We were on a final fling for the summer. A final fling to the Northwoods, and a final fling with our daughter before she headed to the southern side of this country for Grad School. The cabin we had rented was sitting in exactly the same place we had left it last year. It felt like home because we were now familiar with the owners (Don & Betty Jung), the place on the lake, and the surrounding area; as well as the fact that when we arrived to unpack, all of the windows were open to the screens as the air off the water was flowing freely.
The day we had arrived happened to be my birthday. Typically I push my limits on that day; running long miles, or fishing insurmountable bends and currents of a river. My only exertion that day, however, was driving North and carrying gear in from the Jeep to the cabin. That was an undertaking well worth any energy spent on the day I turned the “Double Nickel” (#55), because it was another chance to get-a-way in a summer already filled with various adventures. Following a dinner of baked spaghetti made with seasoned pork (one of my favorites), I escaped out onto the lake to cast a line from the kayak.
For the first several days my hours were spent fishing, running the Bearskin Trail, reading, and writing. Together we swam, took both boat and car rides, and of course went out for ice cream. In the evenings we relaxed and binge watched the final few episodes of the Longmire series that we had started watching earlier in the Spring.
On the evening of our 3rd day we had a big storm rumble through with rolling thunder and wicked lightning. With the lights from the cabin penetrating the darkness, you could see that the path to the lake had turned into a babbling brook. Eventually the power went out, but candles only added to the ambiance. As we got ready for bed, we saw a long bolt of lightning strike a point out further on the lake. The charged energy was a whitish-blue bolt that appeared to stand suspended above the large pines that it illuminated. Among the flashes in the distance, we saw that intense strike, seemingly up close and personal; not once, but twice.
The following morning I got up early and bailed water from the boat so I could go fishing. Instead of relying solely on the kayaks and canoe that come with the cabin, this year we decided to rent a motor for the cabin’s aluminum boat. It allowed me a little more time to fish as I moved to various spots around the lake. Since this was our second time at Jung's Birch Lake Cottages, I had begun to learn where I could find drop-offs, sand bars, and underwater structures where the fish hang out. In addition, I also had learned where eagles perch and the loons dive for small fish. With my telescoping camera I got some great pictures of wildlife.
Once the boat was dry and my gear was put in, I fished a small indent of a bay with a decent drop off. Just off the end of a dock I had a good sized bass hit my lure. It jumped and fought before finally throwing my lure as it approached the starboard side of the boat. After losing that fish I decided to relocate and work a shoreline that averaged five feet; hoping to catch a midmorning bass or pike cruising the shallows.
While the sun rose higher, and the temperatures climbed, I was beginning to consider heading back to the “Tranquility Cabin.” Other than the bass, I hadn’t caught a thing. I chose instead to fish a shallower area, choked full of weeds, hoping to entice a lurking fish in a last ditch effort to hook into something. I made a long cast with my favorite #5 silver spooned Mepps, when I became instantly snagged. It was held fast and wouldn’t budge; until it did. As I pulled back on my pole hoping to break free, the drag on my pole began to whine. I knew the feel, and this time there was no mistaking it. I was pretty certain what I was up against, and that lightning was about to strike twice. (See last year's blog entry entitled: A Rookie In Tight Quarters)
While I held the pole with my left hand, bracing it against my forearm, I used my right to pull up the anchor. With my knee holding each tug, I kept the anchor from slipping back down. I didn’t need an inadvertent tangle. I was the picture of mindfulness as I surveyed my surroundings, trying to figure out what I was going to do when I managed to get the muskie up to the boat.
At least I was in a boat. Last year I was side by side with teeth, barbs, and water in a kayak. This time I could stand and look down into the water as it came into view. Comparing it to the yellow measuring tape stuck to the inside of the boat, I muttered something about it being almost 50 inches while recording a quick video. In reality it was closer to 40 inches, but I hadn’t been sure how long the yellow measuring sticker actually was in the foreground of my sight.
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF A
THE MUSKIE FINALLY COMING UP TO THE BOAT
To watch the video you may you may need to change the "view version" at the bottom of the page.
Once I took a few pictures, my mind snapped into action. I had previously removed one of the oars to avoid having it get in the way, so I used the remaining one still in the lock to “river-raft” myself towards the nearest shore. But after rowing back and forth once or twice I realized that it wasn’t going to work. The great fish was tiring so I took a chance and put the pole between my knees. I grabbed the loose oar and put it back in the lock before rowing as hard as I could 3 or 4 times to propel myself into the sandy shallows.
As we neared the shore, I threw the anchor out and jumped into the water. With my gripper in hand, I eased the muskie towards me. I could see the teeth protruding alongside it’s massive head with the hooks of my spinner solidly held in it’s hard bony jaw. Fortunately it was hooked in a way that would make for an easy extraction. It was the muskie’s eyes that held my attention though. They stared right through me. Without malice or ill-contempt they simply took me in. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a live muskellunge? I couldn’t see a distinct pupil, but what I saw was a huge, steely-gray button, like those of a shark. It was hauntingly memorable. I savored the moment.
On my first attempt to attach my gripper on it’s jaw, the giant fish simply pulled away and made a run, pulling my line and drag with it. On my second attempt I was firmly attached. Using a pair of needle nosed pliers from my multi-tool, I quickly removed the hook. I grabbed my phone from the seat of the boat and lifted the fish as high as I could. My face strained, and my mouth contorted, but I managed a picture. That was all I wanted, and all that I could get. It wasn’t pretty, but it sure was beautiful.
I noticed a small section of it’s gill that had slipped out from behind it’s gill cover and wondered what old war wound had once occurred. Imagine if a fish like this could share it’s experiences. What a story it would be! I released the gripper from the jaw of the muskie and held it in my arms while bending over knee-deep in the water. I worked it back and forth, forcing water and oxygen through its gills and sharing the moment; wishing someone would remind and help me to breathe. Gradually strengthened, the muskie slowly, but powerfully, pushed away. With its giant tail fin swishing back and forth it was a perfect contrast of reddish-brown against the sandy, graveled bottom of the lake.
As the fish disappeared into the depths below the sparkling surface of the water, I stood and breathed. Gentle waves lapped against the sides of the boat beside me. Unbelievable. It was simply unbelievable. I saw in my mind, as I had captured in the final seconds of the video that I had taken, the sun perfectly catching the colors and size of that muskie when it had turned beside the boat; its eyes looking up at me. While standing there in the water where I had released the fish, it was a memory I didn’t think that I’d probably ever forget.
I packed my loose gear away, lifted the anchor into the back of the boat, and pushed it out into deeper water before hopping up into the bow. As I motored back to the cabin, I’ll admit that I had a smile etched on my face, but only while shaking my head in belief. I couldn’t wait to tell Cindy and Jodi my story.
That afternoon I worked on a blog entry about a fishing trip that my cousins and I had taken a few weeks prior, and then we all headed into Minocqua. I needed a new reel, as the one I had been using had a cracked bail (and had already been fixed once by my Dad). I’m sure that the strain from the muskie had accentuated it. The guys at Kurt’s Island Sport Shop were helpful and talked me into a Piscifun Honor XT2000 Reel; one that I had never even heard of before. I enjoyed talking to the gentleman helping me as I looked at the various reels, and showed him a picture of the muskie that I caught that morning.
The girls and I then went to Kilwin’s for ice cream and walked along the shoreline beside West Park Avenue. Ice cream helps make a vacation feel like a vacation, and we laughed as we talked.
Once we were home to the cabin I kept feeling like the morning’s catch was going to be difficult to repeat. I shrugged my shoulders though, grabbed my pole, and told Cindy & Jodi that I was going to cast off the dock a few times before calling it a day.
On my second or third cast I got a hold of a big bass. Once hooked, it consequently jumped four different times in succession. Each time I felt the line tension lessen, as it raced towards me, I reeled like crazy to keep the line taut. I knew when it was about to jump and try to throw the lure. Jodi and Cindy actually heard the splashing from up at the cabin and came out to see what was going on. What I caught was the biggest smallmouth bass I’ve ever caught at 19 ½ inches. With Jodi’s help, she snapped a couple of pictures of me holding the smallie and then I gently released the big bass off the end of the dock and back into the water.
I stood and shook my head again. What a day it had been on good ole Birch Lake. Two big fish? Are you kidding me? Lightning can indeed strike twice!
I’ve escaped and gone fishing numerous times these past few months. I vowed that I would go after being bound to completing graduate level classes for the last couple of summers and then coming off from the hecticness of E-learning this spring. I wouldn’t say that I felt like I had earned the opportunity to be somewhere on a lake or creek. Far from it in fact. However, I would say that I was looking forward to calling my own shots, being surprised by something unforeseen lurking under the surface, and immersing myself into nature’s frontier.
Water draws me like a magnetic field. When you are born and raised in a state once known as a territory, and has a motto that claims, “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”, then the spirit of adventure and water itself are distinctly and firmly established into the lifeblood of your soul.
I’ve been fortunate to fish in several different venues, but I’ll save some of those outings for a later blog entry and instead narrow the focus to the three recent times I’ve hit creeks for trout. Compared to past experiences, and with a keen eye for when the fishing is on, I can honestly say that my three outings were marginal at best. Still, an outing is an outing and being a relative optimist, each opportunity to escape held surprises that solidified the excursion as worthy of being documented and therefore remembered.
My first escape was back in May. I hit a creek that I fondly refer to as my “Home Creek” because I know it so well. Although I hadn’t visited this creek in several years, I did relatively well on this trip. The weather, albeit a little too sunny for a trout’s liking, was absolutely beautiful. I got up a little later than usual, thankful for a chance to sleep in, but managed to be in the water by 8:00. Of the eleven or twelve trout that I caught, all of them were brown trout. A couple of them were 14 inches, most were about 12 inches, and a few were 10 inches. I did lose one 16 inch trout after it launched right out of the water at me. I almost had to use my pole as a fencing sword to defend myself; something I had to do decades ago when I accidentally walked up on a nesting goose. When a mother goose is camouflaged on eggs with her neck stretched out flat to the ground, while you stumble along in your waders looking for an entry point into the creek, the explosion of honks, wings, and beak can surprise the heck out of you! Once I gathered my wits, I narrowly escaped the feathered mauling by quickly backing up, and jousting in the air with my fishing pole, while trying to keep from falling over onto my butt. My Dad was with me on that day, witnessed it all, and still laughs about the attack when the story comes up. Anyways, I escaped the launching of the brown trout too, but also never caught and landed it.
My second escape was during the third week of June and in a favorite little creek in South-central Wisconsin. I left home in the late afternoon when storms were predicted. I drove undaunted and was in the water by 6:00 p.m. The mosquitoes and deer flies drove me crazy from the beginning. Soon after pushing through high grasses and red osier dogwood to get to the creek, I cast my lure ahead along the bank of a relatively long run. As I began to reel, I felt that sudden, easy retrieve when a fish takes a swipe and pushes water around your lure, yet never touches a barb. When the spinner reached my side I glanced down and saw a hog of a brown trout turn right next to my leg. Things like that tend to stick in your head and push you onward just in case another would try the same thing. Around the following bend, the heavens unleashed and I was instantly soaked through down into my waders. Typically fish can start hitting in such weather, but from the look of things as I had hiked in, the area had already received some rain before I had arrived. In spite of this, I managed to catch 14 or 15 trout; half were brookies and half were browns, and most were really small. They were hitting softly so it was hard to react. As the rain passed through, the temperature went down ten degrees and by the end, as darkness fell, I shook from being cold and wet. It was time to quit and escape back to somewhere dry and warm.
Trekking like I did in the dim light, and in another squall of rain, it reminded me of silent trudges I’ve had while fishing with my cousins; when you just keep your head down and walk. The fishing was poor to medium but somehow “fun-ish” once I was back to my Silver Jeep; my fingers wrinkled like prunes. Sharing an experience like that sometimes makes for a better story than living it.
My last escape was the first week of July. It was on the front side of what promised to be a long period of unusually hot, humid, and rainless weather. I woke too early, but after watching a little TV, falling asleep for another hour, and then bouncing up, I left at 5:00 and was in the creek by 6:30. As I drove. I stopped three different times. Between the full moon setting and the sun rising, it was an absolutely beautiful scene. I couldn’t pass up capturing some of it in pictures. Temperatures started in the high 60’s that morning, but by the time I left to return home hours later, it was nudging 90 degrees. The slight breeze was out of the East by SE, which does not bode well for fishing, but I had decided to try anyway on a hope and a prayer. Overall I caught six small brook trout and one 13 inch brown, all in the first hour or two, but still I pressed on. I fished that section until I had a relatively easy place to get out and start the hike back to my Jeep; baking under the sun in my waders. Once there, and apparently as a glutton for punishment, I decided to try a lower section of the same creek. It was a new area I hadn’t fished before, and I wanted to explore, try something new, and see if any of the “big boys” would surprise me and come out to play like they are wont to do. Generally big browns will feed in the darkness of night, but on occasion I have seen them charge out from a bank in broad daylight as well. The problem is that by then you’re hot, you can’t remember the last time you had actually brought a fish to your hand despite some magnificent casts, and then they strike when you least expect it. That happened twice in that section of the creek. The first flew out from a shallow overhang, grabbed my spinner, and then rubbed it off on some underwater grasses just as I tried setting the hook. It was huge! The second rose off the bottom of a pool, took two swipes, missed, and was never seen again.
It was at that time that I broke down my pole and started my hike back, munching on several handfuls of blackberries as I went. It was brutally hot by then, and I downed an entire thermos of ice water once I reached my Jeep. All in all the experiences were a chance to get out and both wet my line as well as enjoy time on my own without any deadlines or people needing my attention. For that matter, although the fishing wasn’t spectacular, the opportunities to escape were priceless.
See you along The Way...
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Some Pictures & Videos from the "Escapes"
Sunday, May 3rd, 2020
Monday, June 22nd, 2020
Click on the short video below to see the squall on the creek:
