was in place on the pier with my 5-1/2 foot, pistol-gripped casting rod and 10-pound test.  I could launch my new Mepp's Syclops quite a distance, and just a few casts into the session I had hooked into my first salmon.  My local geography was a little fuzzy, but I sensed the fish was heading towards Milwaukee.  I was just about spooled before I turned the fish's first run, but, amazingly, I was soon holding my fish.  At this point in my life , this was my first salmon, my biggest salmonid, and my biggest fish ever.  I was going to like Michigan.

6. First Brown from my Boat - In 1990, I bought my first boat, a 17-foot Deep V Tracker.  I imagined I was still a bass fisherman, but I liked the idea of being able to chase Great Lakes trout and salmon with my boat, even if at the time, I only imagined participating in near-shore fisheries like spring browns and fall salmon.  One of her first trips was in April, to Manistee, famed for its big brown trout.  My wife got to choose from our selection of two Rapalas, and I was silently pissed when she chose my favorite, the gold-and-orange.  Oh well, I used the leftover blue-and-silver.  Our fishing turned into a long boat ride along the shore, but when we returned to port (fishless), traffic within the harbor convinced me to deploy the baits for a trolling pass or two.  The boat was in 23 feet of water when my lure got crushed, and it was with some disbelief that a five-pound (or so) brown trout came across the gunnel.  I'd caught others of this size (and one much larger) previously, but this was the first aboard my boat.  I've still got a running love-affair with browns; I wish they were reliably available for a larger portion of the year.

Released to fight again; and at least I had bright white teeth!

7. First Steelie on Dipsey, First Salmon off Rigger - My life had pretty much completely changed by 1995.  New house, new job, a toddler; and a burgeoning interest in Great Lakes salmon.  A co-worker was having some success from his small boat, and I figured if he could do it, so could I; and so I installed my first down-rigger.  An early Saturday morning in August found me trolling in about 90 feet of water off Whitehall.  I didn't have much of an idea of what I was doing, but going on local information and a little bit of instinct, I presented a couple of Northport Nailer spoons in the growing pre-dawn light.  I heard, rather than saw, the dipsey get slammed; and just as I slid a steelie into the net, the rigger popped for the first time. Steelhead on the boat's floor, I fought an 18-pound king to the boat; and Mrs. Paul (as she would be christened later that month) suddenly held more poundage of fish than at any point in her career (so far.)

An especially nice double-header.

8. First Intentional Striper - As explained elsewhere in the blog, my first striper was accidental, and probably never should have been landed.  But it did ignite my passion for them, and later that evening I was in place with a new rod and reel and some chunk mackerel on the bottom.  The first fish of the evening got away (it made a bee-line for the cover of the chains anchoring my floating platform), but the fishing that evening was good, and even a neophyte like me was able to land three stripers.  This was the start of something really good for me, and I have to admit, stripers are probably my favorite fish at this point.  Unfortunately, they don't exist here in Michigan, and so my access to them is limited to short windows of vacation and travel.  They've undeniably shaped my plans for the future.

My first night of targeting stripers yielded three fish.

9. 29 Pound, $3K Salmon - With the purchase of Numenon in 2003, I willingly took the plunge into the season-long pursuit of Great Lakes trout and salmon.  She's quite a bit more sea-worthy than Mrs. Paul had been, has greater range, is fully equipped, and has proven to fish very well.  I also decided to try the Lake Michigan Salmon Tournament circuit for the first time.  I debuted with a co-worker at the Ludington tournament in July of that season.  We'd suffered through some tough pre-fishing the previous two weekends, and overall, we weren't too hopeful, especially when the first bite of the morning, a true screamer, got away.  A quick flurry of bites put a couple of keepers in the boat, and so at least we had something to weigh.  When mid-morning traffic thinned on the favored shelf we had the opportunity to refine our six-rod spread, and shortly there-after the deepest rigger popped.  We were fortunate to have found a hole in the fleet, because this fish took up a lot of line, space, and time.  All rods were cleared by the time I got her close, and when she hit Numenon's deck at about 8:30 AM, both my partner and I knew she was a money fish.  She was larger than any salmon we'd seen in several years, and we suspected she was a Master Angler-class (27 pound) fish.

Since all lines were out of the water, we ran back upwind and re-set our spread; as the second rod was set, the first popped again, and we soon had another 20-plus pound salmon for the cooler.  A couple of others joined them later in the day, and so we finished our first day of tournament fishing feeling pretty good.  We hadn't limited out, but I couldn't imagine too many boats getting much better fish.  These thoughts were reinforced when the boat ahead of us checked in a beverage cooler, while we were (incorrectly) chastised for not having removed excess ice, water and materials from ours.

Our fish weighed over 29 pounds and won Overall Big Fish for the weekend by quite a margin.  She was worth $3000, and further contributed to our top-12 overall finish, worth a few more hundred dollars.  We were small, relatively inexperienced and short-handed as a crew, but we were ready, and we belonged on the circuit.  And to prove it was not a fluke, Numenon won the 2004 Ludington Kids' tournament the following year with a 24-pounder.  There have been no clear victories on the circuit since, but there have been plenty of checks.

10. Arracuda Four-Pounder - While I originally foresaw the autumn purchase of this used, 14-foot relic of a rig as a way to access the Grand River salmonid runs, by the following June it had entrenched itself into my bass fishing.  After all, it was easy to tow and launch into smaller waters, and if I used it for bass, I didn't have to keep switching bass and salmon gear out of Numenon.  I had used Arracuda already on a variety of lakes and had caught a number of smallish bass and panfish with her, but other than a single rainbow trout from the Muskegon River, no real quality fish had come aboard yet.  On the late June weekend in question, I launched in the pre-dawn darkness with my wife on what would become known as Amy Lake.  I'd never before fished this lake, but it appeared to be generally undeveloped and lesser used than other local waters, and at 30 acres or so, it was large and deep enough to have some interesting potential.  Amy was first with a nice keeper bass on a floating Rapala twitch bait, but the fish of the day was an over-four-pound bass taken with a Senko off a small patch of hard bottom surrounded by weeds.  The ease, the peacefulness, and the simplicity of the fishing offered by this rig in this pond had been attractive; and now I knew that the quality of my fish needn't suffer.  This finding has been reinforced multiple times.  In fact, the overall quality of my local bassing has probably increased with this rig, simply because of ease of use; I'm more likely to go!

********************************

Reviewing this, I'm surprised at the absence of certain fish.  I routinely think of my first sailfish and my first striped bass, respectively, as my First and Second Best Fish ever, and for shear sport and excitement, they are.  They were mighty influential fish, too, as I have developed a strong affinity for fishing in salt water.  Stripers are my comfort, sails are my dreams.  Similarly, my first and second introductions to dorado (within minutes of each other) fulfilled my wishes, and I intend to partake again.  And the first of 60 blues in a couple of Florida 2010 wet wading sessions cemented an awesome week of winter fishing, and in many ways these blues are more momorable and meaningful than the six sails and various kings we encountered.  But I'll still stand by the Ten above in their roles of shaping my numenon.

My first dorado wasn't large, but it broke the pelagic ice.

Moments later, Number 2 came aboard.  This was a much nicer fish.

I was pleasantly surprised to meet this bluefish down in Florida.  Little did I know that I'd meet about 59 more in the next couple of days, to be remembered as fondly as the week's sailfish.