Bucket List Event - Part One

A recent harmless posting on Facebook about open dates from a guide I have followed via various social media outlets for quite a long time led to me sending him an email about his possible availability for Wednesday, November 11.  I get Veterans' Day off at work and I always try to get a good fishing session in, because my boating season could close with the next cold front that roars through.  When he hadn't responded after a couple of days, I figured he was already booked and started to make plans for another local muskie event.  I was therefore doubly surprised when I then received his reply on an otherwise forgettable Tuesday work morning indicating that he was available.  Three minutes later, I was booked! 

I was going to spend Veterans' Day in Milwaukee fishing for Brown Trout!  Milwaukee might currently be the epicenter of World Class Brown Trout opportunities right now.  This is truly a Bucket List Event for me.  I've been wanting to get there for this for more than several years, and this particular guide is why.

I've had a thing about brown trout for quite some time.  My first came from a forgotten tributary of New Hampshire's Saco River when I was 12 or so.  While my Dad stretched, smoked and gave his butt a break from our aluminum canoe seats, I ventured up the small stream with my ultralight spinner and a few worms.  I pitched my unweighted offering upstream into an undercut bank and the local boss came out to eat.  My first brownie wasn't that big (10 inches?), but it sure was beautiful.  At that time I'd caught my share of hatchery rainbows and brookies, but this might have been my first wild trout.  I wanted to show my Dad, but instead chose to release my catch.  So I went back fishless, but that was OK, because Dad soon caught a beautiful brookie, which he, too, chose to release.

Trout are a huge deal here in Michigan, and one of my first here was an early November Lake Michigan tank of a brown.  It slammed a blue and silver Little Cleo that I was casting off a local pier, and was my only strike of the day.  It was monstrous, easily over 20 pounds, and I was very tempted to keep this fish and get it mounted.  But I had virtually no money at the time, and I stupidly expected to easily catch more, similar fish in my future.  I like to tell myself that I was probably leaning towards releasing her when I accidentally dropped her back into the lake.  Oh well, it was an exhilarating experience, and surely there would be others!

Except there hasn't been another.  I briefly connected with a similar giant that skyrocketed out of the water as it ate my spoon off a very shallow rigger in about 10 feet of water.  My boat-mates and I saw her too clearly silhouetted before she threw the hook.  We were speechless, and even the brace of 9-pounders we landed that evening are not as memorable as the one we lost.

In the early 2000's I had a pretty good day trolling for browns on Lake Michigan on April 12.  I remember the date, because I shared my success with a buddy, who chose to try my stretch of shoreline and general tactics the next day.  It was a beautiful day, but I did not join him.  I'd caught mine, and April 13 is my daughter's birthday.  My buddy scored a 24-pounder that day; truly a memorable fish for all involved!

I have caught about a half dozen Browns in the low teens from Lake Michigan and the Grand River, and I saw a couple that were probably in the high teens while on a trip to Arkansas' White River.  These are all World Class fish, but they still are not in the same class as that first Lake Michigan Brown from so long ago.  

My personal Bucket List is ill formed, fuzzy and incomplete.  I'm not looking for a Personal Record, but I do hope to learn a lot on this trip (I will no doubt have the confidence to try this by myself or with buddies once I get my bearings.)  Mostly, I hope I don't learn that my list bucket is full of slop.