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Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 - 4:52 p.m.
I would like to be able to tell you I landed this huge (but deformed) Northern Pike today, but that would be a lie. Not many of them in the lakes around here anyway. I found that picture on the IRC site. No, what I managed to land was much less spectacular. I guess I should set the scene� The weather was every bit as bleak as the weather forecasters predicted last night- a constant cold rain, strong winds from the north-northeast, and plenty of it. I checked the Weatherbug� (everyone should have this thing running on their computer�s toolbar) when I woke up, and you could tell that the cold front had already started moving through the area. The high for the day was set around 3 am (52�), and by 9 am it had already dropped down to 45�. The rain was widespread, but it looked like we were on the northern edge of the precipitation. The forecast also stated that the rain would slack off by early afternoon. So� I decided to give it a shot. I loaded everything up and was headed out by 11 am. While loading my gear, I heard several birds calling to each other in a song I didn�t recognize. This was right out in front of my house. I scanned the trees, looking for what was making these strange calls. I finally spotted one of the birds, perched on a tree right in front of my pickup. I removed my camera from the truck, and tried to slowly approach the bird to get a shot. He would have none of that. As soon as I got close enough to take a photo (I brought the old Fuji since it was raining), it flew to another tree nearby. So did a couple more of these beautiful birds. I slowly made my way nearer the birds, and I managed to capture one just before it flew away:
Not the clearest shot, but he was far away (only filled the very center of the photo before cropping), and it was raining pretty hard at the time. Don�t get close to many woodpeckers here in Mohall, so I was just happy to see them� The conditions were much worse at B.A.C.E. Lake. Nothing chills you to the bone quicker than wind-driven rain coming off of a body of water. Since the forecast said the rain would soon stop, I only wore a thermal sweat jacket. No rain gear at all. Big mistake. First stop? The windy side of the beach where so many of my White Bass were caught this fall. I turned my body and casted so that the wind and rain was hitting my back. That made it somewhat bearable, but quickly soaked the back of my jeans. If I hadn�t caught this fish on my second cast, I wouldn�t have stayed in this spot for 40 minutes:
That fish would turn out to be the highlight of the trip. It wasn�t as big as some of the lunker Whites I have caught this fall, but he was at least 1 pound. When I landed another fish a few minutes later, I thought I was on to them. Didn�t land another white bass in the remaining hour and a half that I was there. As a matter of fact, I didn�t catch another fish anywhere near the beach. I took all of the wind in my face that I could, and then decided to try the other side of the cove. This required me to walk through tall, wet native prairie weeds. The water level has raised so much in the past 3 weeks, there isn�t much shoreline that isn�t under water. The measuring pole at the beach was at less than 3 feet back when I first started fishing for the Whites back in early October. It now reads a little over 6 feet deep. That might have something to do with the steadily declining catch totals in my last 3 or 4 trips. That, along with the weather cooling off the water. Oh, and the weather conditions on the days I went being poor, too.. Anyway� I didn�t land a fish at the other side of the cove. Since one of my goals was to catch enough today to make a pot of fish chowder tomorrow after work, I had to try something different. I headed to the boat ramps, and changed the rig on my lighter pole. Two tinsel jigs, one big , one small, is what I came up with. I tipped each hook with a tiny piece of nightcrawlers, hoping enough Bluegill were hiding in the deeper cover to make a meal. Instead of holding many Bluegills, the area was full of these:
Undersized (not legal to keep, anyway) White Crappie. In the last hour I let the rains fall on me, I must have landed 50 of these fish. Several were between 8� � 9�, plenty big enough to eat but too small to keep (if you don�t want to forfeit you tackle, truck, etc. if caught by a game warden). Not worth the risk to me. All went back to swim another day. Why did I stay the hour? Because I did manage to pick up enough keeper Bluegill (5) to make my soup. Caught another 20 tiny Bluegill, too. What has happened to the �gills down there is anyone�s guess. I haven�t caught many Bluegills to be proud of from this lake in the past 2 seasons. All I can figure is we had a couple of very bad year classes of spawn in the early part of this decade, leaving few fish to grow to adult size. The high number of smaller fish gives me hope, though. They will just be reaching keeper size next summer. So next year could be a great year for my favorite "table" fish� How bad were the conditions? I have been down at the Wilber access area on many days when the weather wasn�t the best, but I can�t ever remember seeing this:
That�s right- I had the whole area to myself. I passed a pickup truck hauling a boat on the access road to the parking area on my way there. That turned out to be the only boat I saw in the following 2+ hours. Considering today is a holiday (thank you, all veterans of the U.S. military), I figured there would be a few die-hard crappie fishermen in areas out of the wind, soaking in their boats. I guess I was the only person stoopid enough to give it a try. At least I didn�t come home empty handed�..
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