The One That Could Have Got Away

I arrived at the nearby reservoir with fog still hanging heavy on the water.  With June-like air temperatures, the water is already in the high 50s.  I'm never on the water this early in the year so I had low expectations.  This was supposed to be a scouting trip.  The park drains the reservoir every winter for spring run off (which we had none of this year).  So, with the water still four feet lower than summertime, my plan was to run most of the shore line taking pictures and mental notes of the structure I can't normally see when the water is raised back.  I paddled my kayak to the opposite shore and started throwing a white spinnerbait; taking pictures when a partially submerged log or a rocky ledge came into view.  With the size of the lure I hardly paddled as it was pulling me along a steady pace down the shoreline.  I even started to steer my kayak by retrieving my lure.

After two hundred or so casts, I thought of changing my lure choice, but I always have a good feeling using spinnerbaits.  I slowly began paying less attention to my fishing and my eyes and mind wandered.  I watched the bluegills smacking gnats off the glassy water, a spider skitter across the slippery surface of my kayak, the carp beginning their water thrashing mating rituals, the walkers and joggers going around the lake.  My mind sank deeper into unfocused thought, jumping from topic to topic with no provocation and no set destination.  I was elsewhere in my thoughts, but in reality, there was no where else I wanted to be.  Drifting through the calm morning waters with the sun beginning to warm me and the turtles already stretched out on the logs.  

My stream of consciousness started gaining speed.  Over the thought-worn rocks my ideas swirled and foamed, sprayed and tumbled. It pushed aside the small flotsam and rushed between, over, and under the larger obstacles on its way to harbors unknown.  Each runlet of conception added more strength to the torrent raging inside my brain.  Strong enough now where no force can stop it, eroding, moving, destroying anything in its pa-

My lure stopped.  My thoughts and ideas evaporated instantly, through my head, and back into the fog surrounding me.  My attention snapped back, but my mind still faltered.

                  It could have been a rock... a branch maybe... no this is moving... what do I do again?

                                Oh.  Right. 

                                        SET THE HOOK!

I leaned back and drove the hook home.  Somehow in my daydreaming, there was a fish fifty feet away who was daydreaming harder.  Thinking of the boys who will court her soon, the shad she stalks until one strays from the school, the diving birds stealing her lunch, or perhaps about those strange metal and plastic fish she sees occasionally who never swim just right.  Oh, hey, there's one now.  Yes, let's eat that.  And I'm glad she did. 

After a brief hand to fin battle I get her close and and I start shaking.  She fought well, but I didn't think she was this big.  I fumbled and swiped at her mouth causing her to dive deeper.  I got her back to the surface and make another pass that she nimbly shruged off.   I start thinking she is going to escape.  I reach my arm into the water, guide her in with the rod and lift.  Twenty three inches of scales and muscle and gills and slime.... a lot of slime.  It looks like she was swimming in pig spit.  Clumps of it clings to her body, her fins, her eyes.  Due to her poor health, I want to make this release even speedier.  Unfortunately, I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl when Justin Bieber asks them to the spring formal and apparently, my newly lost thoughts took my dexterity with them.  I manage to unhook my prize and take a slew of pictures of her letting her rest in the water often.  When I am done admiring, I open my hand, she turns under my kayak and vanishes back down through her suitors, the shad, the loons and those pesky fishing lures.

Installing a Kayak Rod Holder

Installing a rod holder on my kayak was part of my things to do list.  With this streak of warm weather we've been having and the first day of spring today, I needed to finish what I was planning to do all winter.  I bought a pair of Cabela's rod holders back in October but I had some hesitation to install them.  Part of my procrastination was my fear to put a hole in a perfectly good boat.  If my kayak was a sit on top, I would have probably put it off even longer.  Once I committed, the installation took only fifteen minutes or so.

The first step was simply tracing the rod holder with a Sharpie where I wanted it to go.  I chose a spot that I could reach easily, but I had little real estate to work with.  I wanted the rod holder to be in back of me and out of my paddle stroke, however, any of the area that the holder could have been perfectly placed had ridges.  I found a spot on the top of a ridge that had the most surface area and reluctantly marked.

Next, I drilled the impending hole with a 2" hole saw.  After the hole was in place I realized the top of the rod holder is in an oval shape so some filing needed to be done to extend the hole.

Next I marked the spots the screws where the screws were going and drilled pilot holes.

Finally, the screws were put in place.

I thought of using a silicone gel to seal the hole but opted not to.  There won't be much splashing of water where it is placed and if significant water is coming in through that hole, I will be worrying more about my life jacket being on correctly.  Had this been a sit on top kayak, I would have definitely used a sealant and procured a cap for the holder.

This weekend it will get the on the water test.  I'm pretty excited to have a spot to put an extra rod that's not between my knees.  hopefully its out of the way of my back cast.

Black Lake

Over 10,000 years ago large glaciers slowly dragged across the landscape leaving a twenty mile scar in the surface that is now Saint Lawrence County, New York.  This left sparkling granite bedrock exposed, showcasing deposits of rust red iron and veins of snow white quartz.  The water was once a murky tone allowing visibility to six inches at best.  This is how she obtained her name, Black Lake.

Since her and I have been friends, she has cleared dramatically due to the invasion of zebra mussels. The clearing of her waters did not make her miss her stride; she could still produce fish after fat fish. The deepest of her waters is only thirty feet allowing for expansive weed beds choking most bays by late June.  These mats, sometimes covering thirty acres at a time, provide perfect ambush spots for large pike and bass.  Spots that were made for kayak fishing, but  spots that are difficult to fish with lures made from fur and feathers for the majority of summer.

Many decades ago, my great grandparents bought a small island and quaint cabin on Black Lake.  The island is a granite glob protruding ten feet out of the water for half an acre.  The weather worn rocks are spotted with thousands of years of lichen growth interspersed with wild blueberries and waist high grasses.  There has never been any running water and the only source of power is a generator that is clogged with sticky gasoline that has been tested to temperature extremes over decades of unuse.  Any food and water you will need for your stay must be packed accordingly and ferried across the lake on ice.  There are two refrigerators in the cabin, but they store the nonperishable food from the island's other inhabitants.  The magnet on one of these refrigerators reads "This is a No Frills Kitchen."  A kitchen, or cabin for that matter, was never made that this saying was more fitting for.

I have visited with Black Lake since I was born.  At a young age I wanted to catch fish like I saw the rest of my family doing.  I would waddle down to the water's edge and fill my yellow bucket with lake water.  I would then clamber up from granite ledge to granite ledge and go fishing in that bucket. Perhaps I had seen too many monstrous fish pulled out of that lake to want to tangle with any of them or maybe I thought it would be easier to catch a fish in a smaller body of water.  I would sit there with my Snoopy Zebco waiting for my Snoopy bobber to be pulled into the eight inch depths.  It never happened in that bucket, but I am certain my first sunfish, perch, catfish, largemouth bass, crappie, smallmouth bass, and northern pike came from slightly deeper water only twenty feet from where I had once placed that bucket.  And many of those came with Snoopy's help.  Slightly older my sisters and I would have casting competitions with one rule: hooks only.  We would only make a few casts before one of us would have to reel in the perch that thought our gold Aberdeen looked like a tasty meal.  Older yet, I would occasionally experiment with lures in an attempt to make them more productive.  I put an apple slice on a hula popper (if I liked fruit, fish obviously had to as well) and made a cast I remember being tremendously long.  I made a couple turns of the reel and a hefty largemouth made a giant leap with my lure in its mouth.

It has been four years since I have seen her last and another four before that.  After graduating college I re-met with her for a brief week.  She seemed to still remember me.  She greeted me with the calls of loons and a placid surface.  She would light up the sky every night with her stunning sunsets and she still leaned in and softly sang me to sleep with her bullfrog songs.  When I last left, she was tossing three foot waves in an attempt to keep me with her.  She had not wanted me to leave so soon, and I had not wanted to leave her.  But life takes hold and moves you even farther from those you love.  You keep telling yourself to reconnect with old acquaintances, to make plans for a trip together, but it never happens.  Some memories fade but others only become more vibrant in your mind.  Soon, her and I will have that shore lunch we've been planning and she can try to convince me to never leave again.  I will be bringing some apples.

Slow Going

The end of summer is upon us and with that comes hurricanes (apparently) and me sucking at catching fish (apparently).  Right before Irene came through I did some fishing and managed 5 smallies on the fly rod off the East Branch Perkiomen.  As soon as the rain started the bite stopped and I haven't had a bass on the fly since.  I managed to get a white perch and a couple fall fish while fly fishing adding to my species count.  With my mediocre flies not producing, I have started spin fishing again and managed a couple decent, for me, bass.  I've been mainly using a chartreuse buzz bait and getting some explosive reactions.

mmm... clousers

Tubby

And that's where the fishing part of the blog stops.  

Irene came through and gave the area some hefty flooding.  I had to work the morning of the storm when the water was the highest which meant I had to find a route that didn't pass over any creeks or streams.  I wish I got more pictures that day but by the time I got out of work the water was back down to an unremarkable level.  Some trees were knocked down, some cars were stranded in the middle of bridges they thought they could ford, but most came through unscathed.  The Nockamixon spill way was cleared of most its weeds and left them in the trees.

Tree-weed

I stumbled across a new edible mushroom for me to try.  The black trumpet.  I picked about a pound in a small area, but have yet to find a recipe that really stands out and showcases the mushrooms flavor.  I think I will experiment a little and see what works best.  I was already going to make an alfredo sauce, so I will toss some in there.  They smell like a peach or apricot and not like a mushroom at all.

Do you know what smells worse than a skunk?  

A skunk that's rotting on a muddy river bank.  

I thought about grabbing some of the skunks fur to make some flies but decided against it.  The catfish might like them.  

I'm hoping that's not a sign of the fishing to come. 

A summary of the year so far.

I have started to fly fish this year only and I am tying my own flies and learning as I go.  It seems like every year I have a bunch of "firsts," but I suppose that's how learning goes.


I went trout fishing for the first time April and battled the other anglers on opening day to get a spot on the water.  It was an experience to fish sided by side with hundreds of other hook and bait equipped predators and an experience I'm not sure I want to experience again.  Once the crowds died down a week later I went out with my spinning tackled and got 3 12" stocked rainbows on spinners. I kept them all since they will all die with the higher temperatures of the summer but I found out that farm raised trout tastes like the fish food they feed them.  If someone has a recipe that make these more palatable please share.

I then started fly fishing once it got warmer and used my own hand tied flies and this was my first not so large largemouth on the fly rod.  Since then, there have only been 2 occasions I've been fly fishing and I haven't hooked a bass.  Albeit, there are quite a few small fish in there, but they are still enjoyable to catch.

I have since then started hitting smaller streams near me and got this 15" largemouth on a black wooly bugger.  This fly has gotten me countless fish since May, but lately the fish haven't been reacting to it as strongly so I will need to find a new go to fly for the warmer months and deeper water.

Greedy

I also landed this 18.5" smallie which didn't look too healthy.  He had a healing lip from a previous encounter with a non-digestible prey item.

So far that smallmouth is the largest fish Ive gotten on the fly rod.  I have been trying to sight fish for carp and have made over a hundred casts to roaming carp but haven't had any bites yet.  Of course only about 10 of those casts have been accurate and I have made my goal this summer to get a carp on the fly.

I went to Sea Isle City, NJ for some flounder fishing and managed to catch 4 while my girlfriend caught 7.  We both managed to get an 18" flounder for our biggest catch.

Lastly, me and a coworker went to the Susquehanna a couple weeks ago by Harrisburg.  We rented a canoe and made an 8 mile drift.  It took us until the second half of the day to find out what they wanted and we both ended up catching 8 Smallmouth each.  The smallest being 13" and we both caught a 19 incher.  All were caught on a shad colored Big O crankbait.  My crank bait wasn't producing but luckily he had 2 of them and was willing to share.  This year the Susquehanna down here has imposed a strict catch and release policy due to the declining smallmouth population due to pollution, over harvesting and predation.  The 19" is my biggest smallmouth to date and was probably 4+ pounds.

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So far it's been a great year.  I haven't done any bait fishing except for the flounder and for catfish but I only caught a few small channels and bull head using chicken livers.  All the fish of decent size broke me off in the rocks too quick so I have to find a different, less rocky, spot.  I have caught at least 1 keeper bass each day the last four days all on my fly rod.  I am a novice at fishing and fly fishing so for me, I am doing well.  I have also fallen into the water 4 times since May resulting in 7 wet feet, 3 wet pairs of pants 2 wet shirts and 1 cell phone paperweight.  I now keep all electronics in a ziplock bag while wading. I'm not as graceful as I once was.