NUMENON |
PONDERING CORE ESSENCE
NUMENON |
As Winter (hopefully) quietly wanes to a close, I got truly antsy this past weekend. Not feeling quite comfortable with either local ice conditions or traveling north for trout, and being clueless about holdover stripers, I intensely puttered. On Sunday, I hit the local bait shop and grabbed a dozen or so jig heads. Shortly thereafter, my tying equipment was out. I fell into a groove and churned out some bucktails, all the while imagining the stripers and sea bass that might fall to them, and the scenes in which these encounters might occur. That was a small, but welcomed, first antidote to my restlessness and I quickly followed up with the recommended second dose. On Tuesday afternoon, a box of hooks, jig heads and assorted plastic baits finally arrived from Bass Pro Shops. These too, had provided some distraction while I ordered them. They were fodder for further verbal daydreaming during a pleasant dinner with my oldest daughter. By the time the dirty dishes were put away, this new gear had paid for itself in pleasantries. Four new baits for shallow, clear-water stripers, with new-to-me rigging. NOT PICTURED and my inspiration for these, an amber Hogy 6-inch Skinny Bait similarly rigged, my take on their classic nose-hooked (but substantially larger) baits. I think these will be productive under the proper conditions. Summarizing this and sharing my thoughts and pictures has helped me resist the outgoing Winter. And, when a friend questioned whether I was simply fishing for compliments for my bucktails, I did have to admit; at this point, I'll fish for anything! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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After almost 35 years in The Great Lakes State (Michigan), in late 2019 I moved back "home" to New England. Born, raised and schooled here, I'd taken my nascent fishing skills out west in 1985. Now, I had the opportunity to bring my full-grown passion for fishing and accumulated experience to bear on New England's fish in both fresh and salt water! The landscape looked different and more promising to me upon my return. First and foremost, I now had more resources available to me than I'd had as a teenager; but I also had new perspectives on geography and the opportunities available to me. It had taken several decades, but the colloquialism of my Rhode Island youth had given way to a broader view of possibility. It's now okay to choose to travel three or four hours each way for a day's fishing; even longer for a weekend. It's reasonable to hold licenses from multiple states. It's acceptable to "Go Big", try something new, and come home skunked. And it's easier to be aware of all this, simply because of the internet! The resources seemed to have improved in my absence, too. Clean air and water regulations have been effective, in the main, in restoring and protecting the environment. Public access to many waters has been enhanced. Five-pound largemouth bass are legitimately possible as opposed to being an object of dreams. Black sea bass and scup have been recognized as sporting fish, and appear to be more available and much larger than I recall. Northern pike have extended their range. Quality catches in pleasant settings are no longer a simple matter of luck, but can be planned for and executed. And now there are stripers! Numbers may be down compared to a decade or two ago, and their presence should not ever again be taken for granted, but stripers are way more numerous and accessible than they were when I left. In fact, I had never encountered one before I left New England in 1985. Big, gator blues were the saltwater sportfish of my youth. True to their mysterious and nomadic ways, large bluefish are currently locally scarce and unpredictable. That's a current loss compared to 35 years ago, but there's at least hope that this is part of a natural cycle and that big bluefish will be part of the future. So, I arrived back "home" (albeit now as a resident of The Bay State) to a better place, and armed with the knowledge, equipment and motivation to make my 2020 Fishing Season truly epic. From trout to false albacore, I had big plans for 2020. And then, of course, everything changed with the arrival of Coronavirus. This is my first Pandemic, and so I doubt that I've done everything exactly correctly or with complete grace. But, I've managed to keep myself healthy and employed, as has my family circle. So, I am lucky, and in The Pandemic Sense of Things, very well off! But the situation has put various crimps in my plans and dreams, including my 2020 fishing. I never launched my Lund freshwater boat; she remains in extended hibernation on her trailer. Other than casting for stocked trout, I didn't even fish in freshwater in 2020. In my opinion, a freshwater season without bass is not even a season. I'll not write further of my season's freshwater exploits; let's just say I am thankful that I had access to the salt in 2020. While I didn't moor my Maritime saltwater skiff in Maine, as planned, I was able to responsibly access her on a frequent-enough basis without interacting with others outside my bubble. From May through October, I was able to explore a good chunk of Cape Cod and Maine's Casco Bay with her. This 14-foot platform became something like a therapist's couch for me in 2020. With frequent visits to her, I was able to effectively (?) deal with the other aspects of my life. But this is about the fishing and the gifts it bestowed upon me in 2020. There were many, and just about all of them involved stripers or their pursuit. The sunrises, sunsets and solitude might have been enough solace by themselves; but the fishing was pretty darn good, too. While I landed no monstrously large fish in 2020 (my biggest striped bass measured in at 37 inches; I am still seeking a verified 40-incher), I did set a few Personal Bests along the way. But these were either incidental or accidental, and so were more or less just part of the enjoyment, and not meaningful in the long run. Still, it's fun to recognize your largest Hickory Shad, Sea Robin and sea-run Brown Trout. Each fish should be appreciated for what it has to offer, and these provided exclamation points on three different sessions that might otherwise have been forgotten. I visited several new ports and navigated many new waters. I pushed my Casco Bay explorations further east and north, found some new bait stops, productive rocks, and I placed piles of new waypoints on the new Garmin GPS. I live-lined, tube-and-wormed and raised fish on topwater baits from more new spots on Casco Bay than I had accumulated in the previous, mostly shore-bound, 19 years. I was fortunate to spend the July 4th Weekend and a week's respite from work here, not only exploring, but catching! I was doubly fortunate to not only land a beautiful sea-run brown on a small Kastmaster intended for mackerel, but to also catch, photograph and release a 2020 Striper Cup-winning striper on this same bait. I was triply fortunate to have done so from my retirement property! I've got a lot to look forward to, here! On the Cape, I added Upper Buzzards Bay, Sandwich, Barnstable, the entirety of Waquoit Bay's watershed and some of the Vineyard Sound shoals to my list of familiar waters. I was able to employ tactics both trusted and new. The stripers just about always found me, and in the newness of it all, I learned from just about each one. I am more prepared for future seasons than ever before, and if I choose to be the only person in the fleet utilizing Ben Parker Magnum Flutter Spoons, so be it! The best part of the Pandemic for me has been telecommuting. And if one is telecommuting, why not choose to do so from a rented house on the shores of Waquoit Bay? We did so for a week in September, during which I was blessed with the best, consistent topwater action of the year, as well as my rediscovery of fluke-style baits. Despite the persistent and powerful wind, the fishing and on-the-water experience was so good that week, I almost didn't mind having to work during the day! I expect to do the same in 2021, and possibly beyond! Almost 200 stripers came over the Maritime's gunwales, and another couple dozen or so were landed from shore. Of course, I missed and flubbed many other opportunities, but I don't think I lost any truly large stripers. Additionally, a bunch of sea bass, scup and blues, and even a few fluke visited me, too. I experienced no real on-the-water problems, and sometimes I was even able to forget about my lack of freshwater opportunities or the other, real problems posed by 2020. As I write this in January of 2021, the Coronavirus situation remains dark. I don't know what to realistically expect for 2021. I don't know what I can plan for, I don't even know if I dare dream about certain things. But I do know that I will (at least and likely) find safe harbor with my skiff, my light tackle and the striped bass of New England's coastal waters. This comfort is enough, for now. It's good to be home. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways I began the New Year by completing my reading of "The Book of Eels; Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World" by Patrik Svensson. This was a thoughtful gift from my family. As an example of how truly strange 2020 was, this might have been the first book I've read to completion since 2019. Maybe my reading habits are finally back on track, and this was a prime vehicle to get me there. A combination of natural history, fish, biology and cultural lore, I was certain to find this work interesting. Add the generous splash of philosophy, an exploration of paternal relationships and a Swedish setting, and I was sure to find it unique. Add the layer of metaphysics and a discussion of meaning, and I was a perfect recipient for this thoughtful gift. Or perhaps a better way to put it; this was the perfect, thoughtful gift for this recipient. I'll be honest, I know enough about the natural history, life cycle and plight of catadromous Atlantic eels (North American and European) that I wasn't surprised about too much of the "mystery" attributed to them. On the other hand, I'll be doubly honest and admit that the drain of daily, workaday life has robbed me of the capacity to truly appreciate the wondrous mysteries of the eel. "Knowing" what I think I "know" about them had become enough for me. My curiosity here has been stunted. Perhaps this illustrates my intellectual limitations, or maybe it's simply a matter of available time and energy (both are limited resources, use of which needs to be prioritized) for consideration of such things. Regardless, this might be my first lesson from this reading; my lack of wonder shortchanges both the eel and my appreciation for the work of the giants, on whose effort and suffering my so-called "understanding" of the eel (natural history, biology, scientific investigations, etc.) rests. Despite my shortcomings, I am quite confident that this recent (2019) work is well complemented by another I read several years ago. My copy is packed away and unavailable for reference at this time, but as I recall, "Eels : An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish" by James Prosek was similarly engrossing. The paternal exploration of Svensson was perhaps replaced here by a deeper treatment of the eel's impact on different cultures, and so maybe it is more about the eel than about the author; but then again, perhaps not. Svensson's work is clearly as much about human relations as about the eel itself; and as discussed below, perhaps simply tackling a subject like this automatically transforms that subject into something beyond its simple being. I tagged a few pages of the book while I was reading; something at each had caught my attention. Now, it's time to try to figure it out! "Metaphysics is... an attempt to describe the true nature of things, the whole of reality. It claims there's a difference between existence per se and the characteristics of that existence. It also claims that the two questions are separate. The eel is. Existence comes first. But what it is, is a completely different matter." (page 25) I would argue that this is what my entire blogging effort is about. Go ahead, check out the header, above. Heck, check out the block quote footer, below. Leopold was saying the same thing about his tired Wisconsin farm. My Lund is nothing but a machine, but what it represents is my ability to get out on the water and express myself. Fishing is most simply my chosen manner of enjoying time off, but what it represents for me is connection to the natural world. I do fish, but what that has helped me become is a man (occasionally) at peace with himself and his place. And so, eels are eels; somewhat unique fishes with a well-earned air of mystery. Because they've been variously important food sources, they've been on mankind's radar for millennia. Because of their hidden life cycle, we've had the opportunity to wonder about them. Because they've been slow to reveal the secrets of their true nature, the depth of that wonder is amplified. We are interested in eels in ways that we are not, for instance, in deepwater gulpers, anglers, or chimaera. We know less about these fish than we do about the eel; and yet, somehow, there's been an Eel Question since at least Aristotle. Which leads me to this; with respect to maintaining an active eel-fishing enterprise in Sweden, it might not make dollars or sense. But, without maintaining the centuries-old ways and humble seashore property rights: "The interest in the eel, and thus the eel itself, will be lost. This is the great paradox... in order to understand the eel, we have to have an interest in it, and to have an interest in it we have to continue to hunt, kill and eat it... An eel is never allowed to simply be an eel. It's never allowed just to be. Thus it has also become a symbol of our complex relationship with all the other forms of life on this planet" (page 95) I do not fish for food, and so I've minimized the killing and eating, but my interest in knowing about my quarry, their habits and habitats, my interest in having them available, protected (or at least regulated) and in robust populations in healthy environments, is my way of making these fish matter. And not just my quarry, but their natural prey and predators, too. And perhaps not just them, but myself, too. My interest helps to influence public access, fisheries policies, innovation within boating and tackle industries, support for environmental protection programs, and more. If we collectively just let the striper (or tuna, or bonefish, or shark or trout...) be, if we weren't interested enough in them to recognize their ecological roles, uniqueness or plights, we'd never be able to argue or act on their collective behalf. I've no interest in drowning, but simply treading water is both so tiring and unsatisfactory. I want my efforts (whether at work, play or relationships) to contribute to continuous improvement. Which is why this last quote caught my eye: "Utopian deadlock... the measures put in place to protect... are not only insufficient, they also risk becoming a form of placating misdirection. As long as we cling to what we think we know, what we believe to be right, the... situation will never improve, but instead worsen. And while the problem continues to be debate, time passes" (page 219) Our one true limiting resource is time. With a bit of luck, one can accumulate some extra wealth and possibly influence, but we all have limited time in which to make our mark. We all need to be efficient with our time and efforts. So we've metaphysically progressed from questions of is/be? to what? to now, why? For starters, Why not? simply seems to be an unacceptable answer. Why? Because we are fortunate enough to be aware of our existence; we want to make something of ourselves. I want that something to have left behind a better situation than I originally fell into. I want to be involved with interesting, meaningful things. I want to use my available time to develop an understanding of my place. I want to be able to ask, Why? And I even want to have some sense of how to answer, Why? The Eel Question stumped Aristotle, perhaps the last (Western) human to be in a position to know everything worth knowing at the time. It's going to take a lot less of a mystery to stump me. But, I am glad enough to be in a position to ponder, and to know that I am in good company when I struggle with the value of my efforts to make sense of things, or wonder why it's so important to me to understand my next fish. (I do recognize that this might be incomprehensible and/or worthless. My apologies if you find that to be the case.) Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways Happy New Year! In no particular order, may I offer my modest Fishing Goals for 2021: 1. 200 Stripers for the season 2. Share a fresh fish meal with Uncle M 3. Catch my biggest ever striper 4. Catch a false albacore! 5. Catch a 6-pound "bass" (green, brown or sea-) 6. Catch a 20-inch trout! 7. Successfully fish new water 8. Successfully implement a new technique 9. Somebody new in the boat 10. Launch Numenon *** 200 Stripers for the season This is my new benchmark for a season of chasing stripers. Given enough time on the water, it's doable. Plus, if I've landed 200 stripers, I have certainly experienced many more strikes, splashes, follows and misses. I'll probably have enjoyed a lot of by-catch along the way. And, I know I'll have had a lot of fun! Share a fresh fish meal with Uncle M It won't be the meal so much as the preparation, execution and success that it represents. Plus, with a cooler full of ice on board, maybe a few gyotaku specimens will find their way home and get me going on that again, too. Catch my biggest ever striper This is a standing goal for every trip. But it's more realistic over the course of the entire season. If I catch it while actually hunting big fish, that will be even better. Catch a false albacore! There's no magic to this; it's a matter of patience and opportunity. But, I will gladly accept a little good luck, too. If I stumble into good fishing for other species along the way, I am fine with that. Catch a 6-pound "bass" (green, brown or sea-) Any of these is truly an outstanding fish. I'd like to think that I might chase freshwater bass on some quality water this season, but if I am unable to do so, the idea of landing a giant sea bass is an appealing alternative. Catch a 20-inch trout! Whether caught through the ice, from the sea, casting or trolling, any 20-inch trout is a beautiful, worthy goal. Successfully fish new water Kaizen! The pursuit of continuous improvement and growth in my collected fishing endeavors is one reason why I like it so much. A quality experience on unfamiliar water pulls it all together and validates the effort; but it also unlocks unknown potential for the future. This positive feedback loop can be a powerful agent of beneficial change. Successfully implement a new technique This is always a worthwhile goal for the same arguments as presented above. Plus, it might involve fun new stuff or shiney new things, for which I am sometimes a bit of a sucker. In many ways it offers a chance to practice my model of Anticipation! Participation! and Elaboration! repeatedly, so whatever success I might encounter, I can enjoy it many times over. Somebody new in the boat Too much of my New England fishing has been solitary. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of this, and I likely fish best alone, but I miss my Michigan friends and hosting others on my boat(s). It's always nice to share a good experience, and it can be a nice reminder to see familiar things through new eyes. Launch Numenon She has been patiently resting on her trailer in Maine, waiting for things to settle down. There's a lot of potential for her up there, so I hope she's ready to go when we have the chance! *** Of course, I am reserving the right to amend or append; I already have a number of ideas rattling around in the back of my subconscious. Regardless, here's to an Excellent 2021! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways I recently gave my first "Ice Breaker" talk at my Toastmasters' International club. Here's a synopsis of what I hope I said! Good afternoon! Thank you (MC, members and guests.) I'd especially like to thank S, who introduced me to this club. This is my Ice Breaker talk, and so I'd like you to come away with a sense of what motivates me, but I also hope you find this to be somewhat engaging. And, I really hope to spark some thought. Now I know that I really am no more than a civil servant, my wife's life-long partner and the father of two adult daughters who are turning out to be delightfully bright, productive citizens. But today I m going to be a bit selfish and focus on what motivates me and perhaps makes me a bit unique. My youth was full of baseball, hockey, fishing and the outdoors. Age and injuries have made sports less alluring to me, but fishing has grown into a life-long endeavor and vehicle for personal growth. Here's a picture from a couple of years ago. It's a decent pic of a very nice bass, but why this snapshot resonates with me is this: it EXACTLY captures a dream of mine at the age of 9 or 10. From that dream, I vividly recall holding and admiring a fine bucket mouth bass, and the surging pride of accomplishment. The morning after that dream, I asked my Dad to take me fishing. He did, the very next day; and my lifelong pursuit was launched. I cannot see this picture without thinking fondly about my Dad or any of the fine experiences that were spawned by our first trip together. Now, the thing about fishing is that it leaves you alone with your thoughts for extended periods of time. That's fine with me, because I consider myself to be thoughtful and introspective. In 2003, I purchased a new fishing boat, and I wanted to name her both suitably and meaningfully. I vaguely recalled an intriguing concept from one of my first reading assignments in College. So, more than 20 years later, I found myself re-reading Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac". Mr. Leopold was an early conservationist, resource manager, philosopher and founder of The Wilderness Society. His "Almanac" is an unassuming diary of his thoughts regarding his onligatory stewardship of his Wisconsin farmland. The concept in question is that of Numenon; I'll self-define it here as "the core essence of a balanced and harmonious system; if something cannot be removed or changed without affecting or compromising the system within which that entity resides... that is the system's unique, distilled essence, its Numenon." So, the Brook Trout in a cold Appalachian Stream; a Ruffed Grouse gracing a Wisconsin Pine Barrens farm with its mating drumming and dance; and my particular, multi-species boat; these are all defining entities. Surely there are plenty of other streams, farms and fishermen; but as surely, these are more complete, interesting and valuable with their respective Numena present. And so my boat was named; but what I didn't expect was this: Re-reading the "Almanac" had re-kindled my interest in philosophy and deeper thought. Numenon (the boat) provided lots of solitary time to help me develop these. I've adopted an eye for recognizing "core essence" and extracting beneficial meaning from everyday occurences. My concept of Numenon has provided a lense and focus for self-reflection, often while aboard Numenon herself. I am fortunate to say that I am convinced that I am happier, more buoyant, calm and productive because of these synergistic activities. Plus, I've generated some good fishing tales along the way, too! And so there I am; I like to fish, and I like to ponder. I've discovered a beneficial synergy between these activities, and I am fully invested in both. Finally, I am a better and more complete person for it. Thank you; I simply encourage you to enjoy a day on the water! But, I also encourage all to find their appropriate vehicle for personal growth, peace of mind and sense of individual meaning. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways I have been looking at the Gano Street boat ramp on the Seekonk River at the head of Narragansett Bay in Providence, Rhode Island for at least six or eight years. I've long wanted the opportunity to launch and explore here; while it is within a handful of miles from my childhood home, things have changed for the better in so many ways. I thought it would be an interesting trip to share with my girls. Well, Sunday June 28, 2020 was my last logical chance; I was retrieving my youngest from her college digs for the last time. I'd offered her a local "cruise"; if it didn't happen this day, it was not going to happen for a while! Despite the threat of future thunderstorms, we launched at about 10 AM and decided to head down-river to the Bay. Just below the I-195 bridge, I noticed some nervous water and snagged my first Narragansett Bay bunker from a thick school in quite a while. Ultimately, we headed up the Providence River as far as we dared and got a different perspective of the city. Returning, we encountered some more bait just below the hurricane barrier, and my sand eel bait got chopped in half by a bluefish. I couldn't entice any others to bite, and we concluded our short cruise in time to be the traffic and storms home. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways Officially under home quarantine, I find there's an abundance of opportunity for screen time. I thought I'd put some of that time towards the interests of Citizen Science, and I have embarked upon my quest to become a Herring King. In October 2019, when I finally learned what my address in Massachusetts would be, one of the first things I noted about my new neighborhood was the proximity of the Mystic Lakes. As I sought information on the fishing opportunities they might offer, I quickly found a link to the Mystic River Watershed Association and their stewardship of the local anadromous herring run. While my initial thoughts were self-centered and focused on the potential for herring-hound stripers to be chasing bait nearly to my doorstep, as I poked around on their website, I became interested in their data and the possibility of participating in their herring quantification efforts. Below, you can see that the local run has generally increased in recent years. To me, the most interesting data reveals the timing of the run(s), and the importance of local weather, water temperature and (possibly) moon phase to the number of active fish over the course of the season. I have already optimistically fished below the dam separating Upper from Lower Mystic Lake a few times. Perhaps overly optimistically and prematurely, but surely there's a good chance that I will eventually run into some stripers (or perhaps some real bucketmouth bass) with an appetite for herring here. Regardless, I want to be there when it goes down! My last trip to the dam (chronicled at the April 26, 2020 entry at www.numenonfunfishing.com/numenonfunfishing) featured some cormorants in addition to the bald eagle(s) and the osprey I am used to seeing here. They all expected some fish to be around. The historical graphs above seem to indicate that the local run here has likely started, but really hasn't kicked in. Water temperatures still need to creep up just a tiny bit, we need some sustained sunshine, and I need to pay continued attention to moon phase. Let favorable conditions coincide during the few days preceding a full moon, and I suspect I might have a chance at some quality swim-bait or topwater action, close to home! Meanwhile, I am spending some time helping to estimate the herring runs for 2019 and 2020 at www.mysticherring.org/video#/ . I am confident in my ability to carefully observe and count, and I enjoy simply seeing the herrings swim by. After about 250 short videos and over 6,000 herrings counted, my time helped refine the estimated run for 2019 and the associated margin of error. Science! Double meanwhile, I became aware (via a comment on a recent On the Water magazine article) of a similar effort for Town Brook in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Their live camera is located at www.plymouth-ma.gov/marine-and-environmental-affairs/pages/fish-camera There have been plenty of live herring to observe so far in 2020 in this smaller, warmer watershed. I've lent time to their counting efforts, too, and I am curious how the magnitude of this run will compare to that documented on the Mystic. I never thought I'd ever aspire to be a Herring King. I also never thought I'd be quarantined during a pandemic. While these are indeed strange times, I guess this is just one way for me to make the most of them. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways With the current, sensible restrictions on travel and making contact with loved ones, I'm not presently generating too much material that I feel is worth writing about. Most of my musings are oriented towards the future, but who really knows what the future holds, or in what time frame? There will be time to share these thoughts and the subsequent actions they will have spurred at another time. However, I did enjoy looking back at my old records and recollecting some of my past antics a couple of posts ago. So, here I turn to the past, again, and present a few other formative, fondly remembered periods in my fishing history***, based on upon contemporaneous records that I had maintained and have now recovered. Big Fish Dominance; 2003 - 2005 My first fish in Michigan (pictured at top) was a teenager of a King Salmon off the Grand Haven pier in mid-September, 1985. This was the biggest and best-fighting fish I'd ever encountered, and I was hooked! I did a lot of pier fishing between 1985 and 1990, when I bought my first boat. Between 1990 and 1995 or so, though, just about all of my Big Lake ventures were along the shoreline for brown trout in April or May. This was fun, but limiting. In 1996 or so, I added a single down-rigger to Mrs. Paul, and between 1996 and 2002, I really pursued Great Lakes trout and salmon with vigor and passion. In 2003, I purchased Numenon. With her superior seaworthiness and up-to-date rigging, I was able to really chase these fish, given at least reasonable weather conditions. 1. Ludington's Gander Mountain Offshore Classic, July 12-13, 2003 Numenon made her tournament debut here, and made a mark for herself in the first three hours of the tournament. Fishing shorthanded, with only good friend EG in the boat with me, we knew that combined limits of trout and salmon (10 fish a day, with only 6 salmon) might be difficult to accomplish with at least 150 other boats competing for the same fish. We decided to focus on the "Big Fish" aspect of the tournament, while specifically targeting mature King Salmon. These decisions paid off, handsomely, as we started on a pretty good run of tournament success. "The Point" about seven miles north of Ludington's harbor is fabled salmon territory, and with over 150 boats chasing money, prestige and bragging rights, conditions there at the start of the tournament were super crowded! These conditions brought out the worst in many, and were not enjoyable, at all. But fish were obviously being caught, and we really didn't have a viable backup plan, so we continued to grind it out, here. After a couple of fishless hours, we finally broke the ice with a smallish laker, and at 8:30 AM, we noted that the crowd was thinning out, as boats left in search of offshore trout. In my experience, the biggest salmon are vulnerable between 8 and 9 AM. Sure, they bite well during the dark hours surrounding dawn, but so is everything else. You might be busily catching ordinary trout and salmon during prime time. But, the big girls need to continue eating, and I've often caught the biggest salmon of the day during Second Breakfast. At about 8:40 AM, our deepest rigger rod jumped. Loaded with a dark green flasher/fly combination, 85 feet down over about 92 feet of water, I grabbed it quickly and wound tight to the fish before it knew it was hooked. When it screamed off, into the distance, we knew we were on to a very good fish, and we were doubly glad that the boat traffic had thinned out. The line counter indicated 540 feet of line out; fortunately, there was an open pocket behind our stern. E cleared the other lines while I fought this fish; and we pretty much knew we'd taken the "Big Fish" prize for the tournament when she finally hit the deck. I guestimated a weight "over 25 pounds", while E said 27. As described in the Ludington Daily News, she officially weighed in at a "jaw-dropping" 29.2 pounds, and she was worth $3000 in the Big Fish Division. We fished hard for the rest of the tournament, and despite a very difficult, two-fish day on Sunday, cashed a check for another $400 for our 18th Place team finish, overall. Not a bad debut! 2. Ludington's Gander Mountain Offshore Classic/West Shore Bank Youth Classic, July 9, 2004 We had our first opportunity to fish the "Youth" tournament in 2004; it had been"blown out" in 2003. Crewed by A, both K and M were entered in this "single fish", fun tournament. K was almost 11, had some good Great Lakes fishing experience under her belt, and was ready to jump into the competition. As we approached the southern portion of the shelf off The Point, I set the first rod; a "Secret Weapon Rig" (a downrigger rod with two colors of leadcore line as part of the leader) off the first rigger. It was equipped with a white/glow Bechold flasher and a "green pickle" fly, my most dependable combination for deep Kings. After offering a little guidance on navigation (boats, whitefish nets, etc. presented a variety of hazards), I returned to the back of the boat with Rod No. 2 when I saw the only rod we had fishing start to buck. Once I had the fish off the rigger, I handed the rod to K, who did an expert job in fighting what would turn out to be The Winning Fish. Before 6:30 AM, 23.95 pounds of King Salmon hit the deck, and any pressure I felt for the day was gone. We enjoyed a great and productive day, and we were able to relax. M caught a nice, 13-pound salmon, and we found another group of unpressured fish in the uncrowded, deep water to the south of port. As reported by the Ludington Daily News on Saturday, July 10, 2004, "K... stood head and shoulders above the rest with her 23.95-pound Chinook salmon, caught aboard the Numenon with her father, Steve, who won the big fish division last year with a 29-pound king... The $1,000 savings bond from West Shore Bank didn't diminish her smile, either." As a bonus, later that weekend, we scored a 7th-place finish in the Big Fish Division with a 20.75-pound King. That made Numenon the only vessel/team to score a Top-10 Finish in the Big Fish Division for consecutive years! 3. Ludington's Gander Mountain Offshore Classic/West Shore Bank Youth Classic, July 22-24, 2005 This was probably the pinnacle year for this tournament, with over 250 boats fishing over the course of the weekend. My kids were likely competitive swimming, and EG's kids were growing up, so I fished the Youth tournament out of Numenon with E and his young son, H. We had a nice (albeit choppy) morning, and I got a kick out of watching H pick up his 4th-place prize ($500) for a 15.2-pound King. We'd taken that fish near bottom, on meat in about 85 feet of water, north towards The Point. At the time, H was only 5 years old, or so, clueless and tired after a very early morning. But he'd done a good job holding onto the rod and cranking! And, E and I developed a plan for catching some more fish on meat rigs over the next couple of days; this was our first tournament experience with these flasher/teaser/herring combinations, and we were developing faith in them! The real tournament began the next day, and E and I fished with DC out of his bigger, faster and more spacious Lund, the Trident. On Day 1, we were in excellent position with six Kings to 16.25 pounds and a steelie by 10 AM; we had all day to go find some more chrome. We moved offshore and found the fish; but we couldn't land them! Karma suffered, to say the least; we had missed an opportunity to do our best. Our day was not really helped by the cluster at weigh-in; 250 boats coming in at the same time into a narrow river to weigh their fish was not a good plan. Tremendous thunderstorms overnight resulted in a huge leftover swell; the 6-o'clock start time was met with increasing wind and 6-foot seas. Unbelievably, after waiting a half hour, they sent us out to fish, only to call us back in at about 11 AM. Nobody should have fished, and a 23-foot boat ended up sinking. But we were fortunate to set up on some biting fish, and in the shortened session we went 5-for-8 on Kings, often running just 2 or 3 lines at a time because of conditions. Despite our issues, we finished 19th out of 171 amateur boats and a small check; and in 7th for the Big Fish Division for another Top Ten Finish and another few hundred dollars. (Unfortunately, despite the good group performance for the weekend, this was The End of salmon tournament fishing for DC, and I'm not sure I ever had E and D in the same boat, again. As the kids grew up and my back deteriorated, my participation in these tournaments began to flag. When I hired on at C's in 2012, my serious Great Lakes fishing was just about done.) July 4, 2007 with Tim Almost 13 years after the fact, I still remember this particular session fondly. It boiled down to simple fun, productive fishing with an important friend under difficult conditions. Plus, I received ichthyological accolades and my pants fell off! What a day! Big north and east winds at the end of June had "rolled over" the water along West Michigan's coast. On Sunday, July 1, a friend and I scored just a single, nine-pound salmon during a trip out of Muskegon, Michigan. Our efforts were somewhat constrained on all sides by super-chilled onshore water (in the mid-40s) and an unfavorable offshore forecast. With the local tournament scheduled for July 14 and 15, our practice was off to a slow start! My initial Great Lakes Trout and Salmon Mentor, Tim, joined me aboard Numenon for the 4th of July. We were greeted at the Muskegon pierheads with fog, rain and 4- to 6-foot rollers. With such conditions but favorably cool water temperatures (52-54 degrees F) just outside the river, staging King Salmon were our target. It took an hour, but finally in about 55 feet of water, just to the south of the piers, we doubled up on steelies between 6 and 9 pounds. These had both eaten in the upper 25 feet of the water column. After a bit more of a dry spell, and with nothing on the graph, we decided to turn west and make a total commitment to steel. All six lines were repositioned in the upper 25 feet and I picked up the pace on the throttle. Between 80 and 100 feet of water, in slightly warmer water temperatures of 54-57 degrees, we punched our limit tickets with five steelhead, two kings, two fat coho salmon and a single laker. My notes indicate that a little bit of a scum-line/slick was forming at about 85 feet of water as we took our last five fish. And while our fish never broke the 10-pound mark, they averaged nearly seven pounds; and going fast for surface-oriented fish with gear on the light side was always my preference for fun, Great Lakes fishing. Plus, we were still about the only boat out there! Back at the ramp, a DNR Creel Lady checked our catch. She did not believe my initial report that we had a couple of coho; surely, I was mistaken. But as she checked our catch, she admitted that they were, indeed, coho salmon, the first she'd seen for Muskegon that season. Feeling pretty good about things, I zoomed back to Earth when my pants unexpectedly and quickly raced for my ankles as I pulled the boat onto the trailer. Fortunately, she was absorbed in her paperwork as Tim and I pulled Numenon out of the water for the day. I'd begun my Great Lakes boat-fishing career under Tim's guidance, and I learned a lot from him. Admittedly, a good portion of that was what NOT to do, but we did share many good catches and laughs. This might have been my last fishing trip with Tim. He was retired at this point, and he moved to Las Vegas soon thereafter. There were many reasons to remember this trip, but having shared it with Tim makes it that much more special! November 18, 2007; End of Season Bonus On what would be my last boat-fishing trip of the season, I took advantage of the sun and modest winds to try to find some late-season silver fish. Of course, the conditions on the lake out of Muskegon were a bit more severe than they'd seemed in Grand Rapids, and I quickly found out that, given the easterly winds, I was unable to control my boat, alone, once I reached 40 feet of water, or so. Still, while I was figuring this out, I did catch a two-pound coho salmon on a shallow down-rigger. At least I knew there were some fish to be caught! That week's Muskegon Chronicle had run a story about "shad" running the Mona Lake outlet. I decided to try a Spring Brown Trout Program near this tiny creek. As I approached this area after a several-mile run along the shore, I noticed a bit of a color change and lots of birds! There was definitely something going on! With water temperatures between 44 and 48 degrees F and plenty of bait evident, it really did seem like a Prime Spring Day for Brown Trout! I set a spread with two planer boards and a flat line with various Rapala stick-baits and small spoons. Fishing between 10 and 15 feet of water at basic brown trout speeds of 2.0 - 2.6 mph, I ended my day with ten fish (all released) for a total weight of at least 75 pounds. Only one was a brown trout, but she was a beauty at an estimated nine pounds. A single lake trout came aboard, but the remaining seven fish were all beautiful, chrome steelhead between eight and 10 pounds. Size 7 sinking Rapalas in gold/black and silver/black dominated the catching; these same lures had saved my trip the previous weekend, when they had put the hurt on Benzie County's Crystal Lake's trout population, including both lakers and rainbows. Simply said, what a day! What a way to end the season! Although, when I came back home and reviewed my records, I realized this had left me two fish short of the Century Mark for the 2007 Season. I'd left something on the table, and had I known that, I'd have stayed for a couple more bites! *** Pre-dating my blogging activities Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways Like millions of others, I've recently had cause to hunker down at home. I've used this time to take on some chores that would have otherwise been left undone, and this has produced some beneficial results. For instance, unlike previous moves, I've culled some nonessential objects, and I've (nearly) hyper-organized the remaining goods. I've actually cleaned the extra stall in the garage, and one can walk about most of the cellar without fear of tripping or toppling a pile of precious cargo. One of the specific (but minor) benefits of these activities was finding a variety of old maps and files, including variations of my fishing journals dating back as far as 1988. I've thumbed through these, and I thought I'd commemorate some of the more meaningful sessions that were contemporaneously documented. So, here it goes; but please forgive the photography, these are pictures of old pictures! January 11, 1988 Gull Lake - Richland, Michigan For Christmas of 1987, I received the gift of an 8-inch Mora ice auger. I'm still using it today, but I used it a ton in that first ice season of 1987-1988. Prior, I had relied on the kindness of others with augers, had used old holes, or had chopped my way through the ice with a chisel or spud. In 1988, I was in West Michigan for graduate school, and I had convenient access to Gull Lake in Kalamazoo County. It's a beautiful lake with big fish potential (especially for pike and bluegills), and at the time was being used as a potential brood stock lake for Atlantic Salmon. Needless to say, I spent more than my fair share of time on Gull's ice that winter. My notes indicate that January 10, 1988 was cold, sunny, and productive (for others) for pike on the "Bible Bay" portion of Gull. I lost a running pike on a tip-up; it had eaten a dead, headless supermarket smelt near the bottom. Otherwise, I went fishless, but apparently I noticed somebody catching an Atlantic; and I gleaned the fact that it had eaten a gold teardrop jig tipped with a waxworm intended for bluegills. I also learned that it had eaten about 15 feet below the ice; we were standing over about 35 feet of water. I spent the afternoon of January 11, 1988 on that same ice, in somewhat warmer (27-30 degrees F), but cloudier, conditions. The pike fishing was slower, and I moved about with a jigging Rapala targeting pike and/or with a white/orange teardrop with wax-worm targeting deep 'gills. About mid-afternoon, I moved my small jig up to 12-feet below the ice (I had marked the distance on my line prior to leaving the house) and kept it in constant motion. In the next hour, I went 2-for-3 on Atlantic Salmon between 15 and 22 inches. These were tremendous fish for me at that time, and any ice fishing success was welcomed. Using a 4.5-foot ultralight rod with 4-pound test baited with various jigs, spoons, waxies and minnows at various locations around Gull Lake produced 22 salmon to about 26 inches over the duration of the season. That reliable fishery continued for several years, and I expanded my chase to the open waters of spring and fall. Unfortunately, a hatchery disease terminated this experimental fishery. The good news is that Atlantics took hold as a result of this program in the St. Mary's River at the outlet of Lake Superior as well as at other isolated locations around Lakes Michigan and Huron. I was even fortunate to catch (and recognize) several Atlantic Salmon in later years while trolling for Great Lakes salmon and trout. Interestingly enough, each of these was caught in Grand Haven, despite the fact that I fished up and down the West Michigan coast every season. February 10, 1988 Gull Lake - Richland, Michigan Fishing that same bay in the afternoon, with an approaching snow storm that would dump about 12 inches of snow overnight, I pulled 10 bluegills from the same hole in the hour before darkness. All were within a foot of the bottom in about 35 feet of water. What was remarkable; their size. I recorded one over 10 inches and a pair over 9. I remember tracing the outline of the 10-incher in my notebook; all that remains are the traces of paper that cling to the wire binder when one rips out a page. Oh well, those were among the last gills that I kept and cleaned for myself; and among the last BIG bluegills I've encountered in Michigan. Gull Lake taught me to respect bluegills and those who pursue them. I just got too busy chasing larger fish! December 6, 1995 Grand River - downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan I'd been in Michigan for about a decade by this point, and I still had a bad case of Trout and Salmon Fever. But I'd become dismayed with local steelheading; the prevailing methods of long rods, light line and bait (roe) had produced only sporadic success for me, and I'd had too many fish escape via missed hooksets or broken lines. But when an older co-worker finally invited me to join him for an afternoon on the river (I had faithfully and selflessly helped him launch his boat a dozen times or more during my lunch break), I was quick to say Yes!. Fred offered a different way of targeting these fish, swinging homemade French spinners on stout gear with 17-pound line. I wanted to give that a try. Plus, from his boat, I didn't have to worry so much about water levels and wading; this is a treacherous stretch of river bottom, and I only confidently waded during lower water flows. Let me state this; December 6, 1995 was bright and sunny in Grand Rapids, but brutally cold and windy. I expected that Fred would cancel and reschedule; but I guess I really didn't know him at that point. Not only would we be going, but because he had blocked off 4 hours of vacation time for the trip, we would be fishing for a minimum of four hours. (Travel, launch, gear prep, etc. were all in addition to the fishing.) I'll be damned; at our first spot near the top of the Center Run below the 6th Street dam, my quietly swinging size-4 spinner hesitated. I set the hook, and instead of a snag, it was a fish! It turned out to be a 9-pound hen, and it was my biggest river trout to date. Apparently, I missed another, and Fred took two for a combined 17 pounds during our inaugural session together. Good action on nice fish! I don't necessarily recall those details, but this day changed the way I fish for river trout. I've rarely fished for steelies or trout with bait, since. I love swinging spinners, streamers and plugs for trout of any type! My relationship with Fred continued for a few more years, until he retired. He seriously outfished me in our time together (he landed 13 steelies, while I only landed 8 while together in his boat), but the records clearly indicate that I had a better landing percentage than he did, and while I netted a whopping 13.5-pounder on January 19, 1997 for him, I caught an even larger steelie approaching 15 pounds while wading with Fred in early April of that year. So, I held my own with my Steelhead Mentor in our time together. July 25, 1999 Lake Michigan - Manistee, Michigan In the late 1990's, most of my fishing time was spent chasing Trout and Salmon on Lake Michigan. I'd experienced Spring Brown Trout from shore and started chasing them in earnest from my original boat, Mrs. Paul, in April 1990. Other friends had slightly bigger boats, and I'd join them whenever possible; and in August 1996, I added a downrigger to my boat. Each trip was an adventure. At first, catching a fish from Lake Michigan's empty vastness seemed miraculous. But, as I learned more about the fish and the habitat, I was able to eliminate water and focus on areas with higher probability of success. As I gained experience and confidence, I added tools and perspective, reaching a point, at about this time, where I'd developed opinions and methods that built on my success and failures. And so on this beautiful morning, I headed out with good friend, DC, aboard his 18-foot Lund Pro-V. Equipped with two (!) down riggers and six (!!) rod holders, we steamed out of port and headed south. It was a Tournament Day out of Manistee, and most boats headed north. We wanted some quiet water for ourselves. The first thing I did when we settled into out patch of water in depths of about 100 feet was to develop a temperature profile with my new, hand-held thermometer/pressure transducer gadget. I sent it down on a downrigger and slowly retrieved it; I then, for the first time, recorded the temperature for my own purposes on Lake Michigan in my trusty, waterproof notebook. The resulting profile was not encouraging; the water was 70 degrees down to 60 feet; 60 degrees down to 85 feet; and 52 degrees at the end of our cable and recording capability, 100 feet below the surface. And while not encouraging, this did eliminate a lot of water, and so we set our lines deep. We quickly caught two fish on green glow spoons, 80 to 105 feet down on downriggers. The first was a 4-pound lake trout, but the second was a hyper-aggressive, giant King Salmon. This beast later scaled out at 26 pounds on the DNR scale. A fish like that made our day, if not our season! Later in the morning, we found another pod of deep fish over about 120 feet of water. These all ate spoons, too, off our deepest rigger set at 105 feet. These included a bigger, 6-pound lake trout and King Salmon of 2 and 10 pounds. The moral of this story, as embraced by me in my subsequent salmon fishing efforts, was to eliminate water via data and then utilize the best available, remaining option. In this case, by fishing much deeper than we were used to at the time, we were producing some quality action. And we knew why! But the corollary to the moral tale is that one never knows; and since we were allowed two rods a piece, we'd been trailing a magnum Green Dolphin Dreamweaver spoon, presented on a full 10 colors of lead core line, off the back of our spread. It was out of the way and fishing for us throughout; why not leave it out there, even if we thought it might not be reaching the desired depth and temperature? Because it was what we had for gear and options at the time, but this lure was also swimming in a zone where we were marking a lot of baitfish. We knew salmon would feed "out of temperature" for short periods. Maybe they were feeding on the bait visible on our sonar? At about 8:30 AM that morning, the full core rod jumped to life for the only time that session. After an epic battle, 32 pounds, 9 ounces of King Salmon hit the deck; only 38 inches long, it was in prime shape. This is the largest documented salmon that I have ever caught. This fish just about broke the heart of the guy at the tackle shop where we weighed in. He knew we'd caught it out of temperature; he knew we were not in the tournament and that we'd missed out on several thousand dollars; and he, himself, aspired to catching a 30-pounder, but had not. It probably hurt him a bit to see two rubes catching such a fish; but there was clearly more to the catch than he believed. We'd eliminated water; we'd believed the data we were given; we'd maximized our ability to execute; and we'd slightly hedged our bets. Seasonality; temperature; bait; and presentation. That's "all" there is to Great Lakes Salmon fishing success! From this date on, I was a Salmon Addict and a Data Junkie. My confidence and success both soared; and other than vacation-time stripers, I pursued little else for the next decade or so. August 13 and 14, 2006 Casco Bay, Maine My striper fishing experiences started in 2001, but my access to them was limited by time and geography. For the first decade of the new Millennium, virtually all of my striper fishing was limited to the quiet waters of Maine's Casco Bay, and virtually all of that experience was based from the float at the end of our property association's landing. I enjoyed my time down there (I still do!), and I spent virtually every possible extended dawn and dusk on the float, trying to coax some stripers to bite. By 2006, I'd made most of the mistakes that were available to me in this pursuit, and had settled into a pattern of presenting available live baits on appropriately light tackle. I expected success, and I had caught more stripers than I'd ever imagined. I still believed in fishing at dawn and dusk, but I'd started paying more attention to other conditions, such as tide cycle and water temperature. Everything I suspected I'd learned came together on the evenings of August 13 and 14, 2006. In two, three-hour sessions over these two evenings, I fooled 60 stripers into biting and landed 43 of them. These were not large, topping out at a recorded 25.5 inches, but they kept me busy from 7 PM into full darkness each night. Sandworms under lighted slip floats did the trick. The conditions I'd keyed in on included the second half of the falling tide at this location; current flowing to the east; and water temperatures in the very low 60s. I was learning and confirming that "Quadrant II" on the Tide Clock rules at this location, and I've paid extra special attention to specific tide stages at specific locations ever since; I've learned that any spot can turn totally "on" or "off" based on the the very specific conditions at any given spot at any given tidal stage. Developing a Milk Run of successful spots based on tide cycle is a primary strategy of mine, now. As if to prove my point, the next evening, as the timing of the favorable tide and light conditions started to diverge, I caught only three small stripers. The biters had moved through and were undoubtedly wreaking havoc somewhere else! And I was stuck on the dock! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways I am not much of a fly fisherman. I am certainly not averse to it, I've just never convinced myself that it is either a superior method of fishing, or generally more enjoyable. To me, it's simply another way to enjoy this great, multifaceted distraction. It's also another tool in the tool box, and should certainly be utilized when appropriate for the task at hand. Still, it's been over a decade since I've delivered a fly with the long rod. In fact, other than a recent casting practice session on the lawn of the local high school, I'd not even touched my fly rod since a 2008 trip to Montana. I'm still not sure I could ever match the experience described in the third-from-last paragraph in my description of that trip; check out numenon.blogspot.com/2012/10/out-west.html. But maybe I am finally getting ready to make some new fly-fishing memories of a different sort. This winter has been in-between; no local safe ice, too cold and windy for enjoyable or productive shore fishing (especially for somebody new to the area), too sloppy to expect to travel North comfortably, and so forth. But the clock continues, and it's been over four months since I've successfully casted to a fish. I feel that in my bones. And so, I daydream. And one of those daydreams somehow morphed itself into some (admittedly manic) action. I decided that I should try catching school stripers on my fly rod, especially if I am trapped inshore by the wind (which seems pretty likely given my experiences on Cape Cod in the spring and fall.) A simple approach to this would be to wait until spring, remember to string up the rod before my first trip to the Cape, tie on a straight and short fluorocarbon leader, and pick up a couple of flies on the way to the water. My mid-winter self has turned this into a time-consuming, sprawling project in which I've acquired a few new fly-tying skills, poured a few hundred dollars into supplies, and have generated several dozen Clouser-style flies in a variety of sizes, colors, weights, materials and sparseness. Well, this has been fun, at least in a get-through-winter kind of way. I've also added a dozen or so teaser-style flies for surf fishing and sea-bass jigging. I've added some small and sparse Clousers for tossing at albies with a casting egg, or to add as a teaser with my skipping epoxy jigs. There's a good chance that these flies could pay off in multiple ways as I pursue my 2020 goals. Speaking of which, I'll officially add another to the list presented in a previous post; here's to capturing a striper on the fly rod with a self-made fly! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways |
Steve LachanceVia Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Michigan and now, back to New England! Archives
June 2024
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