Monday, May 24, 2010

One of Those Days

This past Thursday I worked a half-day so that I could spend a good long chunk of time on Thornapple Lake.  With my muskie and bass gear all set up, I stopped home to change and grab the boat, and then started off on the hour long trip down to the lake.  When I finally arrived at the launch, I found the site packed with huge trucks, piles of gravel, and big cement slabs.  The launch was closed for repair.  I allowed myself a brief tantrum in the face of my misfortune and then I remembered a county park across the lake that also had a launch.  I found the park and the launch, but there was one sign that said that the park closed at 5:00 and another that said that it closed at 3:00.  It was 2:00.  I didn't want to risk getting locked in, so I weighed my options and decided to try Campau.

After another drive that took close to an hour, I dropped the boat into Campau Lake.  I dodged a couple of speed boats as I headed straight across the lake to fish the west shore.  I quickly noticed that I was constantly bouncing around in the wakes of these speed boats as they cruised the perimeter of this small lake.  The noise was ridiculous.  I didn't last 20 minutes.  I knew the river was still high, but I'd rather take my chances out there than flop around in the chop of these big boats all day.

On my way up to the river, I made a conscious decision just to calm down and relax.  I should have started fishing two hours ago, but getting all frustrated wasn't going to help anything.  I picked my way through the traffic on the beltline and was at a small Grand River launch off of Knapp Street in no time.  My plan was to try a new section of river just up stream from my normal stretch.  The river was still dirty and running a little high, but it looked fishable.  I ran down river first.  There was a group of guys fishing above a snag who said that they had picked up a couple of channels, so that was good news.  I continued on until I reached a small cove that I thought might hold a few pike.  I didn't find any Northerns, but I did see a ton of gar pike.  I messed around with them for awhile just because they were there, but I didn't really expect to hook into any of them.  As a matter of fact, I don't think that I really wanted to.

Next, I headed up into that new section of river.  I found it to have some nice bends and one really deep hole.  I took note of a few snags as I rode up river.  When I felt like I had traveled far enough, I settled in above a nice little snag.  I cast out a couple of hooks loaded with cut chub.  I quickly got a hit and pulled in a channel cat that pushed 5 pounds.  I picked up one more from this snag.  I tried another snag just down river from the first one, but the current was a lot stronger here so I didn't give it too much time.  The final snag that I fished up there was a beauty.  The high water had pushed a ton of wood up against the top edge of a small island and completely across a small channel between the island and the shore.  I got hit immediately and then hit again on the other pole when I was reeling in the first fish.  It was quite a trick getting both fish in on my bass spinning gear.  I had to hold one rod and reel between my knees and switch back and forth, cranking each reel to keep tension on both lines.  I got both fish in and they each weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 5 pounds.

I had similar results in the final blowdown that I tried.  I caught two more same sized fish and got into one more, but the line was cut clean.  It was either a channel that ran me across something sharp or more likely a pike.  I tried live chubs after dark in hopes that the flatties were moving.  I didn't find any.  It turned out to be a decent, but not too exciting evening on the river.  Channels are nice because they're consistent, but they don't get huge above the 6th Street Dam.  Fishing for them gets all too predictable.  I'm ready for the flatties to get active.  I'll go after them tonight when the wife gets home to relieve me of kid duty.  The river was at 62 degrees when I was out on Thursday and it's only going to get warmer with the hot weather that we are having.  We're in a stretch of days in the high 80's.  Just what we needed.  The flathead fishing is about to come into full swing.  This might be why I found it so easy to remain calm when my day turned into such a debockle.  It's that time of year when the fishing improves a little every day.  I'm knocking on the door of a fresh new season.  Life is good.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Old Faithful


It turns out that I picked a pretty tough day to try out the bayous.  Despite the fact that the weatherman was calling for windy and cold weather this past Friday, I took the day off of work and headed out early.  For the sake of full disclosure, I should admit that I got lost on the way to the launch.  I got off at the Nunica exit and headed south.  I was looking for a stop sign where I would turn right onto Leonard.  That stop sign didn't exist, so I flew right by my turn.  I knew something was wrong when I crossed the river.  I eventually figured it out and arrived at the launch at daybreak.  No harm, no foul.

The current was swift and the water looked pretty dirty.  I knew it would be because we've had rain recently.  Still, it was really pushing hard past the dock and I wondered if I'd have trouble getting the boat back on the trailer.  There would be time to worry about that later.  I messed around in the river for awhile, trying a jig and minnow for walleye.  It seemed fruitless with all of that dirty water flying under the boat, so I headed down to the bayous.  On my map, it looked like I'd have a little bit of a ride to get to them, but Stearns was just down river.  Next is the small Millhouse Bayou which I tried briefly.  Pottawatomie is the third of the 3 spots that I tried.  After a brief run through Millhouse, I went back up to Stearns where I spent most of my day.  It's a long, narrow piece of water with a few small bays.  The 30 mph winds were blowing directly across it, so fishing was difficult all day long.  Boat control was impossible and I was frustrated enough to determine that I will definitely save up for a bow mount trolling motor next year.  It's just too much of a handicap to go without.

I won't spend a lot of time talking about my first day on the bayous.  It didn't go very well.  I fished everything in the tackle box plus live chubs under a bobber.  All I had to show for it was a 14-inch bass and another similar size bass that came off at boatside.  The pike were non-existent.  My initial response was that I'm not going to bother going back.  Further reflection on the cold front and powerful winds has lead me to believe that it is still worth trying.  I hit a bad day.  Next time out I'll take advantage of a more stable weather pattern and hopefully find some feeding fish.

It turns out that the day wasn't a total loss thanks to my old friend the channel catfish.  After I was worn out with the bayous, I anchored just up and across river from the launch.  The current was a little slower here and I was sitting in about 7 feet of water.  I cut a chub in half and put each piece on a 5/0 kahle hook.  It didn't take long to get a good thump on one of the rods.  I didn't hook up, but I was encouraged.  A little later I was on the phone with Mort telling him about the woes of my day when one of my rods jumped to life.  With a quick, "Fish!  Gotta go!" I hung up on him and grabbed the pole.  The fish felt big, but maybe it was the current.  I got it under the boat and went into a flathead like stalemate.  It held bottom for quite awhile.  While I was fighting that fish, another fish brought my second rod to life.  I saw that it had hooked itself, so I loosened the drag a little bit and finished the battle with the first fish.  When it finally surfaced, I could tell right away that it was much bigger than the channels that I see in my section of the river.  I netted it and left it in the net at the bow of the boat so that I could go after channel number 2.  This one came in a little easier and luckily I was able to grab it without a net.  The first fish ended up weighing in at 11 pounds and the second one weighed 7.  Not a bad 15 minutes.  After I got my picture and both fish back in the water, I called Mort back to fill him in.  I got several more hits in that spot over the next hour or so, but I couldn't hook up with anything.  They kept stealing my bait which made me wonder if it was just turtles.

While I was impressed with the channel cat fishing in this section of river, I wasn't thrilled with the number of boats and people that were around.  The park with the launch was absolutely packed with cars well after dark and there were a couple of boats flying around the river with obnoxious kids yelling and generally being rude.  I sound like a crotchety old man, but it just wasn't the solitude that is such an important part of my fishing experience.  It did end up being pretty tough getting the boat back on the trailer.  The current was pushing the boat against the PVC guide so hard, I feared that it would snap.  Thankfully, it held and I concluded my trip with everything in good shape.  I'll hit those bayous again, but I think my next trip is going to be to Deer Creek Park for more of those huge channels.  I'm going to see if Mort wants to come with me.  This is a quiet section not too far up river from where I fished on Friday.  We should be able to get the monster fish and the all important solitude all in one spot.  Sounds like heaven.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Creek Chubs Close to Home

The family took a little walk yesterday evening that ultimately ended up along the creek at my neighbors' house.  As I stood by to make sure that Lincoln didn't tumble head first into the water, I noticed that creek chubs were swimming in and out from under the bottom of a cement retaining wall.  We completed our walk and I suggested to Hayden and Luke that we grab a pole and see if we can catch some of them.  They were pretty excited to give it a try and there was no way that Linc was staying home, so the whole family headed back over.

I dropped the baited hook down next to the opening where I saw the chubs earlier and immediately 3 or 4 of them shot out to grab it.  I hooked one and let Luke hoist it up.  Hayden was next.  We dropped the bait down again when a monster of a creek chub came flying out, shot right past the worm, and smacked the small bobber on the surface.  We eventually hooked that fish and I let Lincoln reel it up, but it dropped off and skidded down the wall.  It suffered a little road rash, but it swam away looking healthy.  We caught a nice half dozen before I started to get the feeling that Michelle was over it and ready to go home.  With no need for bait in the near future, we let all of the fish go.  I figured that now that I know where they are, I can drop a trap in there with a little puppy food and get all I need the night before my next trip.  Nice to know I have easy access to such a valuable bait.

Each night when I put Luke to bed, he likes me to make up a story for him.  When I finished my story last night I said something like, "You'll probably dream about creek chubs tonight, Luke."  He immediately started dry heaving.  I sat up and looked at him and asked, "What are you doing?"  He said, "Dad, you almost made me throw up when you said that I was going to drink creek chubs."  That kid kills me.

A Go At Campau Lake

I spent Wednesday evening on Campau Lake in hopes of tangling with a muskie or two.  I brought all of my big lures and my muskie rod and reel, along with some smaller bass gear.  It was a nice night with a lot of sun and quite a bit of wind.  I did forget my temp sensor, so I'm not sure of the water temperature.

I dedicated the first couple of hours to fishing the bluegill pattern Super Shad.  I was kind of feeling out the lake to get an idea of the topography.  I noticed that it is quite shallow on the north end with weeds already reaching the surface in places.  Most of the shoreline was bordered by a nice shallow flat that ran 4 to 6 feet.  This should be the place where the spring muskies are holding.

Something that I noticed right away was that the lake felt pretty small, and even smaller with the 10 or so boats fighting for real estate.  In addition to the people fishing, there were a couple of big speed boats circling the lake.  One blew by me so fast and so close I thought that I was going to start taking on water from its wake.  I had a few choice words for that guy.  After trying the shallows, I decided to do some trolling with the Super Shad.  I went right down the middle of Campau and then circled Kettle a few times.  I stopped to make a few casts before heading back over to Campau.  With my left hand wrapped around the reel, my pointer finger actually got sucked into the front of the free wheeling spool on one of my casts.  Oh that hurt!  I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, then pulled hard until I finally jerked it out.  I don't wrap my left hand around the reel when I cast anymore.  Anyway, there was no sign of any fish.  I switched to a Musky Mayhem Showgirl and fished it for a good hour, but she wasn't turning them on either.

I eventually decided that the big stuff wasn't doing it.  I traded to my bass gear and started slow rolling a spinner bait through the shallows.  Still nothing.  I tried a couple of shallow running crankbaits before finally trying out a perch pattern Storm Wildeye Kickin' Minnow.  Most of the boats had gone home, so I had the east shore all to myself.  This is the first time that I've fished with this bait, and I had some decent results.  The bass seemed to like it.  I caught 3 in about twenty minutes right at dusk.  My only concern is that the bass were really taking this thing deep, much like a plastic worm, and it has a treble hook on it.  It took a little extra work to get that mean hook out from deep in their mouths.  Luckily, I was able to release 3 healthy fish.

With my never say quit attitude, I decided to stay out until 11:00 fishing a live bluegill suspended off the bottom in 8 feet of water.  I set the clicker so that I could hear if something grabbed it and then went to the front of the boat and fan casted a buzzbait.  Fish were slapping the surface all night, but I don't know what they were and nothing ever hit either of my baits.  Didn't even have a brush with a muskie the whole outing.  I'm not too surprised.  I've had plenty of beginner's luck with these fish and it was bound to run out eventually.

With this trip as context, I read up on spring muskie fishing and I've come up with some new ideas.  It turns out that according to the articles I've read, the shallows were the place to fish.  What I was doing wrong was fishing too big of baits and running them too fast.  The guides who wrote the articles generally suggested shallow running baits retrieved in little bursts with long pauses.  One suggested jointed baits.  I picked up a couple of jointed Rapalas.  I'm eager to give them a go.  I also read about running Rat'l Traps through the shallows just fast enough to keep them out of the weeds.  Worth a try and I doubt that anybody else is using them.  The fish in Campau see a lot of the same baits day in and day out, so running something unfamiliar to them might just be enough to trigger a bite.

My final action that night was to probe the shallows with a spotlight to see if I could catch any muskies sleeping.  I found a few bass and thought that I had kicked up one muskie but when my eyes finally focused on the mass of fish shimering under the surface, it turned out to be a nasty old carp.  Campau isn't likely to become my prime muskie lake, but it's close to my house and they're in there.  It will be a nice place to try new techniques, hone my skills, and hopefully add to my muskie tally.

On the River With Hayden and Luke

This past Sunday Hayden actually asked me to take her for a boat ride out on the river.  I immediately liked the idea.  I asked Luke if he would want to come along and then gave my mom a call to see if the kids could stay with her overnight while I stayed out and fished for cats.  She said yes without hesitation.  We got a few things together, picked up a new life vest for Hayden, hooked up the boat, and headed north.

If I've learned anything about taking kids fishing, it's that keeping their time on the water limited and then filling that time with food and drinks is pretty vital to having a good trip.  I packed sandwiches, threw in some Gatorade, and let them each pick a snack.  I also arranged for my parents to pick the kids up after about an hour.  It all worked out perfectly.  Hayden took a little while to get her sea legs and I made her very nervous as I moved all over the boat and rocked it a little bit.  She eventually settled in, but she felt more secure sitting on the floor and stayed there for the duration.  Luke just wanted to drive the boat.  I let him steer us a couple hundred yards away from the launch and then we anchored to catch some bait and eat our sack dinner.  We caught one sucker.  Luke was already to thump it on the head and cut it up on the spot.  Hayden wanted nothing to do with that.  She said that she felt sorry for the fish and didn't think it was nice for me to kill it for bait.  I slipped it into the livewell and changed the subject.  When the kids were done eating, I took them for a little ride around the river.  Hayden liked going under the bridge.  Luke enjoyed sitting in my lap and steering.  The hour went pretty quickly and my parents showed up just as it started to sprinkle.  Good timing.

After I dropped the kids off, I went under the bridge to cut up my bait.  I checked the water temperature and was surprised that it had come up several degrees.  The temperature sensor read 62 degrees.  I thought that this would likely translate into fish.  I spent the first hour of my night at the snag across from the gun club.  All I got up there was a turtle gnawing on a piece of my cutbait.  At close to 10:00 I got a call from my dad saying that the kids were having a hard time settling in.  I talked to both of them.  Hayden sounded tired and exasperated with Luke.  Luke sounded a little homesick.  He said he wished that the room in Grandpa's house looked like his room.  I did my best to settle them both and it sounds like they were then able to calm down.  Either that or my parents were very patient with them and decided to let me fish.  I barely got a tap on the cutbait for the rest of the night.  Fortunately I decided to try some dipbait.  I threw out some Sonny's and pretty quickly got a nice tug.  I messed up the hookset and reeled in nothing but an empty dip worm.  After re-loading, I was able to stick a scrappy little fish.  I followed it up with one that was a little bigger.  By then it was close to midnight and I decided that I'd better head home so that I wouldn't have too rough of a start to my week.  I left thinking that I probably could have caught a lot more fish if I would have fished the Sonny's as my primary bait. 

It's hard to imagine that these fish were down there scavenging through the flats and passing up on those big, fatty pieces of sucker.  It doesn't make logical sense, but sometimes you have to forget logic and just try stuff.  I'll keep in mind that Sonny's is a great option on those nights when the fish are snubbing the cutbait. 

I loved having Hayden and Luke out there and especially that it seemed like a really good experience for them.  Once Hayden knew that we were going, she told all the neighbors.  She even made up little songs about going fishing.  It's a beautiful thing to see my kids get excited about being on the water.  I feel like they both had a great time and I think that keeping it to an hour left them wanting more.  The only thing I'll change next time is minimizing the sugar intake so they can settle in for Grandma and Grandpa.  Well, that and spiking their Gatorade with Children's Benadryl.   

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Accidental Muskie


With the new season just a week old, I ventured out onto Thornapple Lake this past Friday.  I spent another rough night on the couch so that I could get up early without waking Michelle.  The alarm was set for 4:00, but I woke up for about the 15th time at 3:45 and decided that I might as well just get up.  With no traffic, I made record time and was on the lake well before light.

The first thing that I did was check the water temperature and I found it to be 55 degrees.  I then loaded a 3-inch Berkley Alive Minnow on a jig and dinked around trying to find an active walleye.  With no luck by the time the sun finally rose, I decided to break in the new muskie gear.  I began by throwing a bluegill pattern Super Shad.  I liked the feel of the rod and the Cardiff casted and reeled like a dream.  I did get careless a couple of times and allowed myself to get some bird nests.  Nothing too terrible.  The worst one only took me a couple of minutes to pick out.  I tried a few other bucktail type lures after the Super Shad didn't cause any fish to show themselves.  After about 30 minutes of fishing with this big gear, I started to realize why the muskie guys say that this type of fishing is hard on the gear and hard on the fisherman.  My hands started getting tired and I could hear the rod creeking a little bit.  I stuck it out for at least another hour.  I watched some other muskie fishermen trolling and casting and noted that they weren't catching anything either.  I decided to give it a rest at around 10:00 and went back to the spinning gear.

In addition to the jig and minnow, I decided to drift a crawler harness a bit further behind the boat.  I held a rod in each hand and got into a rhythm with the boat as it bobbed in the waves.  I kind of excentuated the motion, pulling the spinner on the crawler harness in long jumps.  After 10 minutes, that rod got heavy and I felt a couple of big head jerks.  I wasn't under the illusion that this was a walleye for very long.  I had a pretty good idea that it was a pike or a muskie.  The fish stayed down for a long time and just swam with me as the boat drifted.  I made sure that the drag wasn't too tight and took my time with the big fish.  I kept an eye out behind me to make sure that I was keeping my distance from shore.  I didn't want to drop the anchor for fear that the fish would wrap the rope and get off.  After several minutes, it finally surfaced 15 feet behind the boat.  Once I had the fish up, I went ahead and dropped the anchor to keep from getting too shallow or running into shore.

I knew that I had my hands full with this fish, and especially with the old net that we have on our boat.  I managed to net the fish with little problem, but I immediately became worried about injuring it.  I got the hook out while the fish was still in the water, but it thrashed quite a bit and got itself tangled pretty bad in the mesh.  I really had to work hard to get it out of there, my last move being removing a large chunk of net from its mouth.  It seemed to want to bite anything that it could get its teeth into.  I snapped one quick picture, measured it at 38-inches and got it right back into the water.  It took quite awhile to get the fish revived, but it finally swam back down into the dark water.  If I'm going to go after these fish and really take care of them, I've got to get a good net.  I may ask for an advance on my Father's Day gift.

I fished for the rest of the day, targeting anything that might bite.  I threw spinner baits, numerous crankbaits, and spent a good portion of the day drifting for walleye.  I couldn't get anything going.  I went home feeling a bit unfulfilled.  While I was grateful to catch the muskie, I only did so by dumb luck.  I wasn't even targeting muskies when I caught it.  In fact, I hadn't caught a fish on purpose all day. Like most fishermen, I get quite a bit of satisfaction out of figuring out a pattern and using it to produce fish.  This early spring fishing is pretty tough.  The good news is that it improves with every new day.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Practically Skunked

My muskie starter kit was completed this week when the Shimano Cardiff 400 that I ordered finally arrived on Monday.  This lit my fire to go chase them, so I put together a plan to spend all day Friday on Thornapple Lake.  I'd have to get the boat from my parents' house, so while I was up there on Wednesday to pick it up I figured I might as well spend a few hours on the river.

Even though just about everything is open, including catch and release for bass, things still aren't hopping on the river.  When the fish get into their summer pattern a crawler at the end of your line will rarely go more than a few minutes before something finds it and picks it up.  I barely scraped up a couple of suckers to use for cutbait.  The only other fish that I caught in the 3 or 4 hours before dark was a 3-pound channel.  Still, my experience this year has been that slow days on the river doesn't necessarily mean slow nights.  The channels had come through for me each night no matter how bad the fishing was during the day.  I figured that the pattern would continue.

To make a long story short, I was dead wrong.  The Grand River catfish had a collective case of lockjaw.  I fished my 3 rods for 2 1/2 hours and never got a single bite.  Not a twitch, not a nudge, not a tap, not a tickle.  They were completely shut down.  The water temperature remained at 57 degrees, but the air temperature dropped down to 40 before I left at 11:30.  This must have had something to do with it.  I don't think I've ever had a night where I didn't even get a bite.  It was kind of amazing.  Wouldn't have called that one.  I consoled myself with the notion that this was really just a bonus trip and the real fishing was going to take place on Friday.  I planned on getting on the lake before sun up and staying out there until after sundown.

The best part of that whole night happened as I was leaving the house.  Luke asked to walk me out.  I said good-bye to him in the driveway and got in the Jeep to hit the road.  I looked up as I was backing out and he was sitting on the steps giving me thumbs up.  I can't exactly put to words why, but this really warmed my heart.  It was just a simple gesture from the little guy, but it brought to my mind that famous footage of JFK Jr. saluting his dad during the funeral procession.  I realize that Luke's dad is just some schmuck heading out fishing and not in the league of a fallen president.  I think it was more about the boy than the dad in this situation.  It was just a nice little reminder of how much I love that kid and how much our growing father-son relationship means to me.  The river sure wasn't good to me, but I went to bed feeling blessed that night.