Chris and Walter go fishing

After work Walter came up and said we should go fishing at the pond real quick. I said "sure why not!"

We headed down to the pond and I tossed in a lure I carved today. I immediately snagged it on a stick. Oh well, that's how it goes. Walter sniffed things as I tied on another.

I tied on my newly painted flatfish lure- the one that almost caught some bass yesterday. I reeled it in nice and slow. I saw the green flash of a bass coming out of the shadows and attacking my lure.

Walter didn't know what to make of it. He licked the bass lips and then walked away, doing a small roll in the grass to scratch his back.

Then I caught another one, a much much bigger one, on the same lure. I showed Walter, but he just sniffed it and walked away. It must have been 16" or so- and fat!! but instead of congratulating me he went to smell something new.

That's ok, I know he likes frisbee a lot more than fishing.

Kids throwing rocks, me catching fish

Suburban fishing

Originally Claire and I were thinking about going camping this weekend. We had a tent (thanks Kim and Leo!) and sleeping bags, but not much else. Instead of scrambling to purchase everything we needed at the last minute, we decided to get stuff now and camp next weekend. That meant two things: we ended up at L.L. Bean, I got some early birthday wading boots (!!) and we wanted to be outside. The temperature and sun were just right. Claire suggested we go fishing at a local reservoir, so we did.

We brought our new camping chairs, a little cooler, three rods, beverages, and Walter the Boston terrier. I'd like to call him our fishing dog, but he doesn't seem to care about fish whatsoever. He'll sniff for a second, then wander away, unimpressed. I visited this water before, noticing a couple doing exactly what we were doing: relaxing with a bunch of rods in the water. I remember looking down on their style of fishing. Why would you want to just sit there when you could be actively fishing? Only now do I think I know the answer. Well, there are two: carp and catfish. In fact, the same trip (in the kayak) I found what I later realized was a whole mess of catfish fry. I'll need to do some catfishing here later...

So we hung out, enjoyed the sun, and I watched what I could only assume we're carp wakes all over the water. I tried corn on a hook, then white bread squeezed around a hook; I even threw out little smushed pieces of bread to try and bring the carp in. I wonder if that technique is more of a cumulative thing, meaning I should do that every few days to create some awesome carp fishing...

Retention pond crappie

Claire hopped on her bike to do some laps around the trail, and no sooner had she left than I got my first and only fish of the day: a white crappie, around 8". My first of the year! It attacked a gulp minnow under a slip bobber, and didn't mind I used a piece of grass to keep the bobber in place. It works remarkably well, and grass is readily available and biodegradable. Walter was unimpressed. He was much more interested in watching the bike path to see who would be riding by next.

After a couple hours enjoying the sun, Walter rolling around in the mud like a little pig, and one single fish, we headed home.

Not too soon after getting back home and unloading the car, I got back in and made my way back to the Fox River. I have a great wife who lets me go fishing frequently and for long periods of time. The one stipulation is usually that I prepare some kind of food to eat; this time I fed her tomato soup and cast iron grilled cheese. I'm not a grilled cheese fan, but I'm fairly positive grilled cheese in cast iron is superior to every other kind out there.

Muddy dog

Anyway, soon I found myself back on the fox, the weather even nicer than the day before. I didn't even bring my jacket. In fact, I wore shorts and a t-shirt under my waders, and must say I enjoyed wading barefoot, so to speak. There was some kind of bug hatch going on, which started docile enough but would eventually crescendo into an all-out Chris attack-fest. At least it felt that way.

It must have been my third or fourth cast when I hooked into the first beast of the evening- and it felt very big. Based on my luck the previous day- 3 smallies and 10+ almosts- I was excited to jump back into the fray and fight some scrappy river smallies. This first one seemed big; it headed down, fighting with raw power. It took a minute or two to horse it in, and that's when I realized why it felt so big.

Somehow I had gut hooked it, the hook stuck in its chest instead of its mouth. I brought it close, and quickly lipped it so I could get the hook out in as little time as possible. This is where I face the eventual certainty of fishing: although I never want to hurt an animal for the sake of hurting it, and will only kill if I intend to eat it, the very act of fishing can hurt the fish. Although I certainly didn't mean to harm the fish, I was after all dragging a very sharp hook through the water, hoping a fish would out it's lip through the sharp point. There's some debate on whether fish feel pain or not, and like most people I can't know whether they do or not. I could rationalize and explain how it is I sleep at night, but the short answer is I try to avoid hurting fish as much as possible when fishing.

I felt horrible having harmed this beautiful creature in this way; I looked at its wound and it reminded me of some bird-inflicted wounds I'd seen on other fish. It occurred to me that although I don't intentionally hurt fish, there are plenty of animals who would love to make a quick meal out of any smallie, and we certainly can't find fault in that. They are animals, and all animals need to eat. Including us.

For a moment I considered keeping the fish for the table, as it was at least 14" (the legal minimum) and would rather eat it than let it suffer and die wantonly. But as I carefully removed the hook, I noticed the wound wasn't deep at all, and the fish seemed fine. I got the hook out, and held the bass in the water to see if it could swim away on its own. After a second, the bass chomped down on my thumb - hard- as if to scold me for injuring it. It burst away like the annoyed little rocket it was.

I'm new to the outdoors, to nature, to animals, but there's something that seems to be a recurring theme: nature doesn't care. A blade of grass growing in the sidewalk doesn't care it's not in the forest; a heron doesn't care if it eats an endangered fish; nature doesn't care if you're there or not, it will continue to do its thing. To the smallmouth bass, I was just another predator, and a dumb one at that. What predator would voluntarily set his prey free?

I was happy the bass was fine, hoped it would prosper, and wondered if the run-in with me would make it smarter and more wary in the future. Perhaps it would live longer because of this brush with death. It had a new lease on life. But perhaps it would die in a day due to an infection or something else. Either way I was pretty sure nature wouldn't loose sleep over it, even though I might.

Pretty nice fish right there, I think

But back to fishing. I managed to pull out two more bass with that same tube jig, standing in the same spot from the night before. One jumped from the water a few inches, shaking its head when it saw me. The other swam so fast and seemed so strong I was convinced it was some species new to me. Then I saw its bronze back, stripes and fiery red eyes and knew it was another smallie.

There were some teenagers hanging out near the shore, having an animated leaf race as they put leaves into the current. Then they started throwing rocks into the water. Although they were quite far from me, I found myself getting angry at them for disturbing my peaceful (well almost) fishing. Then I thought back to the few times I'd been on the water as a kid, and my first instinct had always been to pick up rocks and throw them into the water. It makes a fun splash!

Instead of yelling at the kids, I wondered what the fish thought of it. Stuff falling into the water happens all the time naturally, so really this wasn't anything fish hadn't seen before. I guessed they would swim away from the rock explosions, which just so happened to be in my direction. Turns out I might have been right, as that third smallie was caught seemingly escaping the rock explosions. It didn't care what or who was causing them, it just wanted to get away.

I kept fishing, but just like the day before the fishing suddenly dried up. As usual, I was faced with a few choices, not sure which would be the right one. Should I try a new spot? Should I switch lures and/or vary up my presentation? Did I catch all the fish in this part of the river?

What an awesome looking fish

The current was very strong, and a few cursory attempts to wade to other spots convinced me not to continue. Since I was pretty sure there were more fish there, I tried to entice the fish with a variety of other lures. Crankbaits, twisters, spinners, more tubes, but nobody would bite.

Recovered gear! And trash cleanup

Reluctantly I tried heading downstream, staying close to the shore and wading very slowly. The water was rushing fast even though I was far from the main current; a few times I felt close to loosing my footing in the river. I made my way to some fishy looking spots, managed a few hits on a twister, but no other luck. Besides the big eddy I'd been fishing in, almost the entire remainder of the river around me was a gushing torrent of water, constantly threatening to push anything and everything downstream. Nature didn't care.

When I looked over to pick up a Gatorade bottle trapped in some branches by the current, to my surprise I saw my lure from yesterday! You know, the one that snapped off my line and went flying downriver in the dark.

The sun was setting; I had hoped to fish a trench I knew of just a few yards out in the river. As I slowly attempted to wade out there, the sound of water bombarding my waders became deafening. The river was bullying me to go back to shore. This wasn't a fight I would win, so I let the river push me around and made my way to the shore. I found a trail and hiked back upstream to the eddy.

On the way back I saw a little snake, which turned out to be dead. Although nature didn't care, I enjoyed seeing a snake up close. Too bad he died, I thought, but he'll be a nice meal for some racoon or fish or bird sometime real soon.

I've been paying close attention to the ground lately, curious about what other animals hang out around the rivers' edge. I saw some shockingly big footprints in the mud, next to a few bike tracks. At first I though it was just a big dog, but I'm fairly positive they were coyote tracks based on some Internet "research." Don't know why I didn't take a picture. Maybe because it was dark and there was a coyote running around.

I fished the eddy until it was definitely dark, throwing most of the arsenal in my fishing vest. Even the stuff in my little backpack. No walleye obliged, nor did any more smallies.

Once again, my last cast was chosen for me, with a snap I saw my lure slowly arc into the air, flying away into the darkness. Maybe I'd find it next time.

On the lake with the family

Katie got a great shot of the clouds

 Coming fresh off a morning fishing trip fishless, I was determined to catch some fish.

After getting back to the parents' house, grabbing some subway, packing up the minivan, and driving a half hour east, we were at Lake Nepessing near Lapeer, Michigan - the probable location of our fishing redemption! This was our third annual family fishing outing; we rented a pontoon boat, took it out on the lake, and snacked and talked and drank and fished. Not exactly in that order.

I had been studying depth maps of the lake, and even uploaded a .kmz (google earth) file to my home server, so I could load waypoints on my iphone. (In the "maps" app, if you enter a URL in the search bar, you can load any .kmz or .kml file that's out there on the internet- or your own server. You won't get image overlays, but you will be able to see all of your markers.) There was a hump/sunken island right in the middle of the lake; on the east side, the depth went from 5' to 25' in about 10', and seemed like an ideal place to fish. I'd read reports of nice pike and bass being caught there.

We had several things working against us as we tried to position the boat in the sweet spot. First of all, pontoon boats are not easy to maneuver. Second, the lake was choppy, being stirred up by a relentless wind. Our big boat didn't stand a chance against the onslaught, and our tiny anchor just dragged along the muddy bottom.

After a few tries trying to get into position, we just decided to fish. We put the boat west of the hump, hoping that the wind would push us back over the hump, and we might have a chance of some fish. We dropped anchor, and although it didn't seem to stop our movement, it did slow us down a bit. It was about 3pm, so hopefully the fishing would get better as we approached sunset.

Walter is a pretty good ship's captain, for a dog

It was a great time, it's always nice to get outside and do some family stuff. I helped Katie (the sister) set up a dropshot rig with a nightcrawler, then decided to add a bobber. She just got her first fishing license, and this was her first time putting worms on the hook by herself. After quite a bit of convincing, she even cut crawlers in half so she wasn't using whole worms. Good work Katie.

We fished, we ate deviled eggs, tortilla chips, blueberries, subs; and I proceeded to empty a variety of IPA bottles. Good stuff, IPA's. The grocery store didn't have any Bell's Two-hearted IPA (you know, the label with a trout on it) so I got Huma-hopalicious, which I first enjoyed at our rehearsal dinner almost a year ago. (Whoa, almost a year ago!!) Fishing, and beer, two things I love. Oh yeah, and there was family too. :-)

We drifted around the lake, without much control over our location. The wind was relentless. Every so often, we'd get a tap or two, but nothing strong and no hookups. After an hour or two, I was frustrated. I remembered reading a post referring to Lake Nepessing as "Lake Not-a-thing." I thought about how skunk-tastic Busse Lake usually is, but my persistence has often paid off with big fish.

Eventually we repositioned ourself to be just upwind (I think that's the term) of the weedlines. The wind slowly pushed us back into open water, but finally we were able to land some fish!

First fish of the afternoon! That's Katie in the background

Small, and not especially feisty, but hey- at least we beat the skunk. Caught a few more little guys, but at this point honestly I didn't mind. As much as I claim to love fishing, I actually love catching, and if I don't have a choice I'd rather catch dinks than not catch monsters. Claire landed a veritable monster (it was tiny.. at least it was pretty) but unfortunately Katie and my dad weren't having too much luck.

Another itty-bitty guy

We saw some other boats fishing on the west side of the lake at the weedlines, so we decided to move over there. As we were approaching, we saw a guy on the boat posing for a picture, holding a fish. It looked big. As we got closer, we realized it was really big.

"What did you catch?" I shouted. The guy turned towards me, and we saw the full length glory of what he was holding. It was very big. "27 inch pike" he shouted back.

I won't lie, even though writing a second-hand account like this always provides the opportunity to get away with it. I was devastated. Up until this point, I was happy catching dinky little fish, it was fun, and we were having a good time. I figured that was the best we could do for now, and since nobody else seemed to be catching fish I didn't feel too bad.

But 27 inches of michigan pike, now that's something to be jealous of.

It was on. I grabbed a different rod and rigged a white spinnerbait, something I've heard pike are very fond of. I began to cast feverishly; oh man I wanted to hook into something longer than 3". We were in a perfect position, right at the weedlines, so I cast parallel to the weeds just along the edge. When that didn't produce, I tried casting perpendicular, from shallow to deep water. Nothing.

I switched to a medium diving crank. Did the same thing, and nothing. No follows, taps; nothing.

I looked back at the boat with the master pike-catcher on board. I squinted, trying to see what he had tied to the end of the line. I saw something spinning, reflecting the setting sun. It seemed smaller than a safety-pin style spinner, maybe it was a crankbait? For whatever reason I didn't shout out again to ask him what he was using. I didn't want to seem desperate, even though I was.

I felt a little bad at this point, as I was determined to catch a monster, and had stopped eating and drinking and talking with my family, and gone into fish-finding mode. I scanned the surface, trying to find anything that would belie the location of fish. I squinted through my polarized sunglasses, trying to see any tiny flash under the water that could be a fish, any fish. Nothing.

Eventually, we continued drifting around the lake, trying different spots. I threw everything I could think of- cranks, spinners, wacky-rigged senkos, tubes, minnow-tipped jigs- and nothing. I knew I could have probably landed some more baby fish with some nightcrawlers, but that was of no interest to me at that point.

The sun set behind the trees, creating a beautiful painting of a sky, a really great backdrop to our fishing. I wasn't going to catch a monster today. It would have been nice to catch a nice fish, and it was frustrating to see someone else catch such a specimen, but it was still a great day on the water. When you get down to it, you can't really beat fishing on a boat, on a beautiful day, with family, tons of snacks, and many many delicious beers.

Fishin' Redemption with the wife

I *am* a fisherman!

In an effort to redeem myself as a fisherman, and to have some fun and catch some fish, Claire, Walter, and I headed out to the pond in the evening. Just a few short hours after the one that got away at Busse, and I was still a little salty about it. I figured catching some nice fish at the secret pond spot would do the trick.

When we got there, some other people were in my spot!! I'd never seen anybody fish the pond, but then again, I'd never really been there when normal people fish (evenings, weekends). We set up in a different spot, played some frisbee with Walter (it's his favorite thing ever) and did some fishing.

Soon the other family left, so we moved in. I set Claire up with a brown tube jig, which had caught tons of bass there last week, and I put on a bigger 5" black and blue tube. The idea was to get Claire catching a bunch of bass, and maybe my bigger lure would entice a big bass to come up for a visit.

Sure enough, on my first cast, fish on! The bass in this pond fight harder than any bass I've caught, ever, anywhere else. I love it! I can't figure out why, but I'm glad they do. This guy jumped out of the water 4-5 times, splashes everywhere, swam in all directions, jumped some more, but I managed to keep him on and land him successfully. 

I was pure joy! First cast, caught a fish. I don't even care if they do stock this pond- I felt redeemed. It was, as they all are from here, a nice looking fish, but the SMALLEST bass I'd ever caught there. On the biggest lure I'd ever used there! Fish are crazy.

Carefully placed him back in the water, and cast again. Every now and then I helped Claire get the weeds off her lure. At one point she switched to nightcrawlers, but then went back to tubes when I caught another one!

This one was bigger, and fought just as hard as the first! Landed him (or her?) snapped some pics, and carefully released the beautiful fish back into the murky water. I recast, and continued fishing, having a GREAT time. In between casts, I threw the frisbee for Walter, so he was also having a great time.

"Uh-oh, Chris, hey..." says Claire. I see her rod tip bent like she's trying to pull a car out of the pond. But her line is moving! Fish on! Big fish!

I drop my rod and run over to help, and she wants me to land it, so I do. I'm amazed at the fight of these fish! I could do this all night (if it weren't for the mosquitos, which were getting pretty bad).

Claire caught a bass! A nice-sized fish, not the biggest one to come out of there, but not the smallest. We snapped a picture, and again sent the feisty fish back to the deep.

Then we called it a day. The bugs were bad, we caught a bunch of awesome fish, had a great time, and I felt better as a fisherman. What a great wife I have.