It’s certainly a dream to travel the world and fly fish, but I very much enjoy my wide open new world of fishing here in Wisconsin. Honestly, I’ve been chomping at the bit for spring to arrive here so I can get started. I learned a lot about my new waters last summer and expect to do better on them this year.
Today was the first of three days fishing on one of my old favorite places, Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior. This is a fishery where on any cast you could catch your largest smallmouth bass, walleye, pike, brown trout or varieties of salmon. Every solid strike makes your heart skip a beat or two because you just never know. The only problem with this three day trip is that whenever Howie, Mike Neuman and I get together to fish Chequamegon, we take a beating from the weather. Today’s kick off was a clear indication our rough luck has not left us.
We got absolutely poured on. While that doesn’t sound like a big deal for a posse of three hardcore anglers, add in the high of 41° and the 10 to 15 mph winds and think again. Maybe my brain is numb from the freezing temperatures, but I think today was one of my coldest days fishing in years. And Howie and Mike feel the same. Years!
What made things extra tough was that our high expectations were shattered early. We were on the water around 10 AM and the wind was already so strong we could hardly hold the boat long enough to fish the places we wanted to fish. Furthermore, the rain was such a deluge you needed windshield wipers for your sunglasses.
By 3 we hadn’t seen a fish. Howie was freezing. I was soaked from the waist down because I carelessly didn’t have the up zipper on my rain pants secure. Neuman was just plain frustrated with his life record of fish caught from Chequamegon Bay. The misery forced Howie to drink an ice cold beer.
There’s never any complaining from this crew. We just keep casting. At late afternoon we found ourselves in the Sand Cut Slough hiding from the teeth of the wind. This slough is not the place you’ll run into the salmon and huge brown trout. The slough is pike water. We tied big flies on the wire and stripped steadily in 3-10 feet of water. The action was miserably slow but persistence paid off and I came tight with my first smallie of the year, landed without a net. We forgot the net.
That smallie would be it. The big slab of a smallie gave us hope but two more hours of strong efforts produced nothing. We left the lake at 6 PM, probably our shortest Lake Superior day of all time.
Tonight we smashed a big dinner at Howie’s and spent the evening warming up. The guys tied some flies next to the woodstove and I’m writing todays blog. We’ll get after it again in the morning but I’ll just tell you now; the forecast doesn’t look good!
Holy crap, it cant get any worse than that can it?