As we drove to the middle of the lake, a shanty came into view through the snowflakes.  All the shanties have the owner’s name on them and this one was big.  Our guide called it a three hole shanty, which meant it would hold three fishermen on the bench, each with his own fishing hole.  I got out of the truck and hurried toward the shanty.  The ice creaked and moaned.  I was glad the truck was parked some distance away. 

The shanty was amazing. It had indoor lighting, a heater, radio, and all the supplies required for a day of fishing organized on shelves and on the walls.  Duly impressed, I said, ”Now, that’s a shanty!”

We opened the hinged doors over the fishing holes and skimmed out the ice that had formed on the top.  The water was crystal clear and you could see all the way to the bottom, a sand bar 12-15 feet down.  The sunlight through the ice gave the sandbar a luminescent glow. 

I got rigged up with his favorite bait, minnie heads.  You popped the heads off the tiny fish and put them on your hook.  He said to jig them a foot or two off the bottom.  With those instructions, he went out to set the tip-ups.

Tip-ups were for the additional holes outside of the shanty.  When you get a fish on, the flag pops up to let you know.  After the tip-ups were set, he joined me in the warmth of the shanty.  I had already shed my coat and hat.  After a bit of jigging, I got my first bite.  I watched the walleye move toward the minney-head.  Then he took the bait.  I set the hook and pulled in the first of three nice walleyes I caught that day.  My guide caught 2 more on the tip-ups outside.  I remained in my comfortable spot and throughly enjoyed the day.

Asian carp have no stomachs which causes them to eat non-stop. They grow quickly and leave nothing behind for native species. They reproduce like crazy. Watch out Great Lakes whose fragile environment has already been attacked by zebra mussels and lampreys. As the carp make their way up the tributaries, steps must be taken to keep them out.

So what can be done? A new breed of fisherman are making a good profit fishing the invasive species. Considered good eating by the Asian-American populace, harvesting the fish for food is an excellent method of returning the Illinois River to its native inhabitants.

Look for the “Fish Forever” label for products that are sustainably harvested seafood.

An adult specimen will attach itself to a larger fish and suck the blood and body fluids in a parasitic fashion. The one I saw had a round sucker mouth with circular rings of teeth. It looks somewhat like an eel, but had a dorsal fin, blackish brown body and grayish underbody. Lampreys either kill the host fish by draining it of fluids like a vampire, or leaving a wound that becomes infected.

The adults spend most of their time in the Great Lakes, but return to tributaries to spawn. They are thought by some to invade the lakes via Lake Huron and Erie through man made canals to the sea. Some experts believe the Great Lakes lampreys have been in the area since the Pleistocene Era, and are actually a native species.

Whether native or invasive, there is no argument that they are destructive to the basin. According to the Indiana DNR (Aquatic Invasive Species), U.S. and Canada are spending $8 million per year on control of the sea lamprey and another $12 million per year in the restoration of lake trout populations that were destroyed by lampreys. Most control methods are too costly to be effective in such a large area. These include barriers to keep the lamprey from returning to tributaries to spawn. Sterilization of male lampreys involves collection, sterilization and the return to spawning streams to compete with fertile males. This method reduces fertilized egg counts. Lampricide applied to larvae can be effective. Usually it takes a combination of techniques to control the population.

I hope I never catch another one.

Wound picture copied with permission from: http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/gl129f04.htm

The first is the bow string technique.  Simply hold the rod up high and with taught line, take the opposing hand and pull the line back much like a bow, bending the rod quite a bit.  Once you have it pulled back like a bow, releasing the line causes a shock wave to travel down the line, knocking the bait loose from simple snags such as rocks or limbs.  This works very well with lines that stretch such as monofilament, it does not work well with braids, as they do not stretch and offer no memory.

The second method is the Dehooker Pole.  Nick makes his own using an extendable paint pole from the local hardware store.  Get one that is at least 12-14 feet long.  Then purchase a paint roller, take a hammer and mash the roller part off.  Most are cheap plastic and break easily. Once you have removed the roller bend the paint roller shaft out to make it straight with a small propane torch and a vice.  Then take a 1 1/2″ metal pipe and while the vice holds both, heat up the metal shaft and wrap it around the 1 1/2″ pipe forming a screw type end. Once you have at least 3 wraps the remaining part of the shaft can be cut off.  Make sure that there are no sharp spots on the screw type part, as they will cut your line.  Now attach the reconfigured paint roller (dehooker) to the end of the adjustable paint roller and you have an excellent lure retriever.  If you lack the tools or are not that handy, Bass Pro Shops sells a similar pole for around $30 – $50 dollars.

With a dehooker pole and bow string in my de-snagging arsenal, I cast right up to the brush piles and rocks near the bank, catching more fish than I thought possible.  As for fishing with Nick, I recommend you book a trip regardless of your expertise. He will keep you out of trouble and in the fish.

The events will be held in Del Rio, Texas; Russellville Arkansas; Guntersville, Alabama, Gilbertsville, Kentucky and Shreveport, Louisiana, with the Tour Championship on Lake Mitchell near Birmingham, Alabama.  With over 200 entrants expected in the professional and amateur divisions, competition will be stiff.  To fish these fine lakes in the south would be heaven on water.  Fish on…

There is nothing like fishing for salt water fish in a fresh water river.  Fresh water is less dense than salt water and where rivers empty into the ocean, the salt water is deep, and the fresh flows over the top.  While in Belize on vacation, we had the opportunity to experience this exciting form of fishing.

We checked in the Radisson Fort George in Belize City on our last day of vacation.  Our flight was leaving in the afternoon the next day. The hotel reportedly had the best guide in the area and luckily he was available for the next morning.  

The weather looked like rain, and the ocean was choppy at the marina.  We went to the dock and were dismayed to see a very small fishing boat.  We thought twice about the trip, but the guide assured us he could find the fish, and we would fish the river instead of the ocean for safety.  We climbed in and made the short scary trip to the mouth of a river that flows through the city.   We followed that upriver until we turned down a canal that was created during the time when the British were logging Mahogany from the area.  We traveled five miles down the canal with mangrove forests on each side, finally reaching our destination of another river that went to the ocean.

There were other boats fishing, and the men all knew each other.  We gathered fishing reports on the way, and our guide said, “Just you wait, they will join us.”  Sure enough, we picked our spot, and others moved to the area.  That’s when I knew our guide was truly the best in the area.  He told us to put on heavy weights to get to the salt water, down about 20-30 feet.  We did and shortly after my husband hooked a large snook.  It fought hard and he grinned like a madman.  I caught a nice jack after that.  We all were catching fish, and were disappointed when the time was up and we had to leave the river to catch a flight instead.  We went from fishing that beautiful spot in the morning, to Indianapolis in February by evening.

My honeymoon was spent in a friend’s rustic cabin on the south fork of the Yaak River in Northwestern Montana. To get to the cabin, you stop at an unmarked spot on the road and hike a half mile down a narrow trail. The cabin was way back in grizzly country with plenty of evidence to show they were around (berry scat.) The one room cabin was outfitted with an old wood cooking stove, a table and a full size bed. We settled in, and went hiking to look for fishing spots for the next day.

We headed back out in the morning while the dew was still on the ground. My husband went upstream with his fly box, waders and pole, determined to bring back some trout. Past the beaver dam, he continued to a lovely pond we had spied the day before. He began fly fishing and spent the rest of the morning there.

I got bored after a while, so I hiked back downstream enjoying the shallow, clear, gravel bottomed river. The day was beautifully sunny, the air rich with fragrant flowers. Passing the big tackle box, I got a bit envious. I had left my spinning rod at home knowing this was a fly fishing trip. What could I use to do a bit of fishing? Searching through the tackle box, I pulled out a bit of line, two steel leaders, a swivel and a hook. A downed tree branch for my makeshift gear, and I had a fishing pole.

Now for some bait. I found a fat, juicy grasshopper and put him on the hook. I sat down on a bend in the river where it undercut the bank. In plunked the grasshopper. The branch bent sharply and I flipped a fourteen inch rainbow trout on the bank. It had been lying in the undercut just waiting for the current to bring it a nice meal.

Later that morning, my husband came down the trail, proudly carrying a stringer of four small rainbow trout. He said, “I caught dinner, honey!” I showed him my big, bad trout and said, “No, I caught dinner, you caught breakfast!”

On one cast, I reeled in nothing but line and I could see my bobber just under the surface, stuck on a stump about fifteen feet out. I tied yet another hook, and went back to coaxing. A couple of hours later, my bobber started moving upstream against the current. It went up and down, lazily following the bank. We laughed when we realized a hungry fish had made a meal of my stranded night crawler.

The bobber would tease us, swimming just offshore, upstream and down, disappearing only to show up again the next day. Later that week, it finally came close to shore. Randy waded out in chest deep water, grabbed the bobber and pulled in a bullhead catfish. 

My friend’s son is 7 years old and has the fishing bug, bad.  His parents are not interested in fishing or teaching him to fish.  His mother asked me on a number of occasions if we would take the boy with us sometime so he could learn.  They arrived at the derby early and set up on the bank next to my family, not recognizing each other.

Cal did his best, but had caught nothing when I passed them on the gater selling dogs.  I told his mom to ask the “Bass Master” for help and pointed to my husband.  He baited Cal up with an earthworm and put him on a bobber.  In a short time, he pulled in a nice catfish that was the winner for his age group.  My husband agreed to filet the cat and sent the meal home with Cal.
 
Filleting a fish can be a messy business.  Cal’s mom was making icky faces. I took her aside, and said this is the time when you cover your own fears and share in your son’s excitement.  She went back and said “Hey, that’s cool!” with a smile on her face.  Both mom and son learned fishing lessons that day.  We received a lovely card from his mother.  The catch made the boy’s year!

Follow this link to see an article in the South Bend Tribune that tells another story of a young boy who had a caterpillar land on his shoulder and how that bait and a few prayers caught him a record fish at the derby.

South Bend Tribune article – Tight Lines and Good Times

My daughter also won in two categories, with a 23 inch carp and a 7 inch bluegill.  My four year old grandson caught a turtle.  My husband got skunked, but lived vicariously through the kids. 

Happy fishing!