2014 Wrap-Up

Another year of sport-fishing has passed, and while nothing really earth-shattering occurred on my boats in 2014, it was another pretty solid season.  The boats are put safely away, there's been sufficient time to reflect, and the year's almost over.  I might as well wrap up my 2014 Fishing Season.

*****

The phrase "Polar Vortex" entered our common lexicon last winter, and there was much ice fishing associated with it.  Not many legal-sized pike were landed, but there were a ton of flags, short fish and fun to be had.  As I type this, "Cyclone Bomb" is the current meteorological phrase, and we're just a few hours away from the leading edge of This Year's Vortex.  Well, my tip-ups and the new ice sonar (with mapping and GPS) are ready to go; so I guess I'll make the most of it, again.

Flag!  At this point, anything good is possible.  That pike could be of any imaginable size!  A post-blizzard weekend "Up North" was the ticket to get through the end of last winter.

There was, of course, the February Trip to Florida.  Those events have been fully chronicled elsewhere.  Many fish were caught, my various drag systems were fully and repeatedly tested, and I caught my biggest-ever fish!  But to be honest, my fondest memories of the trip involve my girls; their happiness in the pool; waking up the first morning to a Florida Keys sunrise; and the water's warmth.  Wind, waves and cold water will kill you here in Michigan.  Florida, too, I'm sure, but it's just so much more pleasant!

First outing in Florida, 2014; sleek, fast, meat-eating fish. I'm thinking that this sure beats ice fishing!  Or steelheading!

The local open-water efforts started with my annual Sucker Chase. Once again, they were there for me.  Once again, I got a bonus big-fish (carp) and once again, I went repeatedly!

First (Michigan Open-Water) Fish of 2014.

First Michigan Trophy of 2014.

There were only two 2014 trips to Lake Michigan, but both turned out to be pleasant and productive despite the conditions.  Ice and wind could have de-railed either trip, but once we got out there, conditions were generally fishable.  I got a taste of brown trout, and a youngster caught the biggest king salmon aboard the boat for the last couple of seasons. Both were were good events, shared with good friends who otherwise would not have been out on the lake.  And K even helped, a little bit, with changing out the blown tire on the highway and in the darkness.

A highway blow-out on Numenon's first outing of the year was just a temporary set-back, and represented just about the only mechanical issue of the season.  Let's hope future seasons go so smoothly.

Some icy brown trout started off Numenon's season just right.

This spring king put up an awesome fight.

While my Big Lake Fishing has certainly taken a hit for the last couple of seasons, that is by my choice. Available time is the biggest factor here, weather is always a factor, and I really do prefer to cast rather than troll.  I'm really enjoying the local inland lakes for bass and muskie.  Bass are certainly my Comfort Fish.  Muskies feed My Addiction.

I'll admit it; I have spent a ton of time studying these fish and their pursuit.  I think I've progressed from neophyte to acolyte (????), and while I originally turned to others for advice, I am now able to rely on my intuition and experience (at least to a degree.)  I had a pretty rewarding Fall fishing for them on new water.  And while the actual catch rate wasn't all that impressive, I had several other chances and many other follows, for an Encounter Rate that actually made the prospect of Muskie Fishing seem Reasonable.

Lake St. Clair muskie; at 47 inches or so, the largest ever landed aboard "my" boats.  I didn't catch any that day, but I learned enough to go back with confidence!

A local muskie at the bottom of my net; this was actually my first bucktail muskie.

This season did involve some pretty darn Big Bass (up to an easy five pounds) and one really nice virtual "stringer" that would have weighed about 17 pounds.  These are respectable catches around here.

Usually a bass like this would be my largest of the day, but I was fortunate to enjoy one really fine morning of bassin' on Reeds Lake.

Reeds Lake was pretty much off limits this year due to road construction and access issues.  She's provided a steady flow of nice pike for the last few years, and my single trolling effort of the year targeting pike yielded only one (very nice and fat) bass.  Reeds Lake was proving herself to be difficult, once again, during the Fall Turnover period.  Maybe all the pike I didn't sore-mouth will be waiting for me at first ice.

Have I ever mentioned that I love my boat?  I love her  multi-species versatility, but I also love the safe and comfortable platform she provides for fishing (whether casting or trolling).  Somewhere during my 25th Season of running my own boat this season, I did have something of a Boat Handling Epiphany.  Like many realizations, this one incubated slowly, and it seems almost too simple and obvious to even state; All boats have limits!  There are conditions where the boat will simply not be handleable.  Instead of fighting those conditions and the boat, I should rather find another set of conditions where handling/controlling the boat is possible.  In the end, it'll be more enjoyable and I'll have more success!

Notably absent from 2014 are Stripers.   I can't complain about this; I never even tried for them.  I never wetted a line in either New England or Georgia.  I simply intend for that to change in 2015.

*****

Speaking of 2015, look for me to switch many of my fishing writings to another blog, "NumenOn the Water".  My fishing log recordings have sulfured over the last couple of years, and maybe the new blog will help me sustain and track those efforts.  Meanwhile, certain other aspects of my life will continue to show up here.

A sun-set on 2014 might be more appropriate, but here's to "July 4 Sunrise on Baker Lake."

Summit or Sucker?

My fun, secondary, part-time retail employer recently offered their most favorable employee pricing, here-in-after “Summit Pricing” or “Summit”, to all current employees for a limited time period.  This was in contrast to their Holiday behavior of years past, in which employees could purchase only a single item at this more-attractive-than-usual  Summit rate.  Last year I took advantage of their offer to purchase a nice reel for muskie fishing, a Diawa Lexa 300 (high-speed/power version.)  I was pleased to access this reel for the price I paid; and yet I recognized that my employer hadn’t necessarily “given” me anything, and in fact, they had easily acquired my relatively hard-earned dollars.

Well, this year an additional muskie/striper reel was on my list (an Abu Garcia Revo NaCl 60 HS), and I gladly availed myself to one at their steep discount.  But I still recognized and felt that same conflict.  Should I simply say “thanks” for the gift, or should I begrudge this actualization of indentured servitude?

I look forward to many years of service and many large fish landed with this.

I worked all weekend.  I mean, I WORKED ALL weekend.  I worked hard and as effectively as possible.  The money spent on the reel represents a pretty good portion, if not all, of the weekend’s wages.  I’m there partially for the access to this equipment, and partially to help support my fishing habit(s).  So “thanks” for the Revo; it’s exactly what I want for 2015, and I got it for a fraction of the regular cost.  Moreover, it’s my time, effort and money, so I’ve got all the information I need to evaluate this transaction.  For a single weekend’s efforts, I’ve received a fine reel that should last a very long time and which will be involved only with big, memorable fish.  That seems like a good deal to me at this time; I repeat my thanks.

Meanwhile, I watched my co-workers shop all weekend.  For the most part, these are not wealthy folks, but most were going to town.  The more they spent, the more they saved!  The more they saved, the more they spent.

I too felt the powerful tug of this downward spiral.  I resisted pretty well, but I did partially succumb.  Before the weekend was over, I’d acquired some miscellaneous stuff for the upcoming ice fishing season, some socks, some dog treats for Ollie, various fishing lines, and a few other items.  So whatever money I’d saved, I’d certainly spent; and then some!

Now I’d most likely have bought all this stuff later, anyway, and at higher prices to boot.  It probably makes fiscal sense for me to have acquired this stuff when I had this opportunity.  And yet I can’t help but feel a little bit like a sucker, one which can only say “Thanks for relieving my wallet of those burdensome dollars.”

The Sucker; a personal favorite

The Sucker; torn between two worlds

It’s a good thing that I have a certain soft spot in my heart for suckers, and it’s another good thing  that I’m in a position in my life that I can honestly say we’re not dealing with anything of importance here.  I limited myself to my current version of pocket money, and the daydream of using this stuff properly and successfully in 2015 (and well beyond) is currently priceless to me.  It is, after all, that time of year when the boats are away, the ice is not safe, and the prospects of actually participating in enjoyable fishing experiences are low.

Suckers are easy to hook and catch.  Believe me, I know this from personal experience!

The Sucker

Vote for Muskie!

My 2014 Election Day voting duties were completed by 7:30 AM, but I still had the rest of the day “off” from work.  The current weather was pretty crumby (windy, cool, and raining), and the forecast was for more of the same, but even worse (with increasing wind and cold.)  It would have been all too easy to choose to spend the day in cafes with lattes, or on the couch with Ollie; and while any of these options (and many others!) would have been pleasant, “pleasant” doesn’t seem to be much of a factor when it comes to putting muskies in the boat.  With Daniel Lugo as my omni-present virtual guide (“Are you a Do’er?  Or a Don’ter?”), I launched Numenon on a desolate M Lake.  I launched into the teeth of a stiffening wind and some horizontal rain, but I was wearing my best rain gear; and I had another set (plus a complete change of clothes) in the truck.  I had a packed lunch and a full thermos of coffee on hand.  And, inexplicably, I had some hope for success.

The wind was bad enough that I first chose to troll.  M Lake offers lots of deep water.  This environment serves as (mythical?) cisco habitat, but also as a certain refuge of safety for the muskies.  My biggest fish on M Lake have generally been hooked in deep water, away from the weeds, so they are out there; they’re just difficult to find.  I was marking an abundance of bait/fish/activity on the sonar, and so I remained hopeful.  But it was windy enough, and the weed lines irregular enough, that I was having a difficult time consistently presenting my big crankbaits in sweet spots without fouling the salad.  Plus, I’d spent all last fall plying these depths without a fish!  Moreover, I could not ignore the observation that many of these weeds were still green.  So within an hour I chose to switch from trolling to casting to the shallow weed beds and edges.

By recognizing Numenon’s limits for control, carefully picking locations, and by using the wind as an ally as opposed to fighting it like an enemy, I was able to consistently present some weed-free baits more effectively.  My sexy shad Bucher Shallow Raider got a work-out as a personal favorite, but I mixed in various bucktails, topwaters and big rubber-baits, too.

I wasn’t exactly surprised when I detected a faint ”tick” on my line after a cast over a shallow, wind-swept weed edge.  But I was surprised when I swung, the rod fully loaded, and my line instantly parted.   My 65-pound braid must have been damaged during a previous casts and use; it didn’t break at the knot, but rather about half-way between the fish and me.  There was no swirl, no leap, really no external indication at all of the biter.

I repositioned the boat to get away from the windward shore, and promptly re-tied each of my rigs.  I fished for a little longer, but I was somewhat soggy and now a tiny bit deflated.  Plus, the whole idea of this day was to be on a known hot-spot at 4:30 PM’s moon-rise.  So I took advantage of the rare benefit of surplus time to go get lunch, change clothes, start over again and try another lake!

An hour and a half or so later, I was repositioned on C Lake.  My favorite Shallow Raider was now gone, but I’d recently purchased a Drifter Tackle Believer for exactly this situation.  On about Cast Number 5 for the session, I instinctively swung on a slight hesitation in the lure’s cadence, and a lit-up muskie, crank-in-jaw, appeared 20 feet or so away from the boat.

Her fight was less than spectacular, but she found her way into my net!  At a confirmed 42 inches (and a probable 20-plus pounds), she was the first “legal-sized” muskie aboard Numenon in quite a while.   We treated each other as gently as possible; I took a couple of unsatisfactory snap-shots, and I was pleased to feel her vitality return as I supported her in the water, boat-side.  She confidently swam off, and I’ve got every reason to think she’s going to be okay.  Her beauty was only enhanced by the fishing line scars scattered across her head and back; she’d clearly been caught and released before.  I hope to see her again.

Just after I released her, the rain stopped and the winds shifted from SW to NW.  Lake C fishes pretty small, and I kept pounding my spots, but nothing else moved for me.  Until exactly moon-rise, that is, when a slightly smaller muskie followed my Believer and stayed with my Figure 8 for quite a while.  I didn’t trigger this fish to bite, but I’d already had a great day. To stay any longer appeared to be lunacy.  What better way to celebrate Muskie’s Election than to be home, with the boat put safely away***, by dinner time?

There's no justice in this photo for this fish.  I've simply not figured out how to get a satisfactory selfie while respecting/protecting their physical needs for a safe release.

Such a beautiful smile...

Without a trace of doubt in my mind, I'm a Believer!

*** As I write this, it appears that Winter is Coming!  Soon!  This might turn out to be my last session of the year with Numenon!

Newfound Confidence

It was with newfound confidence that I invited my friend, T, to accompany me on another afternoon trip to Lake C.  For the first time, I felt pretty good about the odds of encountering, if not actually catching, a muskellunge.  And while T and I have fished together for almost 20 years, and have caught many fine fish, we'd never encountered a muskellunge together (although he has a well-worn 25-or 30-year-old Lake C story of one involving a Dardevle and some bad luck.  This story did make its anticipated appearance during the trip.) I felt I had a chance to net somebody else's muskie in my boat (a personal goal), but I felt even more confident that maybe I'd get one and he could take a picture.  Because I still don't have that picture of me holding a fine, legal muskie.

There aren't any pictures associated with this entry, so you know we didn't get one.  But Man, was I close!  After 5 hours or so of throwing bucktails, topwaters, and trolling, having not seen a fish, I declared "10 more minutes."  I also switched from a bucktail to a Shallow Raider jerkbait; I'd convinced myself that it just wasn't a bucktail day, and I'd go out at least having tried an erratic jerk bait.  We were in a "new" part of the lake, but over my favored weeds, and clarity seemed a bit better than earlier in the day and in other parts of the lake.  It was starting to think about getting dark, and knowing that a single fish could change the day, I was still fishing hard.

I saw her eat my jerkbait on a pause at my feet.  She engulfed the bait.  I saw it; I set the hook.  The result was that I pulled the bait straight out of her mouth, but she was super-motivated and continued to chase the bait.  The lure's momentum caused it to break the surface and she followed, half out of the water and rubbing against Numenon's port bow, desperately trying to eat my bait.  But she lost sight of it, realized how out of control she was, and shot into the depths.

It was quite a sight, and another feather in my cap of muskie failures.  She almost seemed destined to be caught, but I still came up empty.  Oh well, Terry enjoyed the commotion, and we'd now had something of a successful day.  After all, we were on a streak of encountering muskies on 100% of our targeted trips together.  How many partners can say that?

Her appearance bought us another 10 minutes of fishing, and within 50 yards I had another, larger fish strike the Raider about 15 feet off the bow.  I had just paused the bait as it came into view, and she flashed up and inhaled it.  Again, I saw the whole thing.  Wary about setting the hook too soon (again), I waited until I felt some weight.  And I waited a little more, and then just a scooch more.  Still having felt nothing, but seeing the fish, and not my bait, I swung hard to the side.  My rod loaded, she erupted, panicked, shook her head, jumped, tumbled and promptly threw the lure back at me.

I've said it before, and I'll undoubtedly say it again; it was quite a sight, but just another feather in my cap of muskie failures.

*****

A few days later, I had the choice of chasing local pike or trying Lake C for muskies again.  I'll be honest, it wasn't much of a choice; I had to go back for more.  Even though the cold and blustery conditions were probably more conducive to trolling for pike, and the pike most likely would have been fun and generous, I knew a glimpse of another muskie was worth more than catching some pike, and that the upside of catching a monster muskie far outweighed the current value of the best imaginable local pike excursion.  At least to me; T declined the opportunity to join me this time.

Another combination of bucktails and jerkbaits; another couple of fish raised.  Both were fairly distant, lethargic followers, and neither seemed too inclined to bite.  But one was large, even by muskie standards, and the other revealed itself in a "new" part of the lake.  Water temps are still in the mid-50s and so we have lots of time left in the season.  I'm doing a lot wrong, but I'm doing more correctly.  I'm having fun, making progress, and etching images into the memory bank.

*****

The next trip was a quick, after-work effort, but included my friend J, formerly of C's.  It was a beautiful, calm weeknight, with the promise of moonset, sunset and a partial lunar eclipse all coming together.  I imagined the water turning to blood and masses of crazed muskies chasing our lures, but I guess because it was cloudy, and visibility was further reduced by an abundance of rural leaf burning and woodsmoke, the muskies were unaware of their opportunities.  We raised no fish, but J is an accomplished muskie guy, and I enjoyed his company.  I was also pleased to see that my locations, lure choices and presentations were all in the ball-park.

*****

Here's to a prolonged fall.  After all, how else can I take advantage of all this, plus the newly opened access to my favorite home-town pike lake?

Low Expectations

Maintaining overly high expectations is a surefire path to disappointment. Even if you’re successful, you might not be as successful as you’d allowed yourself to imagine.   Conversely, entering a project with low expectations of success might lead to a pleasant surprise.

*****

I was feeling pretty good about my recent muskellunge exploits, having encountered three fish in the last trip, as I prepared to return to C Lake.  But I was going fishing out of convenience, and I knew lunar and weather conditions were probably against me.  It was simply too nice; brisk, calm and bright; with no major lunar events in my window of availability, for me to expect much in the way of actually catching a muskie on this particular day.

So I kept my anticipation in check, and simply enjoyed the process.  It was a beautiful day and not too crowded.  My electronics kept me positioned over green weeds and I had a smorgasbord of choices to offer the fish.  I was simply enjoying The Grind; the relentless, meticulous covering of water with long casts, employing varying lures and cadences, totally in tune with the feel of the lure and always watching for a shadow, flash, bulge or boil from a fish.

She materialized behind and under my bucktail about 30 feet away from the boat and she tracked it under my feet to Numenon’s port side.  She entered the first wide turn of my Figure 8, and then, as quickly as she appeared, she dissolved.  I continued my Figure 8 for several laps, hoping she’d return.  She didn’t, but the day had now exceeded my expectations.  I’d been close to real success again, and this fish was a tank!  She never appeared to be really fired up; I could accept that she was simply a looker and not an eater.  I hadn’t caught her, but she had revealed herself.  I added another waypoint to the GPS and burned her location into my memory; I was making progress.

Perhaps an hour later I detected a slight hesitation in the flutter of my bucktail’s blade.  Hook-sets are free, so I was swung hard, and was super-pleasantly surprised to have the rod buckle.  When I felt the first head shakes, I knew she was an Esox; and when she raced past the boat I could finally say (again) that I was hooked up to a muskie!

She wasn’t that big, and the fight, although violent, was brief.  When she was clearly subdued, it became very important to me to get her safely secured in the net and get a picture of her.  That would end my Mighty Slumpellunge!  It wasn’t easy or pretty, but the pieces all came together, and after an easy hook extraction and a very brief photo session, she vigorously swam away.

Finally, another muskie in the net.  A mini-muskie at 32 inches, but still a muskie!

She's still looking at the black Harasser.

One angry freshwater fish.

For perhaps the first time in this game, I had more than the beginnings of an effective pattern.  My black Harasser was raising fish, and these fish were on the inside weed edge in a specific corner of the lake.  The sun was going down fast, but I still had some day-light left.  And while I didn’t hook up again, I did have two more follows.  Each was a very respectable fish that I will be pleased to encounter again.

I was off the water before full sunset, so I might have missed another feeding window.  But I was pretty pleased to return home. I hadn’t expected much from this trip; but I’d gotten a lot from it.  Rarely has a “small” fish been so fulfilling.  Still, it’s not the actual fight and capture of this particular fish that will keep me going.  Instead, it’s the images of the Ghosts of Muskies Past (with their undocumented and so therefore virtually unlimited size) that will keep luring me out there.

Ebony and Ivory; a black Harasser and a white BPS double-bladed spinnerbait raised 7 fish in two days.  The Diawa Lexa 300 high-speed reel was an important part of this equation.

Strike Three!

With the apparently successful closure of another fiscal year at work and a favorable short-term weather window, I planned to go fishing October 1.  Muskie fishing, of course, and with a current tip that “C Lake” was hot, I decided to go there for my first time.  At first I planned on a simple, after-work trip, but as the morning of October 1 progressed, I started getting antsy.  Boat chores, tackle preparation and so forth were calling me from my desk, and when I determined that moonrise was scheduled for about 2:45 PM, I decided I needed to be in place by that time.  So my cubicle was vacant by 11 or so and I was on the water by 1 PM.

The lake conditions were quiet (it was after all, a mid-week afternoon), but I was surprised to see the water was pretty turbid.  All I really knew about the lake was to target shallow weeds with bucktails, so I stayed in the shallow-basined lobe of the lake and headed across to some marshy cover with lily pads.  I’d casted almost half of the available shoreline in 5 feet of water or less, and neither my lures nor my sonar had revealed any submerged weeds of consequence.  Moreover, the edge of the pads seemed lifeless.  Neither a bucktail spinner nor a prop-bait topwater had moved anything.

As I trolled my way back to a new starting point, my Humminbird revealed patchy, yet consistent, weeds from about 6.5 to 11 feet of water.  I purposefully dredged some up with a deep-diving crankbait, and I was pleased to identify the weeds as native milfoil.  Most importantly, they were green and healthy, and with two to six feet of open water above the growth, they were pretty easy to fish!  I keyed on these depths for the rest of the day; per my tip, I had to throw bucktails as the bait of choice, but I chose to throw some topwaters, too.

I was therefore comfortably and confidently positioned just before scheduled moonrise when the first fish of the day appeared.  As my Windell’s Harasser approached the boat, her outline briefly crystallized, but then she was gone in a flash.  She didn’t leave as explosively as last week’s Thornapple Lake fish, but something had clearly bothered her; she didn’t glide by or simply disappear from view, she fled!  But I’d seen enough to confirm her as a muskie, and while not a giant, she would have been a nice fish to catch!

Now with enhanced confidence (because somehow in this sport, even failure is success!), I continued casting this weed-bed.  I was around some fish for the important lunar event of the day!  That’s why I was here, after all, and I was shortly rewarded with a second follow!  This fish was smaller, probably about 36 inches, and followed my bait with interest.  She showed herself well enough that I could discern her coloration and markings.  She then simply disappeared as I went into and continued my Figure 8 antics.  She never re-appeared.

So my black and red Harasser was now 0-for-2.  I tweaked my presentation to a white, double-bladed spinnerbait.  This bait offered a little less flash, but a bit more displacement, and also offered a distinct clatter and vibration as the blades spun and ticked the lure’s main body.  Very soon thereafter, the third muskie of the day came into my view, tracking down my bait.  She was clearly the biggest of the day; probably in the mid-40 inches range.  And she looked hot!  She was positioned with my bait just in front of her left eye and cheek, and as I swung the lure past the bow and trolling motor to the other side of the boat, I swear I could see her eye focused on the bait.  She tracked my bait deep into the first turn, but then her momentum seemed to carry her away.

Strike Three!  I’d taken three in a row and had nothing to show for it.

It was now 20 minutes or so after scheduled moonrise.  The wind was freshening and the skies were clearing.  Soon it would actually be pretty nice out, a pretty drastic change from the session’s start.  I’d stay for another three hours or more, and I’d not encounter another fish.

Was it the lunar schedule or just a little front pushing through with the accompanying change in weather that had activated the fish?  I don’t know.  I don’t really have enough data.  The Moon looms large in muskie fishing literature, and many respectable folks believe strongly in its influence on muskellunge behavior and fishing success.  On the other hand, for the most part I’ve simply chosen to fish when I can.  I’ll continue to do that, but I’ll be sure to remain aware of lunar cycles.  I’ll try to be on prime spots at prime times, at least for muskies.  And if I occasionally stretch or re-arrange my muskie fishing schedule to include an occasional, extra lunar event or two, that’s possibly (probably?) just plain smart.

So I struck out.  But I was in the game!  I had struck out in a glorious setting; and I should have plenty more at-bats in the future.