Lunchtime greenies

Spoiler alert: I caught a big green sunfish

There are so many bodies of water. Seriously, go to google maps and check out where you live. All those little blue areas- there are almost certainly fish in all of them! At least that's how I feel lately, having discovered some exciting fishing in Salt Creek. I've been wondering what other bodies of water right under my nose are teeming with fish...

Today during lunch I strolled down the street to a tiny pond not even a quarter mile away. Last night on a walk with Walter I noticed a distinct lack of "NO FISHING" signs. There were only "DO NOT MOW! NATIVE GRASSES!" signs. Not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds like something I approve of. I am not a fan of the ridiculously manicured suburban lawns that surround me (including my own, which is maintained by the neighborhood association). Why not keep the native plants around? They are nice looking and perfectly at home in this climate. I bet they also give local wildlife a lot better homes than bushes trimmed into cubes and spheres. But I digress.

I wasn't expecting much from this pond- it's about the size of a basketball court, probably smaller. I don't really know anything about basketball or the size of courts it's played on. I casually walked up to the pond, tossed out a texas-rigged white twister tail, and let it sink.

Immediately I had a fish on. No setting of the hook needed. It hit the lure like a missile.

The next four or five casts were the same way. Every cast a fish. Small but incredibly aggressive fish. Awesome! A few casts went without a fish retrieved, and then I felt a giant tug on the line. Could it be a bass? It felt a lot bigger than the others.

I reeled in the biggest green sunfish I'd ever seen. It was a monster! Probably 9" long, maybe longer, and a mouth like a largemouth bass. This dude was considerably larger than every other fish I'd caught so far. A veritable giant. I've caught plenty of smallies around that size; in my book, quite a catch. Especially from a tiny shallow pond down the street.

9"+ green sunfish, my personal best for that species

In the next 35 minutes I caught a total of 17 green sunfish. I switched to a green t-rigged worm and continued to catch them, although not as many. I caught all sizes from the 9" monster to a little guy who inhaled the whole worm.

Over-achiever (the worm is longer than he is)

After the 17th fish, which is more fish than I've ever caught in a single outing as far as I can remember, I made the 2 minute walk back to my house to eat some lunch and go back to work.

Hello again Mr. Goby

A nice fishing spot

This is my attempt at a short post.

Fished a little bit yesterday on the lakefront. I'd read a few reports that there might be some smallie action on the lake. I've yet to catch one there, and I can't wait to the find them. They get super big in the lake!

Got some little hits on a little white jig and twister, I wondered if the goby were finally back and active after the strange winter. Turns out, there were. You may remember Mr. Goby as my sometimes nemesis and sometimes savior-from-the-skunk last year.

What can I say? A fish is a fish, and I enjoy catching them. Even gobies.

 

A little later I fished the Chicago river while waiting for my little sis to arrive via Amtrak. Got a few nips on the same twister, got a few stronger ones on a brick-colored texas-rigged chigger craw near a piling, but nobody would commit. Seemed like 20 people asked me if there were any fish in the river. I was happy to share with them the huge variety of fish you can catch there- unfortunately I couldn't demonstrate since I was skunked.

Only fished for about a half hour each time, but as always it was good to get out. With this series of thunderstorms rolling through, I'm at a loss how to approach fishing this weekend... or if I even should! Everything I've read tells me rain is good fishing, but thunder makes bad fishing for at least a day afterwards.

I'll probably just go fishing and find out.

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.

Journey to the Edge of Chicago

the edge of Chicago

Decided to go check out Northerly Island at lunch. I've heard of some big fish caught on the south side as well as the lake side. I'd really like to catch some trout or salmon this fall, and apparently this is one of the places to do it. Discovered that I can get on the #130 bus from very close to work, that takes me all the way to the planetarium. The other end of the #130 route is Union station, which is super convenient: a straight shot from Union to Burnham Harbor. Awesome!

Anyway, I walked along the west edge of Northerly until there was no more path, just rocks. I fished a little bit- some bites, but nothing major. Didn't land anything except a solitary goby. I threw my amazing magical green tube jig, jig with white mr. twister, and some other various lures. I also had cooked salad shrimp - strange, I know - but hey, it catches fish! Sometimes.

some geese I saw

No non-gobies were interested, and I couldn't blame them.. It was the hottest part of the day, barely a cloud in the sky, and the most boat traffic I've ever seen! But you'd think fish who hang out there would be used to it. The air show jets were practicing again, creating extremely loud booming and explosion sounds as they flew around.. I have it on good authority that's what shut off the bite on the river yesterday.

I wanted to walk to the east side, the lake side, but couldn't quite figure out how to do it. I climbed the wall and hiked through the grass, brambles, and flowers until I got to a bike path. When I turned around to see where I came from, I saw a sign that said "Restoring prairie, please stay on the path." I felt really bad! I didn't think the peninsula was developed at all, but clearly they're trying to make it into a nice nature-preserve type area. I noticed a lot of bicyclists and people walking, enjoying the very nature-y area with the very urban-y backdrop of downtown Chicago.

there's the path

I followed the bike path, but according to google maps it never actually went to the shore. When I squinted, I could kind of see a little tiny foot path in the satellite photos that went all the way to the rocky shore... So I walked north until my blue dot in Maps was due west of the path, then I walked due east. Sure enough, extremely hidden in the tall prairie grass, was a path not a foot wide. It's funny that I couldn't find it with my eyes, but it was clearly visible by satellite. There were some rocks on either side of it, delineating the path. Awesome!

I made my way down the path, which at this point felt a lot like hiking. If you count this experience, this would only be my third time hiking, ever. I like the outdoors now! After about a minute of walking, the grass opened up to piles and piles of rocks, beyond which was the lake. There was a very strange area between the grass and the rocks that seemed very post-apocalyptic to me, with some manholes, dirt, rebar, and lots of what looked like sidewalk chunks.

Chicago after the zombie uprising?

Finally I got to the lake, and it was great! The water was very blue, the sound of the waves was great, and there were what seemed like hundreds of sailboats and motorboats and jetskis and dinghys all over the lake all the way to the horizon. To my far right I could see (I think) Northwest Indiana, and a cloud of brown haze over everything in that direction. That sucks.

I fished a little bit, got no bites. I noticed to my left the penninsula jutted out to a point. The internet has told me a good place to find fish is points, so I decided to move. I followed the path along the shoreline, and got to the point.

The waves here were CRAZY big, and there were very big boulders? sidewalk pieces? strewn about on land and in the water. There were sun-bleached wood beams jutting out the water, I wondered if this used to be a pier. In quick succession I lost 3 lures caught on either rocks, rebar, or who knows what else. I enjoyed the scenery for a minute, and decided to head back toward Burnham, and maybe I could catch that catfish I saw swimming around today... it looked like the same one I caught last week.

thanks for saving me from the skunk,
Mr. Rock Bass

Made my way back to the water on the west side of Northerly (aka the marina) and my catfish friend was nowhere to be found. I did see some small fish swimming around. I always learn a lot fishing when I can see how the fish react to my presentation, even when they're small. It was enlightening; with shrimp the fish would swarm and eat it no matter what, with white twister tails they would only be interested if it was moving. Makes sense! Surprisingly, out of nowhere a rock bass busted in the middle of all the gobies and took my bait.

At this point, I'd been in direct sun for quite a while, and I was sweating profusely. The fish were doing the smart thing, chilling out in the shadows, I should do the same. 

I packed up my stuff and walked back to the #130 bus stop, and headed back. It seemed like I had left civilization for a while, and visited the remnants of some bombed-out and overgrown Chicago... I was glad to be back in town, even though I never really left. I was also glad to have caught at least one somewhat respectable fish! Thanks rock bass, I can always count on you.

the surreal view from Notherly Island

Lunch on the lake

Hit up the lakefront for an hour at lunch, hoping to catch something. My last two outings have been nice, but no fish landed... And although I claim I love fishing, I love catching too.

Assembled my 5-piece rod as I walked, so I was ready to cast as soon as I got to the water. I saw some other guys fishing, but they didn't seem to be catching anything. Another guy walked by and I asked him what he was fishing for. "Anything that'll bite!" Yeah man, me too!

Apparently gobies were the only things that bit, because that's all I caught. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly, and there was little to no wind.

My limited fishing experience tells me these are not the ideal conditions in which to fish at noon in the summer. Can we get some clouds up in here?

I threw some dropshot-rigged cooked salad shrimp (which got some gobies); tube jigs; silver size 0 mepps; texas rigged grub with wiggly tail. Got a lot of small hits close to the rocks, which were definitely gobies (although I know for a fact there are a ton of rock bass right there... but they obviously were taking a siesta).

After a while, I started casting as far as I could, to see if I could entice anything bigger into my offerings. It was a little difficult, because between me and the breakwater is a high-traffic boat lane to and from the marina. I tried casting out, letting it sink, reeling in the slack, and letting it sit there.

After a minute or so, I moved the rod a bit to check, and I felt resistance. Hooray! Fish on! I reeled in, pulled the rod back, and repeated, just the way my new hero Jeremy Wade on "River Monsters" does when he hooks into 300 pound fish. I didn't want this one to get away!

As I reeled it in, I was excited to see what I got. Could it be a smallie?? Perhaps?

Nope, goby.

my nemesis, the goby

Not to be discouraged, I re-baited, re-cast, and waited. Hey, at least I beat the skunk.

A few more minutes passed by, and once again I felt resistance... But much more this time!!

I didn't want to get too excited, but I did my Jeremy Wade maneuvers anyway; this one seemed a lot bigger. I reeled, pulled, reeled, pulled; at this point the fish was about 30' away from me in the water. I got it close to the surface and saw a flash of brown. Smallie!?

SNAP! My line broke. 

I didn't get a good look at it, but I don't think it was a goby. With that, it was time to head back to work. 

Watch out smallies, I'm coming for you. You're safe for another day, but I'll be back.

a view on my walk back to work