NUMENON |
PONDERING CORE ESSENCE
NUMENON |
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
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Steve LachanceVia Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Michigan and now, back to New England! Archives
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