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?