An Outdoorsman’s Journal:
Hello friends, This week’s column gives you a bit of reality about my way of earning a living and is also a pretty cool adventure.
Thursday, Jan. 11 – High 34, low 27 The lead-up to this experience is important. First, I heard good stories about fishermen catching brown trout in the harbor at Port Washington as well on Lake Michigan itself. Second, my 17-foot Alumacraft aluminum canoe has a 6-inch tear in its belly that I have been attempting to fix the last few days with my canoe actually in my living room. Third, I am addicted to canoe fishing and do not remember ever paddling a canoe on Lake Michigan in January. Fourth, I had planned on staying two days, but a monster snowstorm with major wind would knock this plan down to one day. Fifth, I looked on the internet and saw that there were two sport shops in Port Washington and that is where I planned on getting the right spoons and crankbaits to paddle troll with.
On my actual drive I would come to reality with the approaching storm. After arriving in Port Washington, I realized that both shops were apparently closed for the winter. I went to one of those big box stores hoping to find something that looked like a shad, as I had been reading that the brown trout were feeding on shad. The closest I could come was a spoon made by Dreamweaver and it was called the Silver Alewife. I bought two as well as a half-dozen crankbaits.
I have to admit I did not have a ton of daylight after rigging my canoe with three rod holders mounted on a 2-by-6, no electronics and whole bunch of “I can do this” attitude. I rigged one of the Dreamweavers on a spinning rod that would be straight back and put a crankbait on my left and right rods which had planer boards.
I left the landing at 1:30 and was really excited. I had paddled maybe two minutes and the Dreamweaver setup started going bonkers telling me it was fish on. Folks, I have to tell you, catching heavy torpedoes in a canoe is close to insane; my trophy started jumping and I could see it was big. A half dozen times I got it close to the net and then it would just take off and be out of sight. I have to admit, I was on my knees, riding out the fight and this fish was stronger than my left wrist. In the end I caught what I would say was a 14-pound brown trout and I felt like a superhero. Now things started going in a bad direction for me! My trophy kind of got caught in one of my other lines. I figured I would just cut the line and retie it. A big “oops” as I cut my line and the Dreamweaver fell overboard and to the bottom of Lake Michigan. No problem, I have another. I tied that one and I was in a great mood and started paddling out to sea. When I paddled past the lighthouse, the wind caught me and started pushing me at a rapid rate to the state of Michigan. This situation was so ugly that I made the decision that if I got a fish on, I would cut my line. Next plan was, stay in the harbor and follow the hundreds of mergansers, which are a fish-eating duck, and hopefully brown trout would be by the ducks. Well, I have to tell you, I got snagged a lot and this was a time-consuming problem.
After about an hour, I had a hit on the Dreamweaver, but it was gone as soon as it happened. I lost several cranks and then, just like that, it was fish on with my Dreamweaver and once again I felt like I was a superhero as the big brown was jumping and clearing 4 feet with each jump. Unfortunately, bad luck came my way, my line went limp and the brown kept jumping. I think the rocks had done some damage and I was now without a Dreamweaver. Not a hit was had on any other lures. I fished until O Dark Thirty, had one heck of a time getting my 62-year-old body out of the canoe and I was in an awesome mood.
On this day I learned how to catch browns on the big pond in January. If I ever gave ya a tip, remember the spoon I wrote about! ~Sunset
Mark Walters
