Feeling the love – Part 3

Author’s Note: This is the conclusion of a three-part series. Click the links to view Part 1 and Part 2.

As I pulled in to my driveway and opened the garage door well after sunset on Sunday night, I noticed that Lyza had already turned on the garage light for JT and I.

While I certainly enjoyed my time in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, it felt great to be home. As I began unpacking the truck, I was greeted by the welcomed site of my wife standing in the garage, holding our young son. I was excited for JT to get to meet our little guy for the first time.

We spent a few minutes chatting before we finished unpacking and Lyza gave JT a tour of our house. Though we have been in this house for a little more than a year, this was JT’s first time here. In fact, we realized this was his first time in Sheboygan Falls in nearly five years.

With the tour concluded, it was down to business. We had a pair of rods to string up and extra bead rigs to assemble. Lyza put Tony to bed, grabbed the baby monitor and joined us in the garage as we got to work. Rigging 10-foot rods in a space with eight-foot ceilings can quickly become a two-person job when it’s dark outside and everyone involved is tired.

Once the rods were situated, we headed to the basement to shoot a couple games of pool before putting together the last of the bead rigs and calling it a night. Even though we couldn’t legally start fishing until well after 6 a.m., we were going to be up and at ’em before 5. The lack of water in the Sheboygan River put fishable spots at a premium and the salmon run always draws a crowd. Plus, we needed to make a trip to the local bait shop for spawn sacks because I was fresh out of skein.

When we arrived at the spot the following morning, there was only one other vehicle in the lot. I recognized the grey SUV immediately. It was the guide we were fishing with the next day. The trailer for his 13-foot raft gave it away. Steering clear of him and his clients wasn’t going to be an issue. I was nearly positive he was downriver from where we were going.

JT and I pulled on our waders and gathered our gear before making the brief trek to the river. We moved gingerly across a set of rapids toward the far bank in low-light conditions. In hindsight, I probably should have brought a headlamp.

We moved upriver to a dry rock bar that was exposed by the summer’s drought. This would be our basecamp for the foreseeable future as it was adjacent to the deepest hole I felt we would find in this stretch of river that wouldn’t have people fishing it.

To be honest, I knew we were going to have to work at this. Conditions were less than ideal and salmon fishing isn’t always a high-percentage venture. Hooking one is no assurance of actually landing one.

My primary goal was for JT to witness the spectacle of the salmon run firsthand. He had never seen it and I wanted to show him what he had been missing. We were using, essentially, the same tactics our guide would use the following day: soft beads with a single hook under balsa wood floats. If nothing else, this experience would have JT prepared for our guided trip.

During the bulk of the salmon run (and all of the spring trout run) Lake Michigan tributaries up to the first dam can only be fished from a half hour before sunrise until a half our after sunset. This is to help prevent people from illegal snagging fish under the cover of darkness or otherwise harassing the salmon.

Legal fishing hours finally came and we couldn’t see shit. It was still too dark. Even though we each had a fluorescent bobber, it would simply vanish if it was more than few feet from us which was a problem because the run we were fishing was on the far bank.

No matter. We got the spot I felt we needed and a few more minutes of waiting wouldn’t kill us. We had an entire day ahead of us.

As the river gradually became illuminated, the salmon show began. It didn’t take long for them to announce their presence, rocketing out of the water, completely airborne, the slaps of their sides making contact with the waters surface upon descent echoed off the trees. It was like Sea World, except less depressing.

Only a handful of minutes into the day, I had already achieved my primary goal and I could tell JT was enjoying every second of it. How can you not? I get to see this scene play out dozens of times per year and it still gets my blood pumping every time.

Our spot was flanked by sets of rapids on either side. My hope was that the fish would use the relatively deep hole in front of us as a loafing area. At some point, in theory, those fish would need to grab a snack to refuel before their next charge upriver. That’s where JT and I would come in.

It was clear: the fish were moving. Occasionally I would look toward the rapids downriver and see a wall of wake as several salmon powered through the shallows. They looked like jet skis as their mighty tails drove the fish onward through the vulnerable point of the river.

Like clockwork, the fish advanced through the rapids and then entered the pool in front of us. On occasion, they took a break from the aerial acrobatics and chilled in the seam between the current and slack water where we would get a nice view. I’ve caught hundreds of king salmon in my life, but there is just something about being up close to them in a river setting. They are imposing figures, some pushing nearly 30 pounds and 40 inches in length.

Once in a while, I would look up to find JT with his phone in-hand between casts, documenting the display the fish were providing.

We saw hundreds of fish. Originally, that gave me a great deal of optimism. Truth be told, I just wanted JT to get one. The odds seemed to be in our favor. But, as the sun continued its ascent, I realized we were witnessing a pattern. Fish would enter from the rapids down river. They would jump around in our hole for a few minutes and then they would continue their journey and blast through the whitewater upriver. It was almost as though they were taunting us.

After nearly four hours without a bite, I decided a change of scenery was necessary. The river was much wider at the location I had in mind. Unfortunately, this required a change in tactics and some fresh gear.

We hopped in the truck and returned to my garage. We rigged some spinning rods and ransacked my fishing station for all the crank baits, jerk baits, and spinners we could find. After the brief intermission we headed to the new spot, downriver from our starting point.

When we started to unpack, I realized I couldn’t find the cases of baits that we had just put together. That’s because they weren’t there. In my haste, I had left them back at the house. We were now left with a single jerk bait and the leftover spawn sacks from the morning. I was pissed, but determined to make the best of the situation. I didn’t want to burn additional precious time.

So I set JT up with the jerk bait and assembled a bottom rig that I tipped with a spawn sack—a tactic that can sometimes be effective in deeper water earlier in the run. This, however, was not an ideal application of this approach.

I decided that, given our situation, this spot was on a short leash. We would give this an hour at most.

The lone fisherman who was at the spot upon our arrival began to pack up his things. He had a large king salmon on his stringer that he caught with a crank bait.

“At least we aren’t completely screwed,” I thought to myself.

While I was placing my dead rod, I saw JT react out of the corner of my eye.

“Oop, I think I ran into somebody,” he said as he recoiled from the surprise of his jerk bait coming to a dead halt. Considering the amount of fish in the river, it’s quite possible he did. But it turned out that was the only excitement that spot had to offer.

We checked one more spot located between the two places we had fished at this point in the day. It was nearly noon when we arrived to find very little water, but a few fish. We picked the only hole we could find and got to it. The flow was terrible. The wind was blowing up river and essentially brought the current to a standstill. Within a few casts, I had snagged and lost the only jerk bait we were in possession of. I decided that enough was enough and we left.

Back in the truck headed back to the house for lunch and to regroup, I was starting to feel stressed. While I was happy JT got his fill of salmon watching, I wanted to get him a fish. While I certainly didn’t promise him a fish, I felt like I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain. My mind was racing. There weren’t many fishable spots. Almost all of those spots were occupied by other people. Changing spots typically meant investing time in getting new setups ready and it felt like we were running out of daylight.

Just before we got home, it started to rain. Though, on the surface, that may seem like cherry on top of a shit sundae the precipitation reinvigorated me. Not only was the rain desperately needed, the added cloud cover could keep the fish active at a time they otherwise wouldn’t be. Plus, some liquid sunshine might keep the fair-weather anglers at bay, which would open up some options for us.

Suddenly, I had a plan.

I turned to JT and said, “You know what? We’re going to throw the kitchen sink at them.”

While we had put-in a valiant effort in the morning, I still had a trick up my sleeve: minnows.

Now, when I cannot tell you how many eye rolls I’ve received when I tell salmon fishermen that minnows are one of my favorite tactics during the fall run, but I almost prefer it that way. Part of the reason this approach is successful is because it’s different. I’ve never ran into anyone else who does it. You know how many span sacks, beads, and spinners a typical salmon sees over the course of its upriver charge? They get suspicious after a while.

Minnows, on the other hand, are a naturally occurring part of the ecosystem. Every river has minnows and they can be a valuable source of nourishment for the spawning fish that are exerting high levels of energy in a relatively short period of time.

We would have to act fast. Though there were roughly seven hours of legal fishing time remaining, I promised Lyza I would have dinner ready when she returned home with our son after work.

After scarfing down some hot beef sandwiches and making another trip to the bait shop, we were back in action in the same spot we began our morning.

The way I saw it, at this point, we didn’t have time for additional scouting. If we were going to get JT locked into a fight with a big ol’ salmon, it only seemed logical to revisit the most promising hole we had fished so far. The only question was: would there be other people there? That spot couldn’t accommodate more than one group.

As soon as we parked, I sent JT down to the river to scope out the situation. In and effort to save time, I stayed in the truck, just in case we needed to go to Plan B.

I could hardly watch as I waited for JT to reemerge from the tallgrass. Getting this spot was the glue that held this strategy together. Sure, I had a backup. But there’s a reason the backup plan wasn’t the initial one, you know?

As JT came into view through my dirty windshield, he gave me a thumbs-up. A sense of relief rushed over me briefly before it was overcome by a sudden adrenaline rush. We got our spot. We had a fresh approach. Now it was time to make it happen.

If anyone else had fished this spot while we were out and about, it certainly didn’t impact the salmon. The fish parade we witnessed at sunrise was still going strong in the afternoon hours.

With a renewed sense of confidence, we were back to fishing. JT took the lower end of the pocket floating a soft bead and spawn sack, I did likewise at the upper end. I placed a rod with a minnow on a bottom rig between the two of us. After a while, I casted a weightless minnow presentation with a lip-hooked fathead on a single hook. Our bases were covered, at least, that’s how it seemed.

As much as I believed in our new plan, it didn’t yield much in the way of results sans a few small bass who couldn’t resist the minnows. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I don’t think there is much I would change about how we attacked the afternoon.

In total, we fished over 10 hours and didn’t even have a bite to show for it. I was disappointed. I felt like I was letting my friend down. He traveled a long way just to get skunked. That’s why I was grateful we had a guided trip to fall back on the following day.

That night, my parents stopped over after dinner to drop off some dessert and catch up with JT. Somewhere in the course of the conversation, my dad offered up a proposition to JT.

“I’ll tell you what,” my father said. “If you catch your first spawning king salmon tomorrow, I will stop over with a bottle of Eagle Rare and we’ll celebrate. It has to be a real salmon though. None of that Jack salmon shit.”

Nearly all king salmon spawn at the age of 4 when they are near their peak size. “Jack” salmon are two-year-old fish that are destined for a shorter life cycle and are therefore smaller when they enter the river to reproduce. It’s basically nature’s insurance policy against drought or other suboptimal spawning conditions. If certain members of a salmon class spawn outside of the regular timeframe, it makes it more likely their genetics will get passed on to a future generation.

Though all of this is a moot point in a place where little or no natural salmon reproduction occurs, the salmon don’t know any better. So Jacks persist just as they would in a location with abundant natural reproduction.

The next morning, JT and I were up and at ’em nice and early. We met our guide, Bailey, at what would be the end point of our float. We then hopped in his vehicle and headed to our launch point, several miles up river.

We helped Bailey get the raft into the water and loaded up our gear. It was still almost an hour until we could legally fish but we had some distance to travel and didn’t know how water levels would impact our ability to get to our first spot.

Bailey illuminated the river with a spotlight as we slowly floated down the meandering river that seemed desperate for water, barely holding enough liquid to keep us afloat.

From the front of the raft, I could clearly see salmon just about everywhere the light touched. Some of these fish were just kind of hanging out, others were frantically charging upstream. My heart was racing. Given we were still in the early stages of the run, it stood to reason that this many fish upriver meant there was a bounty of them waiting for us downstream. We were going to get JT his salmon. I could feel it. To be honest, that was all I really cared about at this point.

On a few occasions, we had to disembark from the raft and walk the river bed because the water was too low. Though, that didn’t happen nearly as often as the three of us feared it might.

We made it to our first spot with time to spare before legal fishing hours. The fact that it was still plenty dark did little to ease the pain of literally sitting with my hands in my pockets as enormous fish splashed and thrashed everywhere, sometimes just feet from us.

Mercifully, daylight finally came and we promptly put lines in the water. The approach was essentially identical to the plan from the day before: soft beads and skein under a float drifted through the foam line in front of us.

JT stood directly to my left and we took turns depositing our bobbers into the current and letting them steadily march downriver with the aid of the little flow that existed watching for any sign of a bite.

After only a few casts, JT’s bobber disappeared 20 yards downriver from us. He set the hook and the rod bent sharply and stayed there. The water around the bobber’s last known location exploded as a giant tail broke through the surface.

Game on.

The line at the end of the rod jerked violently with every vicious head shake that was coming from a 25-pound fish that knew it was in a predicament.

This was it.

This was what JT was here for, why he traveled nearly 600 miles from home. For this moment. This experience. This fight. These feelings.

And then the line went limp.

In an instant, it was all over.

It’s interesting, almost every single person I have ever fished with has reacted the exact same to losing a salmon. And despite his lack of experience with this type of fishing, JT gave the same response as someone who has been at it for 20 years.

“Fuck.”

Now I’ve thought long and hard about this. That is the only reaction you can have, really. I don’t care how soft spoken or proper you are. It also doesn’t matter how many times you’ve said it or if you even like the word. That is the word that is coming out of your mouth. It’s the only single word for that situation. It is the word—the only thing that can so accurately and succinctly sum up that kind of moment.

One second, you’re locked in a scrap with a massive fish, your mind is racing, the adrenaline flowing freely, your strength and skill being tested. The next second, silence. It just stops. Without warning, none of the things you were just experiencing are there. You start to question if any of it was even real. It’s like abruptly waking up from a dream.

No matter how many times it happens (and it damn sure happens) you never get used to the strangeness of that feeling.

After we all got the f-bombs out of our systems, Bailey offered up some advice.

“Set the hook hard, lay into them. Just like you’re bass fishing with a frog.”

It only took a couple of casts before JT got the chance to heed that advice and, boy, did he ever follow instructions. The float vanished and JT swiftly yanked back with all his might … but he came up empty and his entire setup came flying back upriver at us as though it was launched out of a cannon.

“Hey, at least you listened,” Bailey quipped.

Before long, JT was hooked up again. This time, he made headway and got the fish within a handful of yards from us. Bailey grabbed the net and got into position. I grabbed my phone and started capturing the moment on video.

Pop.

The hook came right out of the fish’s mouth. The fish scurried back into the safety of the deep hole it was plucked from.

I wouldn’t say I was worried, but I definitely felt bad for JT. None of this was his fault, it was just bad luck. Still, these things can mess with your confidence. It’s hard not to develop a complex after a while.

Eventually, another opportunity arose as we all believed it would. And this fish didn’t get away. It was a process. Hell, I’d even argue it wasn’t always fun. But it was all worth it. JT finally had his salmon.

As Bailey snapped a few photos of JT and his prized catch, I snuck in to take my own, crappier picture. I immediately sent it to my mom and dad in a message that contained just one word: “Bourbon!”

“We’re having a few tonight,” JT said when I told him of the text.

“Yup,” I responded as Bailey chuckled.

With our primary objective scratched off, it was my turn to get in on the fun. At some point during the chaos, a light yet steady rain started to fall. No matter. We all had rain gear and there were still plenty of fish to be had. It hadn’t even been 90 minutes and we were still in our first of several spots.

In short order, I found myself in a battle of my own. As the fish forcefully darted around, all I could do was smile. We got JT his fish. Everything that awaited us for the remainder of the day, including this tussle, was all gravy as far as I was concerned.

After a solid fight, my fish was in the net. I posed for pictures and gave Bailey a fist bump and a thank you.

I turned to JT, who also had his fist extended. As our knuckles connected I told my friend, “Now it’s time to run up the scoreboard, baby. Let’s make Bailey look good.”

Just as he had before, JT followed instructions. Within moments, he had another fish on. It was pretty early in the fight when we realized he had connected with a Jack. Hey, they all count the same.

Bailey offered up a picture and JT was about to decline since the fish was fairly pedestrian looking. But before he could, I interjected with the idea that he and I take a picture together. We had completely forgotten to do that with the first two fish and I didn’t want the opportunity to escape a third time. The next fish is never guaranteed.

With action coming at a steady clip and both of us with nice salmon to our credit, it became easier for me to focus on the little joys of the situation around us. We got to watch salmon swim at our feet as they took a break from the current that had been their adversary on their journey toward their final destination.

They weren’t active. They were simply being. In my part of the world, you don’t come across the chance to observe salmon behaving naturally. From the moment the fish enter the river, they are bombarded by anglers with spawn sacks, spinners, spoons, crank baits, beads, you name it. It’s just a constant barrage of baits. This puts the fish on edge in many public spots, particularly during daylight hours or when they are in shallow water.

But here, in a spot fewer people could access, that pressure was largely non-existent. It’s akin to the beauty of bow hunting and being able to see deer in their natural patterns free from the disruption of gun shots.

Thankfully more fish came for both of us. We found hungry fish in nearly every spot we stopped at. By the end of the day, we each landed a trio of kings. JT caught a bonus sucker.

That night, my dad made good on his promise and stopped over with some Eagle Rare and partial bottle of Buffalo Trace. We toasted to our success and relived every moment of our adventure with Bailey.

Long after my dad left, JT and I kept reliving the special day we shared. Truthfully, I have replayed parts of it every day since and while writing this series certainly helped keep those memories on loop, I highly doubt much time will ever pass without me reflecting on this trip.

This extended weekend was a reminder that love can come from many sources and can be shown in many ways.

Isn’t that what the best in life is all about?