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.

Scouting Trips

With the exception of a brief interruption this past weekend, we've had the longest stretch of sunny days that I can remember in all of my 36 Marches.  Thanks to my mom offering to have Luke overnight one night last week and Hayden overnight one night this week, I found myself with a couple of nice days where I only had 2 kids to tote around.  Since I can only fit 2 in the back of my Jeep with their car seats, I jumped on these opportunities to check out the lower end of the Grand River in neighboring Ottawa County.  My first trip took me along the north bank of the river, checking out launches on the side roads off of Leonard Street.  On my second trip I checked out the south bank and got a pretty good look at a couple of my prospective bayous.

I brought Hayden and Lincoln on my first outing.  From what we can tell so far, these two are just about exactly alike.  If they weren't my kids, I'd call them spazzy.  No, you know what?  They are my kids and I can't think of a word in the English language that better describes them.  Case in point; one of their favorite things to do together is scream back and forth.  They take turns yelling in one another's faces, getting louder and louder until I'm able to loosen my clenched jaw and yell, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!  KNOCK IT OFF!"  I'm a calm guy, but when these two are in full swing, they can really get the old man's right eye twitching.  So, with the terrible twins in the backseat and a lot of miles and time to be logged on the road, I knew that things might end up getting pretty hectic.  I promised them McDonald's after we checked out a couple of launches.  I also brought Hayden's Hannah Montana CD along to keep her entertained.

We left the driveway happily bobbing our heads to "Hoedown Throwdown," but by the time we got to "The Climb" we found ourselves stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of downtown Grand Rapids.  As I stared at the rusty bumper of the old Ford van in front of me, I got sucker punched in the back of the head.  "Gungy, Gawgy."  That's Linc-lish for "Hungry, Daddy."  Shoot!  I was in such a hurry to get going I threw the kids in the car without giving them their normal after nap snack.  I had also packed like a dad.  I chucked a couple of diapers and a box of wipes on the passenger seat.  Never gave food a passing thought.  "Hayden, try to distract Lincoln for me."  "I can't, I'm hungry too."  Oh boy.

After about 15 minutes in the parking lot on 131, we finally got rolling.  With the car  moving once again and some new scenery in front of them, the kids luckily forgot about food for the time being.  It was tough going on Leonard until we put a little space between ourselves and the city.  It eventually transformed into a winding 2 lane country road.  We could occasionally see the river down in the flooded valley to our left.  After about 25 minutes on Leonard, we found the first launch.  Deer Creek Park is just west of Lamont near Coopersville.  It's basically some green space, a parking lot, and a launch.  The whole park was under water.  We could only see the tops of the handicap parking signs.  The kids weren't even a little impressed.  Still, I had an idea of how long it would take to get there from my house and I'd now be able to find it in the dark if I decided to head out early one morning this spring.  This will be my spring channel cat spot.  Mort and I are hoping to get into some of those fish that push 20 pounds when they make their run up from Lake Michigan.

With the kids begging to go to McDonald's, I pushed west towards the bayous and let them know that it wouldn't be too much longer.  The drive to the next launch was quite a bit further than I had anticipated and I was starting to get a little tense.  Lincoln was absolutely starving and had fallen into repeatedly asking where Mommy went.  Hayden was done with Hannah Montana and fixated on getting a happy meal.  I finally found the launch that I will use to get me to Pottawattomie and Stearns bayous.  It turns out that it's very near the Nunica exit on I-96.  I'll go after pike and bass in these bayous and see if I can figure out walleye in the main river channel of this area.  The launch is upriver from the bayous which isn't ideal.  I generally like to fish upriver from where I launch in case I have problems with the motor.  If I'm upstream, I can always float back down to the launch.  Still, I'm looking forward to getting in our boat and exploring this section of the river.  I'm thinking an early April trip is in order.  Maybe I'll throw in a couple of rods, some crawlers, and a tub of dip bait.  I did finally get the kids to McDonald's and they once again returned to their happy, spunky selves.  Despite my dumb dad stuff, the trip went very well and I got one step closer to putting my spring fishing plan together.

I had a feeling that my outing with Luke and Lincoln would be relatively stress free.  I fed them before we left and I threw in water bottles and additional snacks for the road.  Luke is a big Four Seasons fan, so we traded Hayden's bubblegum pop for some oldies but goodies.  131 was cruel to us again.  Someone had dumped a load of empty plant flats in the left lane.  Even though these things are just about as thin as paper, people were almost coming to a complete stop as they weaved through them.  196 and Lake Michigan Drive were all clear.  When I got out past Grand Valley, I jogged over to a road that runs right along the river.  From east to west the name of the road changed from North Cedar Drive to Green Street to Mercury Drive.  I found a couple of nice parks with launches, but they were quite a ways up river from the bayous.  I eventually wandered over Stearns and then Pottawattomie bayous.  Looking at them on a map, I pictured them as isolated and surrounded by desolate wetlands.  Both have homes on them and are in a pretty populated area.  I won't be quite as alone as I'm used to on the river, but if the fishing is good I won't mind.  I'm curious to see what kind of boat traffic and fishing pressure this end of the river gets.

We hit a park on the way home.  It was pretty windy and cold, but the boys had fun walking a trail and then playing on the playground.  On the way home "Walk Like A Man" played.  When it was done Luke said, "Hey Dad, you need to walk like a man, okay?"  I chuckled and said I'd do what I could.  He said, "No, you really need to walk like a man."  More chuckling, "Okay, buddy."  After a little pause I said, "Hey, wait!  Why are you saying that?  You're being funny?"  He remained completely deadpan.  "No, Dad.  You walk like a girl."  Not long after, another song started and Luke joined in, "Pretty as a midsummer's morn, they called her . . . Dad!"  How did Luke get so smart and where did he get such a smart mouth?  I always thought with my general love for the outdoors and my tendency to shave maybe twice a week that I had a certain rugedness about me.  Apparently I have some work to do to toughen myself up in my boy's eyes.  He later told me that he "was just trying to be funny like you, Dad," so that made things better.  I've got to hand it to him, he kind of had me going.  I didn't know that he had the aptitude to kid like that.

Nothing is stress free when it involves a couple of preschool age kids, but my scouting trips went very well.  I have a better picture of this new section of river and I know right where to go to get on it.  Time will tell  if my efforts translate into fish.  I think they will.  I can't wait to make that first cast.

Everyone Showed But the Perch

In the earliest hours this morning, not long after the bartenders told their soggy patrons, "You don't have to go home, but you have to get up out of here!" my alarm went off.  A small army of friends and relatives was planning on coming fishing shortly after sun up and I decided that I wanted to have a nice pile of crappies on the ice and some tip-ups set before they got there.  Not wanting to wake the wife at 3 AM, I slept on the couch.  This move unwittingly made me the first line of defense when my daughter woke with a sore throat and my youngest began screaming for his mommy, both at about midnight.  I was glad to be able to field these late night issues and let Michelle sleep, but I knew that my short night just got shorter and it was going to take its toll.

I was glad when my fitful sleep on a too short couch was ended.  All of my gear  was lined up and ready to go, so it didn't take long for me to hit the road.  I fell into a bit of a sleepy euphoria on the ride up to the lake.  I had the heat on way too high, but it seemed to suit the mood.  The rock station that I had been listening to the last time that I drove, however, was carving on the back of my skull.  Country went with the mood.  Kellie Pickler was asking me didn't I know how much she loved me.  Frankly, I had no idea, but it was nice to hear.  The last 4 or 5 miles after the exit are back roads, so I shook off the stupor and kept an eye out for deer and black ice.  What had been an occasional snowflake in the headlights when the ride started out had turned into steady flurries.  I hadn't noticed snow in the forecast, but I'd take it over a brisk wind.

I pictured having that "only person on earth" feeling, walking out on the ice at shortly after 4 AM.  Surprisingly, 3 or 4 homes on the lake already had their lights burning bright.  A couple of backyard dogs spotted my headlamp and went into a hysteria.  In my head, I apologized to the sleeping neighbors.  After hauling my gear and dropping the tip-ups, trudging through over a foot of snow the whole way, I had a pretty good sweat going.  I knew that this would turn into a chill later, but I'm not sure how else I could have played it.  I would just have to deal with it.

I found the crappies in 40 feet of water.  There was a huge school that covered most of the bottom half of the water column, and an occasional fish showing up just 10 feet under the ice.  I haven't done a ton of concentrated crappie fishing, but my limited experience has been that if you drop a minnow just above them, they slide up to it and eat it without hesitation.  This school hadn't read the same manual that I read.  They couldn't care less about the minnows that I was putting right in front of their snooty noses.  The only reaction that I could get out of those fish was fleeing the minnow in a panic.  I didn't have anything else to do, so I continued to toy with them.  Just as it was getting light, I finally talked just 2 into grabbing on.  They were about the same size, decent but not huge.  So much for trying to act like a big shot.  A pile of 2 wasn't going to get very many "attaboys."

A friend from work, Chris, was the first to show up.  He came out just after 7:00.  He fished with me in the deep water for awhile and managed to hook a couple of small gills.  Just as we were heading back to my normal spot, our first flag popped.  It was the 40-incher hole that I marked with a dead branch.  I had a good feeling about this one and saw that it was running as we approached.  It continued to take out line as I picked up the tip-up and gave the line a sharp yank.  Nothing there.  I'm guessing I pulled the hook right out of the fish's mouth, but I never even felt the slightest bit of weight on the line.  Frustrating, but still good to get a flag this early.

Josh and Elijah showed up next and the other guys followed fast on their heels.  I lost count of exactly how many guys we had out there, but it must have been close to 15.  We had a good half ton of Elyea on that ice, plus friends and in-laws.  It would have been good to have Jeff and Mike with us, but maybe we can catch them on a summer excursion.

Because of some recent catches, we were pretty sure that the perch were going to pile up.  Didn't happen.  Most of the perch that we caught were pencils and we never really found a school.  Whatever the phenomenon was that I experienced last week, it seemed to mark the peak of the ice season.  Something about today just felt like the beginning of the end of this winter's fishing season.  Even though the perch weren't doing much, Jared's brother-in-law, Tim, did find some hungry crappies and a few decent bluegills.  I have to admit that the chase for the panfish is probably where my short night took the toll that I talked about earlier.  I just didn't have the energy to keep moving through that deep snow and drilling hole after hole.  I was content to stay in the first hole that I drilled and if I got into them, then great.  If not, don't care.

Something else that probably helped diminish my concern for pannies was the fact that we got flags relatively steady all day.  We decided that most of them were bass.  We had a lot of pop and drops.  We pulled in a number of empty hooks or dazed minnows.  They looked like Linsay . . . wait, I already used that one.  We did manage to land a couple of nice bass that pushed 20 inches.  My Uncle Tim caught a really healthy looking 29-inch pike.  He'll tell you it was over 30.  Just agree with him.  We landed a few more smaller bass.

The party broke up around 2:00.  There was some disappointment at not hammering the perch.  Josh bought a fillet knife for the occasion and now he has to dig through the trash for the receipt.  My only complaint is the excruciating charlie horses that I'm getting in both legs from high stepping through snow all day.  I've had to walk them off a few times just in the last hour.  Despite the bite not being as hot as it has been and my hamstrings getting tied in knots, I really enjoyed today.  What a great bunch of guys!  I look forward to getting out with them again.  In the mean time, I think my next fishing trip is going to be back to the muskie lake.  I have a goal of catching one on the ice before they go out of season.  Getting a little nervous about following through with that one.

 

New Year's Eve On Ice

I spent a long day on the ice yesterday.  I was joined by my nephew, my brother-in-law, and a couple of his work buddies.  My dad even made a brief cameo.  We fished on a small private lake that has huge pike, but maybe not very many of them, and a nice population of healthy crappies, perch, bluegills, and largemouth bass.

We set out about ten tip-ups and then settled in to catch some panfish.  It took no time before we were into them.  I did okay with my waxworms on teardrops.  The other guys did much better with a basic split shot, small hook, and live minnow.  They helped me re-think ice fishing.  I'm all about jigging waxies.  They got their minnow close to the bottom and let it do the work.  They didn't touch their poles until they got the big bend of a perch.  We caught around 30 perch.  Most of them were decent in the 7-10 inch range with one whopper that was a little over 12 inches.  We all let out a big "Wow!"  when it came through the ice.  We also happened across a couple of nice handsized gills.

Overall, the tip-ups were a disappointment.  They were set all over the lake for a good 8 hours.  We didn't catch a single pike.  We had about a 20 minute span when the flags started popping.  They were all bass.  Some dropped the minnow before we could get to it, but we managed to pull in a 15-incher and two 18-inchers.  All of them were big, healthy looking bass.

My 5 year old nephew had a great time and hung in there like a champ.  He stayed out for a good 6 hours and loved every minute of it.  The guys were good about calling him over and handing him a pole when they got a fish on.  He also enjoyed messing around with the fish on the ice and getting his picture taken with them.  He talked about fish dinners all day, but when it came time to clean them his heart got a little soft.  He briefly felt sorry for the fish and as he watched the knife stick into the first victim he said, "That looks like it hurts."  Before long he was asking to keep the fish tails and telling his dad which night he wanted to have his fish dinner.

Pretty good day on the hard water.  Enough so that when I got home I told my wife that I wish I was going again today.  No dice.  She's at school working on grades and lesson plans and I'm on kid duty.  I have my gear neatly set around the basement to thaw and dry out for the next trip.  We're thinking of hitting another bigger private lake that has a better population of pike.  The panfish are fine, but a great day on the ice is only qualified by a lot of flags and some nice Northerns.  Looking forward to giving it another go.