West Michigan smelled of woodsmoke the entire way to Indiana; I wondered about Particulate Monitors and Health Effects of Fine Particulate and how much of the benefits from my professional efforts were casually burned up with the leaves and scrub brush. With 5-plus hours by myself and on a route I'd taken so frequently in what seems like a previous life, I couldn't help but notice how many former job sites I drove past; and revel in how fortunate I currently am. But mostly, I thought of Brown Trout; their sizes, colorations, varieties of pursuit, Past and Present.
My opportunity to visit Milwaukee coincided with a televised National Debate; that helped explain my lack of choice of hotels. Upon arrival, I noticed that there were cars from across the nation parked in the lot. The neighborhood looked like it had seen grander days, but once I got past the lobby, the interior was clean and freshly decorated. (I don't think I'd have been able to determine this if I were traveling with my girls, but it was going to be good enough for my current purposes, regardless.) I wasn't there for long, and it offered a comfortable bed, hot water and free breakfast.
It was the day of the New Moon, and a horrendous front (with associated howling winds) was forecast for later in the day. Captain H and I had decided to start early, at 7 AM in part to beat the weather, and as I approached McKinley Marina, the red morning sun hung low over a fairly calm Lake Michigan. But the breeze was clearly freshening, and I was itching to get out! I was there (per my comfort and custom) "Early for Being Early", but not outrageously so. I poked around the park and generally prepared for my guide's arrival. I remembered to take in Eminem's "One Shot"***, and visualized success. And I had some time to do so. Long story short; there were multiple texts, family illnesses, new logistics and traffic issues; but I still had a good attitude when we finally hit the water at 8 AM.
I've "followed" this guy in a thorough, but not stalking, fashion for quite a while. I'd never fished here, on this boat, or with him, and yet we slipped into a quick, easy comfort that made the rest of the day enjoyable and realistically productive. As we idled from the ramp through the marina, he outlined the day's plans and possibilities, and I could picture the spot to which we were headed.
We started with small brown trout egg sacs under small fixed floats. The long spinning rods were outfitted with 6- or 8-pound braid and long 6-pound fluorocarbon leaders. Our egg hooks were tiny and the drags were light; this was reportedly going to be finesse fishing. But on the first cast, the float went down with authority, and I think anybody could have hooked up. This initial fish fought hard and deep, and in the pretty darn clear water I had plenty of time to see my brown materialize and fight. After a couple of minutes it was in the bag; and a successful trip was virtually assured.
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| Milwaukee Harbor; First Cast; and then we moved from the boat to the dock to capture this brown buck's photo in the early morning light. |
This fish was neither a Personal Record nor even as big as I'd dreamt; but it was certainly a beautiful specimen caught on fine tackle and a very promising start for the day. It broke the ice for us as partners, and established some real Fish Cred for each of us. It made the rest of the day easy!
We stayed here in this spot a bit longer. I caught another nice brown quickly, followed by a couple of tiny steelheads. Then I hooked, turned and lost a broad-tailed fish of considerable size. The commotion of that fish on the surface seemed to have scattered the school, and so then we changed tactics; it was time to cast crank baits!
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| Second fish from the first spot; and I missed another nice one. |
His cranks of choice for casting were simply common bass and walleye baits. I was equipped with a nice Abu 6-foot, 9-inch (or so) medium light spinner with a beautiful Abu Revo reel and 8- or 10-pound braid. I could cast my Strike King square-billed crank quite a ways and easily feel it vibrate through the water on a slow to medium (but definitely trending towards slow) retrieve. Meanwhile, he baitcasted a Strike King flat-sided shad, and collectively we covered water.
It was pretty low-tech fishing, but I'm pretty sure you could make it as complex as one wanted. We were looking to take advantage of some pretty obvious clues (jumping fish, bait balls, diving birds, busting fish or current lines), but in their absence, it took me a while to transition from my structure-fishing tendencies and rely on faith that wind-aided long casts and covering water would out-produce covering specific spots thoroughly.
This fishing proved rather slow; in fact we had no action at all as we moved deeper into the labyrinth of Milwaukee Harbor. By now the wind was blowing 25+ miles per hour and it was rough and wet in the more exposed areas of the harbor. We worked our way into another dead-end and parked the boat along a secluded section of seawall. A few minutes of scouting from shore located a couple of pods of sizable browns that were very worthy of our fishing efforts. It was back to eggs and floats for these fish.
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| Brownie 3 of 4 for the day. Grand Rapids has fine urban fishing; but so does Milwaukee! |
Again, the first fish came rather quickly. After that, they were not easy! But by moving stealthily and giving them their time and space, by not attracting the attention of others, each pod in time seemed to cough up the occasional biter. You never knew how big it might be either, because I saw more high-teen-and-up browns in a few hours than I have in the previous 30 years of living elsewhere within the Great Lakes' watershed.
The rest of the fishing day alternated between stalking these finesse fish and casting cranks for more active fish. I got hit once on my crank but didn't connect, while Captain H caught a smallish brown and a late, red coho.
The fish of the day might have been our last brown on eggs. It provided a cool visual strike that barely moved the float. I can still see the gaping, white mouth appearing below the descending egg sac and then closing over it. This might have been the biggest, too (but none of the fish were measured or weighed, so it's not certain that it was bigger than the first), and it certainly provided the most hotly contested fight of the day. Captain H's enthusiasm was counter-balanced by my calm execution, but I sure was excited inside.
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| A fish worth traveling for; repeatedly! |
I'd chosen casting for browns over trolling and perhaps more opportunities for multiple species. I'd gotten what I asked for, but that didn't stop me from asking, talking and learning about other options. Trolling is always possible here, and spoons, sticks and shads are all in the mix. Divers and up to 3 colors of lead can provide some depth coverage, but otherwise it all sounded very familiar to me. And where-as our realistic Brown Season in West Michigan's portion of Lake Michigan is (at most) two months long (and usually much more hit-and-miss than that statement suggests), one can target browns here (by adjusting one's tactics) just about all year!
The Captain's favorite technique might be casting and slowly swimming 4- and 5-inch plastic swimbaits/jerkbaits on 3/8 ounce darter heads. The same factors go into selecting the locations; breakwall gaps, current, bait, birds and obvious fish.
"Strolling" with jerk baits can help locate fish. Should one choose, hair jigs or tubes, crawled along the bottom or suspended under floats can produce fish. Carolina rigging spawn or minnows, or perhaps suspending crawlers, red worms or jig-n-wigs under floats will get bites.
I'd absorbed a lot in a short time. Of course I'd have liked more and bigger fish, or perhaps to have not lost any opportunities, but in 6 short hours I was exposed to enough to know that I can do this. I'd love to share it with some friends or family.
***OK, so maybe the real title is "Lose Yourself"; it resonates as "One Shot" for me.
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