Fire In the Hole

A couple of weeks ago I took a fishing trip with some guys up to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Until this trip, the farthest north I'd ever been in Wisconsin was Milwaukee. It truly is a wild and wonderful slice of country. Temps were a good 10 degrees or so less than they are here, but the cool weather gave the air a crisp, clean quality that was invigorating. This crisp air, combined with the scent of pine trees and the hard blue water of Little St. Germain, made you feel like you were in a Hamms commercial. All that was missing was that dancing, beer swilling, cartoon bear.

The seven hour drive north was actually pretty easy going. It's a straight shot up 39 and 51. And while the scenery is mostly "cheddar" as you go up, it really starts to get Northwoodsy around Tomahawk. Clear lakes start flashing at you from between the forests of Czech pine and deer crossing cautions are everywhere. St. Germain, where our cabin was, was about as backwater as they come in these parts. It wasn't dirty by any means. In fact from the looks of the well-built school, firehouse and community center, it was clear tourist dollars provided a big enough tax base so the locals could keep things pretty inviting. The only truly Mayberry thing about it was that they rolled the sidewalks up at 8. If you wanted anything to eat after then, besides a Little Debbie snack from the local quicky mart, your options were to stock up on groceries during the day or head into Woodruff, about 10 miles away.

There were six of us and we split up into fishing parties of two while we were there. Moto and I, the least accomplished anglers of the lot, were put together. What we lacked in fishing accumen we made up for in style with our little pontoon boat that we rented to cruise around the lake in. Compared to the boats our companions were using, we had a party barge. It had two comfy captains chairs forward and a wide bench seat aft. It was also equipped with a rather capacious live well that didn't see a lot of fish the first day and a half, but came in quite handy later. It was really stable too. You could walk around without having to be careful of tipping over. And it had a Bimini top that could be quickly deployed in the event of rain or a lack of sunscreen. About all it didn't have was any serious horsepower, but the lake wasn't that big that it took very long to get anywhere. Anything more than a 45 outboard was probably overkill.

Friday morning everyone was up at 5 ready to tear into the local pike population. Moto and I were the first to hit the lake because we were the only ones with a boat on the resort dock. Mike and Jim had to trailer their rigs to the nearest landing about a mile away to put in. It was in the high 30's or low 40's on the lake, but we were giddy with anticipation so the cold really didn't bother us that much. We dropped anchor in one of the bays closest to the resort dock to start out.

I've only fished for Northern one other time in my life on a Canadian fishing trip. At that time it was mid to late July and we were knocking them out with all manner of crank baits, but primarily in-line spinners. The fish there were really aggressive. So, I figured they would be here too. Three hours later, it was clear that what worked in Canada wasn't working here. Plus, Little St. Germain is really shallow in parts and we were constantly getting spinners hung up in the weeds below the surface. Somewhat discouraged but not defeated we decided to start fishing a nearby spot for Walleye using jigs. Another hour or so passed with nothing more than a couple of nibbles. So we weighed anchor and motored to other parts of the lake.

Still certain that a pike was in the cards for me I talked Moto into going to points hither and yon on the lake, all to no avail. I commend him for his infinite patience. Long story short, the first day was a total wash. We had nothing to show for 11 hours of fishing except a slight sunburn and draggin' butts. We didn't even drink much of the beer we'd brought along. We were so intent on catching Pike that I think I had maybe two beers the entire time we were out. Now that's a failure of fishing trip my friends when you can't even manage to drink more than a couple of beers, let alone catch any fish.The mini pontoon was still cool though. In fact I doubt I could've lasted as long as I did if it wasn't for the party barge.

The next day I didn't even hear the alarm. I slept right through it. Turns out I wasn't the only one that was less than enthused about the prospect of getting skunked yet again by Little Saint. A quick look out my window revealed that Kellner's boat was still on its trailer. He hadn't even bothered to try and make the "morning bite" even though he was one of the privelaged few among us to have caught a Northern the day before. Instead everyone in the party had a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon, taters and toast. We all just relaxed and hit the lake about 10 or so.

Of course this was well after the morning prime time and a good six hours or so before evening prime time. Undeterred however, Moto and I explored the rest of the lake employing what tactics we knew in our efforts to catch the elusive Northern Pike. Elusive to us anyhow. Besides Mike, Mike's dad and Jim had each caught one but that was it. It wasn't until the rainstorm rolled in later that day that we discovered another much more bountiful target of opportunity--crappie. Turns out this time of year the tasty little buggers come into shore around evening and during storms. Everyone was catching a bunch from off the resort dock so Moto and I boarded the party barge and decided to head up shore from the dock a short way and fish the underwater ledge. Before it was all said and done I'd dropped 20 or so Crappie into our live well. I was finally fishing, baby.

Also fishing off the dock with us was a fella named Stan. Stan was a quintecential Chi-cah-goan and had been coming to Little Saint Germain for about 23 years. Stan had what I'll call a vocal depth perception problem. He used the same volume of voice for people standing right next to him that he might use for someone a good 100 yards away. His advice for catching Northern, while noisy, was simple. Just stick a chub on a hook, throw it out and wait. All day if necessary. You see, apparently at this time of year Pike are spawning and the females are laden with eggs. So they're really not interested in chasing a spinner bait down. They 're looking for easy pickin's like bait on a hook.

So, the next day Jim, Patrick, Mike and his dad went into town and bought a bunch of chubs while Moto and I tried one more time to find a Pike using other baits. That's the thing about fishing, there are so many variables in what makes the critters twitch--water temp, barometric pressure, cloud cover--it's really a matter of being in the right place at the right time. We were to see this firsthand later that day.

When we left the dock that morning, Stan had a pole in the water with a chub on a hook just waiting. When we came back 8 hours later, he was still there, fishless. Our plan for the evening was to relax a little then fry up the crappie we caught the day before. While we were waiting for Mike and his dad to return we decided to kill time on the dock drinking beer and catching more crappie. While we were at it, Jim threw a line out with a chub on it and just let it sit while he jigged for crappie. About 45 minutes later Jim let out a holler. Something had grabbed his line and was heading out to the middle of the lake with it. He dropped is crappie rod, grabbed the other one and yanked. "I got it! Whatever it is, it's a big one." About a minute later he'd managed to reel "It" into the shallows. It was a monster 30 in Northern. Megaphone Man started yelling "Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!" Between his yelling and sight of this big, beautiful fish almost within net's reach, my heart was racing.

I scrambled for a net and so did Patrick. We positioned ourselves on either side of the dock in case it tried to go under. It ended up coming to my side. I slipped the net over it's head and scooped it up. It was heavy and pissed. It started thrashing around in the net like a trapped gator. Scared to death it was going to flip back into the water I dropped it unceremoniously into the bottom of Jim's boat. We all just stood there staring at this really angry fish glaring back at us. I finaly calmed down enough to try and get the hook out. I'd heard stories about pike latching on to people's hands when they tried to retrieve their hooks so I was a little nervous. I guess it had finally resigned itself to it's fate because it didn't struggle at all while I retrieved the hook.

I picked it up in the net and hauled it over to the live well on my rental boat as Jim's live well simply wasn't big enough. Stan, the poor guy who'd been sitting on the dock all day without a bite, and had actually given us the advice on using the chubs, looked on with an amicable yet scarcely concealed envy. On a brighter note, Stan had a 28 in pike on his line not 15 minutes later, followed by yet another 29 in on his son-in-law's which I'm sure more than made up for having to watch some Johnny Come Lately take what should have been your fish.

Inspired by the big catches we all decided to skip dinner and keep fishing. Moto and I took our boat up shore a little ways to catch more crappie. Anytime we'd throw one in the live well with the pike there'd be a short pause then you'd hear the new guy swimming madly around the live well when it figured out what it's cell mate was. Lucky for the crappie confinement had ruined the pike's appetite and none were eaten prematurely. About three hours later we had the live well literally packed to the gills with one ginormous pike and about 25 or so very nervous crappie.

The day we were to drive home Moto and I cleaned the rest of our catch and added it to the community crappie catch. Jim was even kind enough to share his pike with everyone else. We each went home with about 3 to 5 lbs of fish filets each. I fried my share of the crappie up the other night for Mr. and Mrs. Train Guy. It made for quite a feast. I can't wait to go back up there next spring. This time I'm skipping the pike and going for the crappie. If I'd been fishing for nothing else the entire three days I was there I might've easily landed 60 or more by myself.

I'll leave you with a link to some pics from the trip on flickr. Now, where to go next? Bone fishing in the Keys anyone?

Immigration Song

I wanted to share a poem written by Ray Bradbury that appears in today's Wall Street Journal (see the link below). I've always admired Bradbury's clarity as a writer and it's good to see that at 85 he's still got it.

America: An Ode to Immigrants

Suddenly Sinatra

If you happen to see it in the bargain rack at the grocery store or Wal Mart, do yourself a favor and buy “Suddenly”. It’ll probably put you out no more than $5 and it’s easily more entertaining than most of what Hollywood’s pooped out this year. This 1954 thriller stars Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden. Hayden is probably best known for the role of Colonel Ripper—the mad Air Force commander in Dr. Strangelove that plunges the world into WWIII to prevent the commies from “sapping our precious bodily fluids”.

Here Hayden plays Sheriff Tod Shaw, constable of the sleepy town of Suddenly, CA. Sinatra, normally the hero in most of his films, plays against type as a psychopathic hired assassin sent to dispatch the President of the United States who’s train is making a quick stop in Suddenly. To do so he has to take a family hostage so he and his gang can use their house that sits on a hill overlooking the train station.

While the acting is typical of anything you’d see in the early 50’s, the plot and storyline is surprisingly tight. And the characters are all written to be rather intelligent. Not that I expected them to be stupid, just maybe a little more Leave It To Beaver. The writing’s actually more on par with an episode of 24, only more plausible.

I won’t say much more about the movie. I’m going to see if I can talk Martin into screening it at a crappy movie night. I will say this, though; it made me wish Sinatra had been cast as a bad guy more often.





  

Peanut Butter Therapy

For me one of life's greatest pleasures is peanut butter. On our way home from my bros, I announced to my wife I had a craving for ice cream. Turns out I was really craving peanut butter. We stopped at County Market where I sought out Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby which has peanut butter filled pretzels in it. Fortunately for my waistline, they were out. But spurred on by my love of peanut butter I decided to further explore the aisles and see what new and exciting things Big Snack (aren't all corporate cabals supposed to be "Big" now?) was doing with it.

First stop was the cereal aisle. Nothing new there. Same thing on the cookie aisle. On second thought, the Elves had created some kind of Tagalong knock off I'd never seen before, but that was probably just new to me. Despite the abundance of peanut butter flavored snacks, none of them caught my fancy. Mainly because I knew there was no real peanut butter in any of them. And most were too sweet for what I wanted tonight. Laurie, sensing my discontent, offered the novel suggestion that perhaps I should just have a peanut butter sandwich. We had a jar at home and I wouldn't have to spend a dime. Two butter-soaked, peanut butter-laden English muffins later and my Jones has been satisfied, which now frees me to think of other things. Or more accurately, my peanut butter preoccupation has been subdued enough to allow other things to pop into my head. Like Mel Gibson for instance.

Yesterday I read somewhere that Mel was using a press junket for his latest film, Apocalypto, to lay into Bush. He said Bush and his team were not unlike the corrupt Mayan rulers in his film, in that they used fear to retain power. What galled me about this statement was not that he was coming out against Bush, but that somehow Bush is the only one to have ever used fear as a lever. Don't get me wrong, I like Mel. A lot. But fear is to politicians what sex is to Madison Ave.

"If you don't vote for us, Republicans are going to toss you out on the street without any food!" "If you don't vote for us, Republicans are going to poison your water!" "If you don't vote for us, Republicans are going to knock up your daughters and make them get back alley abortions!" Or the one that seems to evoke the greatest hysteria, "If you don't vote for us, Republicans are going to make you go to church!"

No politician anywhere at anytime in history has won with the campaign slogan, "Everything's fine." That said, I might agree with Mel that Bush lied to us about WMDs. But if he did he was only trying to keep alive a lie that had been so very useful to the previous administration when it was looking to pitch a little fear in order to divert attention from trouble at home. Only Bush was apparently too dumb to realize that if you actually invaded Iraq, it would blow the whole con. Or was he?

I don't know. Frankly, and this will come as a source of great satisfaction to my Democrat friends, I don't know what to think of the guy anymore. He and the soon-t0-be minority Republican congress seem to have spent the last several years trying to out-Democrat Democrats. First there was the enormous prescription drug benefit that appears to be of little benefit. Then there was the knee jerk pledge of trillions of dollars to a sinking city. Say what you will about the "Bridge to Nowhere", at least it actually went to an island that will still be there in 50 years or so. Who can say the same for New Orleans? Between feckless leaders like Nagin and geology, I'm guessing it won't be long before we see another flooded bus yard. And finally, his most-recent suggestion that the National Guard patrol the border to make it look like he's doing something about illegal immigration. Not since Carter's rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran have I seen such a desperation move from the White House.

Clearly P J O'Rourke was right:

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

Mmmm. Peanut butter.

Somewhere a Pike Just Shivered

That's right my fine finned friends, enjoy what little time you have left. I just went lure shopping and come Friday of next week you're going to be on the end of my line. Or you'll just sit there and do nothing because I had no frickin' clue whether or not I got the right tackle.

Moto gave me a list of lures for pike with cryptic names like "husky jerk", "twitchbait", "Shallow Raider" and my personal fave, the "Rattlin Rouge". Sounds more like the selection you usually find in the men's room vending machine at the local truck stop, don't it? I was only able to find a few of these with the names given in the list. Obviously they're proprietary to certain manufacturers and the off brands used other names. So, I tried to go from my memory of what we used when we fished for pike up in Canada about 4 years ago.

Another problem encountered was the size of the baits sold around here. Most everyone here fishes for pan fish and bass so they don't need big lures. Just about everything I was able to find was on the low end of what was recommended on the list. And why not? There aren't any pike around here anyway. About the only thing I was able to find suitable sizes of were the spoons and that's because there must be enough people around here that trout and salmon fish up in Lake Michigan.

Still, I hold out hope that one or two of the lures I blew a sizable chunk of cash on tonight comes through and I'm able to post a great picture of me and a monster northern when I return from the trip.

Shooting Under Par

Last Saturday I went to my first organized trap shoot. It was kind of like a putt-putt tournament played with .12 gauges. You go around to different stations and have to shoot clays that are released from different directions. One station releases them straight up, another rolls them across ground, another launches them from over your head and so on. It was for a good cause too. The proceeds from the tickets were for a 4-H chapter. Included in the ticket price was a tasty hog roast. It really doesn't get much more red state than guns and spit-roasted pork.

Participants were put into "squads" of 4 to 9 shooters. Our foursome consisted of Mike, Jeff, Joe and myself. This was fortunate for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was the fact Mike owned a Mule. For you non-ATV'ers out there a Mule looks like the result of a drunken liason between a Hummer and a golf cart. So instead of having to walk to each station, Joe and I got to ride. Which brings me to another thing--the sophistication of some of the equipment these guys were using.

Sure there was a lot of camouflage and orange hats, but many of these guys, including our shooting companions looked like they'd be right at home on an English hunt. They had fancy vests, nice shooting glasses and some of the most beautiful guns I've ever seen. And I mean aesthetically beautiful, not just beautiful to a gun enthusiast. A couple of guys even had hand carts like you'd use for golf bags only they were equipped with weatherproof gun cases.

There were 12 stations on this particular shoot. At each station you shot 8 to 10 clays. I mostly shot at mine. The clays were released in pairs so you had to take down two at a time. After about two stations it was crystal clear why pro trap shooters use over-under and semi-automatic shotguns. I think there was only one station where I was actually able to take down two clays at once. I'm not blaming it on the fact I was using a pump-action, but it did make acquiring the 2nd clay a little tougher. Still, even at that I was able to shoot 37 out of 100 which was way better than I expected to do. Ironically, Joe had the exact same score, but unfortunately it was not nearly as good as he expected to do. Having seen him shoot before, I know how good he can be.

What really got me though was the number of kids that were participating. I'm just glad none of them were in my group. Not because I was worried about safety, either. It's bad enough to shoot worse than any adult, but getting shown up by a junior Wyatt Earp would be too much to bear. Now I realize the idea of giving a kid a shotgun makes many people blanche, but there are few things on earth that engender self-confidence and discipline like learning to do something inherently dangerous in a safe and professional manner. Honestly. I would feel safer shooting side-by-side with a 12 year old who has been properly trained on how to handle a shotgun than riding shotgun with many adults I know.

More later . . .