The Trout Whisperer

Golfers, Tee Me Off

 Ya know how a fresh mowed lawn makes your yard smell better?   It makes my grass greener........better, like how salt just adds something to a steak.  It’s just a regular steak, then a few dashes of the white, and wow what a mouth full!  There ain’t much that can top a new hunting puppy either, well, except puppy breath.  

Anyhow, sometimes, just those little extras, like taking the time to smell the lawn after you cut it, makes all the difference.   Even though it took a smidgen of height from the grass, it’s really no worse for wear.  Golfers, unlike fisherman, are the only ones who truly care how long grass actually is.  Fishermen just want the grass mowed and that’s usually done on a Saturday.  A day made for fishing, not chasing a little white ball until it finally drops in a hole, a hole by the way, with no fish in it.  

Unlike fisherman, rule making, score keeping golfers who just happen to fish with me occasionally, use two little extras a lot of golfers like to, in my humble opinion, abuse.  First one is a tape measure; the second is a scale for weighing fish.

 I caught a whopper last evening on a fly rod, a fish that had a 15 inch girth, weighed a snitch over nine lbs and went 28 and one eighth inch on the tale of the tape.  It was even bigger than that in my head before my par-nine buddy decided, we had to size it up........ forever.  He even had his mother view the post mortem of measuring so he had a witness.   

All that darn empirical data only did what I thought then, and still think today; to decrease the size of one really fat, thick, long, pink-sided trout.  If he wouldn’t have measured that trophy trout in every human way possible, by this Friday night, I could have stretched that bugger to over ten pounds no sweat.  I mean, what’s one pound give or take a few ounces?  Heck, it’s a blade of grass here or there and besides, I was just going to improve my lie.  30 inches in length by Saturday morning would have been no problem, not that there was anything inferior with what I caught in the first place.   By taking a trout of that size and giving it a little bit of fishing salt, that would have added some real flavor to what has been less-than-lengthy trout catching of late.  

I‘ve been catching a fair amount of trout of late but he’s been catching one bigger every time we’ve been out.  So to keep his score card intact, he keeps tacking my hide to the wall with fish facts I just can’t argue and he’s holding my score card.  

If I catch three fish and he gets two, and sure enough one of his will be bigger than any of mine.   We all know bigger is better, well except those dang golfers where lower numbers are better.  So I’m not letting him measure my fish anymore this year.  From now on, it’s my word against his wonder. 

Trout Whisperer

Baiting deer is illegal

 So about a week ago I was wandering around my place just listening to the wind shush about my leafless trees when I’m pretty sure I heard one of my apple trees tell the rest of the orchard that this yard was heavily browsed upon this summer by too many white-tailed deer.  Oh, as a general rule, I don’t talk to plants, but I do listen to them.

 Another rule in Minnesota is you can’t hunt deer over, around, downwind, across the street from, or next to a store that potentially sells salt or deer bait.  You also can’t hunt within four radial miles from the nearest birdfeeder that spills bird seed. (check me on the four mile thing, it may be further)

  Whoever wrote the law or got the legislation passed was once again trying to protect the deer from unscrupulous lazy non-trophy buck hunters.   Yet the law missed the mark by a wide margin in my opinion, because if by chance in the boreal forest, say ten years ago you pile up a bunch of logs, call it a home, add some verdant Kentucky blue grass dappled here and there with apple trees, plum, mountain ash, currents and a quarter acre of raspberry bushes, well guess what?  Deer think those are about the most exotic species in the northern forest.

In Minnesota you can bait fish, mink traps, or even bear, but oh lordy the trouble you’ll be in if you get caught baiting a deer.  All of you know what’s gonna “break loose” and then “it” will freeze over with your confiscated rifle, so it’s really not worth it.

That old saying about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, well I don’t have a deer fence, but my yard is the other side.  It’s the most illegal deer baiting property for miles around.  Trails that are roto-tilled with sharp little deer hooves lead back to cedar and ash swamps.  These trails don’t have any DNR signs, like fat deer crossing ahead, or closed to the easiest deer hunting around, but they all start in my yard.

 The trails end back where the fat fed deer nap the day away after digesting most of my rose hips and hosta plants into fresh compost that goes from the  mouth to the ground without even moving one of their four feet.   Plus, just to keep from getting sued I have a personal property disclaimer, I tell everybody who hunts at my place that they have to use a ladder-stand just so they don’t get run over by a semi-starved deer headed for my yard.

 I was thinking of getting a hold of Doctor Doolittle, who unlike me is considered a specialist, to inquire about having a talk with these tasty animals on my behalf.  Maybe he could tell the deer to stay away.   Maybe he could explain to the deer that they’re actually making me break the law, if I deer hunt around my house.

Trout Whisperer

Its summer

Bing Cherries, corn on the cob, and the daily smell of fresh mowed lawn can only mean one thing.  All the local farmers are haying, the may fly hatch happened in June, but that’s finally over and I’ve seen some mirror reflected anemic looking skin, with a fresh golden brown tan.  It’s summer.  

Fishing is almost at its peak, Rainbow trout at sunrise, Walleyes at night, and Brook Trout almost anytime of the day.  Little red strawberries can be hand picked, sun ripened sweet, and warm in my mouth in every stroll stroll.  Tea roses so fragrant, I actually live the old line.  I stop and smell the roses.

 That big glowing orange ball in the sky sends it’s heat.  Nobody can escape it, but summer makes everybody equal, we all sweat.  I was working up quite a lather tearing out my old archery target.  I needed some new hay bales and I had a neighbor I knew who’d help me out.  

There were two trucks in the yard but the place looked pretty quiet when I pulled in.  I slammed my truck door and that woke the dog and the owner.  He was having a talk smart party with another of the farming frame of mind.  I just eat what they raise so in their eyes I’m not too smart.  They started in on the fact that it was too hot to get me some bales and I could just take what I wanted.  

Now I was with two old-timers who complained that they had the coldest temps all winter.  Oh what a warm summer day would do for their arthritis and now are in sleeveless white tee shirts belly aching even harder about how they have the hottest hayfields now?  They stand in it, leaning next to the ones guys tractor shed,  tell me I don’t know nothing about heat because I ain’t been around long enough, that’s after I agreed it was plenty hot, and then they wipe their brows, that recede to the back of their necks. I said it looked like it was a good year for growing hay anyhow.  

The Mrs. of the mister, steps out the big old farm house, yells at us all; would we like lemonade or tea?  In one sentence you get no choice, with a choice.  I like her.  I said lemonade would be great.  When she went back in the house, they thought a beer would be better, but then they decided it was too early in the day.  

I loaded three bales as they hobbled up to the porch, everybody grabbed a shaded chair and I had some lemonade with the boys.  It’s summer.  

 Trout Whisperer

He swatted his own pest

Nobody gets to pick the weather, so in my head, you’re just better off going; so we went. If the rain wasn’t enough, even when we were loading the canoe, the guy thought the waves looked way too rough.  I said, “We don’t get to pick the wave size either.”  

His arms were burning when we hit the lee shore, mine were too, but I told him things would get easier and we could make much better time.  Paddling that hard, I didn’t get much time to pick his brain, and with both our heads down we didn’t bother talking, so I didn’t have a good handle on what kinda outdoor dude I had in the bow.  

We hit a soft sandy damp shore, struck camp in the rain, ate a cold dinner, and called it a day.  When I got up the next morning and rolled out, he was already up.  I could tell something was bugging him so I asked.  He replied he wasn’t sure.  I asked if the trip in wore him out?  Was the weather too much?  Too late coming in on a Friday night? He said, “No, let’s grab some food and hit the water.”  

Up in the narrows we had a heck of a time trying to keep the canoe anchored but when I finally snagged good solid bottom we found some walleyes.  By noon the rain quit and we had a bunch of sporadic sun rays poke through the clouds.  

So back to camp we went.  We got all the gear hung up to dry and finally had a nice warm meal of fresh fried fish and tators.  He was still half a bubble off so I didn’t push him for whatever was obviously still bothering him.  He wanted to take a nap so that’s what he did.  I’m never one to shy away from a good afternoon snooze, so I did too.  

I woke up and again he had beaten me to the punch.  He was awake, had a little campfire going, and he asked where we would fish this evening.  I was thinking with the lack of wind and that we had all our gear dried out if something was bugging him, we could just get out of here in much friendlier conditions, so I offered that.   

So without looking up at me from the fire, he mentioned that while driving up here to meet me, something hit him.  Was it the lack of traffic?   So few cars, no signs in the ditches?   Even while paddling in to where we camped and during the rain and wind, he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.  Until he was sitting alone by the campfire.  

It was the lack of things around him.  He couldn’t recall a time in recent memory where he wasn’t bombarded by all of the things he needed for a better life.  Just being in a place where he could actually feel a palpable quiet.  He wasn’t used to it.  That’s what was bugging him.

 Trout Whisperer

 Island: An area of land, smaller than a continent, that is completely surrounded by water

 So you’ve spent some time paddling in the Superior National Forest.  You have your favorite campsite and the portage that’s real easy or very scenic.  The spot you saw your first moose.  That piece of water, no matter what the weather or time of year, gives up the walleyes every time.  Maybe a view from a hilltop that puts a little hitch in your giddy up and if you time the trip just right, you get a handful of fat plump blueberries.  

You know those places that nobody else ever seems to be at?  Those places we decide are our favs.  Well, I’m wondering what the most popular island in the BWCA is?  It has to be a named Mapped Island.  Not some rock you dubbed or scrubbed your muddy boots on. 

Does the island have a special lightning struck pine or a soft sandy beach for taking a nighttime dip?  Is this the piece of earth stuck out of all that blue you cant wait to get to because you can rest those sore arms after an all day workout?  Do the breezes always keep the skeeters at bay?  Does that little or big hump of dirt rising out of the water collect the best driftwood? 

I have mine; even the name makes me smile.  I try to go there at least once a year.  It’s a tough choice to decide, spring or fall?  So over the last few years I made it a fall trek. From the put in, I have to paddle several lakes, and travel two aggressive portages of a ¼ mile up and down the hills.  They’re not back breakers, more like deal makers, in that once I’m done with the last one, which is the worst one, I can just see the tip of my little piece of real-estate I retreat to.  If I’m late enough in the fall, the one and only one tamarack tree with all its golden needles draws me like the bluebills that roar past it, only I park on it.  

Doesn’t make a hoot of difference which way the winds blowing, it always has its lee side to drift in and enjoy a soft landing.  At night, the walleyes shimmer right up to the shore and if I’m lucky, early mornings off the pine studded point, it can deliver some real slab sized crappies with nothing fancier than a dime sized bobber plopped out next to a relic birch tipped over into the lake.  

It has mossy spots for napping and the biggest downed log for leaning on to rest those hot hooves of mine.  Right smack dab in the center of the island is the flat spot, the sweet spot, for just one tent.  You can lay there at night and star gaze until your eyes give up or just listen to the waves lapping.  If I haul my canoe up and keep the campfire wee in size, well anybody even knows I’m there?  So if you see some loner, all alone on his outpost island.....well, you know which one is mine.  

The Trout Whisperer

  Ya just never know 

So he wants me to show him how to catch a nice big old fat trout.  He wants a wall hanger.  The kind of trout that will never go in the oven, but instead be forever immortalized on his trophy wall.  He made no bones about not being a purist, so I told him to stop at the outdoor store of his choosing and choose some over priced, over insulted chest waders.  I mentioned he better purchase the best wool socks he could afford.  Spring steel-heading is always cold from yer feet to your head.   

We met at the river.  First I took his money.  Then I rigged a rod in front of him and had him try it.  We waddled down to the river bank slippin and sliding in some recently thawed red clay.  The river was a roaring but he said he was game to try it.  

I picked a piece of very safe water and within minutes he was sweep casting for his first steelhead with nothing  more than a orange glow spawn fly.  I think the fourth cast he snagged up the river bottom, ripped and lost the leader, fly, lead, and tippet.  I gave him my rod and re-rigged his.  In an hour, I hooked two fish, landed one.  During the same amount of time he went from warm to permafrosted and mad.  I was so glad he already paid me because I retied his rig at least eight times.   

We headed up the bank to thaw him out.  During a cup of coffee he wanted to know of any other way of catching a trout.  The little bright yarn fly wasn’t his cup of tea.  I said, “Look at everybody in this ditch full of fish.  This works, just give it some time.”  He wanted something else, something different.  Remember, “I paid you” he said.  

I opened my cooler and grabbed a tub of night crawlers.  Then I changed his yarn fly out and tipped his line with a number six egg hook topped off with a fat juicy crawler.  We went back down to the river.  I told him to plop that big old bait at the head of the deep pool and where it settles out just leave it. It may take awhile, but with all the fish in the river, one is bound to grab that free meal.  

He sat there for an hour, watched eight other guys with spawn bags and yarn each hook and land a trout and then said he was gonna go try some other holes on the river.  I kept an eye on him and when he got more than fifty feet away downstream, I just wandered after him.  

He took that crawler, plopped it here, dropped it there, in the most willy nilly fashion I’ve ever seen.  Finally, he dropped it in no less than eight inches of water between two rocks that wouldn’t allow a minnow to get through and that’s when the steelie hit it!  He played that fish as it shot upstream and was netted, and not by me, but one of the other guys fishing.  You coulda knocked me over with a feather.  

Trout Whisperer 

“I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.” - W. C. Fields

I’m going fishing on the opener, even though yesterday I dug the boat out from behind the pole shed during a snow squall. I don’t care if we get three feet of snow on the opener, I’m going. It means that much to me. The weather is not going to dampen my spirits, not today, or two weekends from today.

Back in the garage I dusted off my new life jacket that’s been waiting since Christmas for something to do. I also spooled two reels with new line that I bought weeks ago. Since I was thinking about not going anywhere in this foul spring weather I found the anchor and put it in the boat along with the trailers spare tire. I checked the oars, tied in the minnow bucket, and found the landing net. I got the old outboard out and hung that little cork screw right where it’s gonna sit all summer. Finally I made sure the boat plug was in.

I backed up my new truck to the old trailer and checked the lights; they worked better than the ones on my Christmas tree. So I got it parked and it’s all ready to go.

Then I went into the house and went through my tackle box while noting some needs, mostly number six hooks. Yet before today is over, I will have procured the replacements, bought a fresh fishing license, and I will grab a bunch of lead-head jigs to boot. I always have plenty of under water rock piles, but I never have enough jigs. Now I just have to wait.

Maybe it doesn’t take as much for me as others, but the opener is a big day in my world. I get all those new chances. This year I’m going alone. I haven’t done that in many a year. I politely declined two real nice offers, but I’m gonna move at my pace and not worry one minnow, one way or the other, what or what doesn’t happen. What will happen? I’m going.

So I’m looking forward to a Friday night quiet campfire, hopefully no snow, not too many bugs, and maybe just maybe, nobody else around, because it’s an off-the-beaten-path lake. The Minnesota DNR test netted it this past year and gave it pretty fair marks. Come Saturday morning, I plan on doing some of my own netting.

I picked the lake last month. One I’ve never tried before, sure I’m hoping for the best, but not bringing anyone else, I can stay along as it takes. I’m hoping with all its four hundred acres there just might be six walleyes that want to come home with me.

Trout Whisperer

 I cut wood

I was really looking forward to some time off and some time to work in some spring crappie fishing.  With the steelhead run just about to prime up I was itching to be out of the office.  My boss tossed in a day or two for me and wished me luck.  He said if things went well.....well.... his wife would like some fish. I said I’d do my best.

 Friday morning I looked at the thermometer. That little red worm that shoulda been stretched up to about fifty degrees was huddled towards the bottom and most of it was snug in the bubble.  I thought to myself, but said out loud to the dog, that for late April, “this would be a pretty nice fall day.”

The dog didn’t seem to care one way or the other.  It was too cold to go chase crappies and with all the rain and snow, the rivers were swollen again so I got all bundled up and went out to my wood shed.  The pile had dwindled considerably over the winter. I spent the day cutting wood. 

Saturday was supposed to be warmer than Friday; well I missed the snow but got the cold wind.  Nobody I knew wanted to be in or on the water.  I tried raking some of my yard but the wind was just too much.  I headed for the house and ate some lunch.  That made me sleepy. Maybe an hour after my nap, I decided to go cut wood. 

Sunday after church, no matter how hard I prayed to cease the winds, the weather went from fall to winter as the calendar slowly ground one day closer to what I hope will eventually be summer.  I’ve given up on spring.  I spent the afternoon cutting wood. 

Monday it was cold and blustery, but on the positive side, no snow or rain when I got home from work.  The boss said better luck next time.  All the guys I talked to said the rivers were flowing, but muddy.  So I ended my evening, by cutting wood. 

Tuesday like some kind of really cruel joke on me, was even colder, so I didn’t even call anybody to go fishing, I just went home, tried not to get mad, and cut wood.  The week isn’t even half over and my woodshed is almost half full for next fall.  We don’t get some summer pretty quick, I won’t have any wood to cut next fall. 

Trout Whisperer 

The Rocks In My Head 

When things in my life get moving just a bit too fast for me, it’s nice to go places that don’t.  I mean places that have been here long before me and nothing short of the apocalypse will leave them in place for the next person to sit here. I’m not the first, I won’t be the last.

You can’t find a serene quiet place with anybody else in tow.  It’s a solo sojourn that I take so often people are starting to wonder if I’m off my mettle; I’m not. It’s just been such a frantic pace of late that to find some templar peace; I get away from all of you, and all of it.  Not in a mean spirited way, it’s just my way.

For me its rock, not your garden variety stone either.  This is a whopper that I can only imagine has been here since time eternal.  Like most things I truly treasure in life, I found it totally by accident and it dang near killed me the first time I tried to get on top of it.  Why I had to get up there makes no sense, but I’m darn glad I did.

Once I got up top, I could survey a natural stairway back down to the forest floor. That first time to the peak was a bit scary and if I wouldn’t have climbed to the highest view that really afforded the best seat in the rock’s house, I never would have found the safe way down.  From the ground up view, I would have never discovered the rock’s hidden staircase.  Oh it’s a rock of a lifetime I assure you and I hope some of you have your chosen place as well.

It’s a cool little aerie for me to get a different perspective on not only my thoughts but what a lot of folks are saying and thinking all week too.  I hear it but I don’t get time to mentally digest it with the ridiculous pace or moment I seem to be moving at of late.  

I sit and reflect sometimes in the rain.  Sometimes the rock is so hot in the summer it just bakes my sore back muscles but I have never been able to ascend the rock safely in winter so my rock is back in play for another season.  I get to look down at tree tops, birds fly past at a height I don’t have to look up at, just over, and I can see as far as my mind wants to wander without anybody else thinking I’ve finally cracked up.

Trout Whisperer

Birds of a Feather

This spring a friend of mine is on a quest to find a drummer in the woods.  She bought new boots, wrangled some binoculars from her hubbies hunting gear, and isn’t taking no or yes, for an answer.  Just once, she wants to sneak up all by herself, without any of the men around and catch that old cockbird on his log of choice sending out a bird call you not only hear, but actually feel in the woods.

She fixed up a daypack containing a camera.  She borrowed one of my nicer walking sticks.  She knows just how far the east is from the west so we’re not worried about her getting lost.  We wanted to tag along.....well...... she said, “no way.”

Anyone who walks the newly exposed ground, say, looking for antler sheds (moose or deer) probably shares the same scenic desire, but ruffed Grouse at least help by making that unbelievably wonderful noise.  It’s not the cute little chickadee chirps or melodious migrant songbird chortle either.  It’s a chest pumping drum roll we just love in the very same woods that the shed bones, lying silent, almost request they be left alone.  Spring, according to all of mother’s nature, is not what alone is about.  So if you look and listen long enough, you can find them both.

The cast off bones start as a set, growing daily just inches apart, spend the summer and part of the fall together, then in a final parting, seldom fall right next to each other.  I wonder if they spent so much time on the same skull that they like knowing, maybe even as they decompose, that they won’t have to see their own mirrored image ever again.  I think that’s why I look all the harder after I find one side.  My mind says, “Don’t quit until you put the pair back together.”

See, that’s the cool thing about the drummer; he puffs up his chest, starts a whap, whap, whappin' with those perfect wings, he pounds his chest, wings beating and whirling  into a dizzy feathered tizzy until he just about flies, and he won’t quit until he puts the pair together either.

We asked again to go with her, “No way.”  You want some help picking a good location? “Sure, but I’m still going alone.”  How about we just look for bones until you get back?  “Nope.  No thanks.” Well, what about all the times we took you with us?  “You’ll get over it boys.”

 The trout whisperer

We Went Fishing

The pile of gear is unloaded; we’re set for a portage.  It’s a team...of individuals.  No one chooses, I just end up going first.  No maps or watches.  We’ve come too many times before.  This is going to be a familiar view.  The same old thing and we want it that way.

While we hiked in we saw deer tracks.  Once on the lake; a set of loons.  Then a seagull swooped in and plucked something off the water.  Two deer, one from the north shore and an hour later one from the south came to drink.  The south shore doe, snorted.  

Lone crows, raucous unseen Blue Jays and some swamp sparrows worked over the landscape from the bushes, bent grass, and from a perch on lightning struck trees. Sometimes it was just plain quiet.  No wind, no airplanes droning, no ringing from my own inner ears.  

The wind kicked up, then softly quit.  Massive gray clouds drifted over head; not one drop of rain.  Complete lack of bugs.  Cooler air temps made hooded sweatshirts feel good.  Last fall’s venison sticks ground and smoked for our brand of trail mix, tasted outdoors.  

My eyes rested on dark black water or a kayak blade.  The swirl of energy I created rippled out.  Water logged dead heads stuck, left to wait for ice and the brownness of cattails seemed to hold the most color.  

On the water the surface was black.  I look at the shoreline from mid lake and it has not changed much in a year.  From the shore, the lake itself has not changed at all.  I came for that and that was solid with all the change in the past year.

One skein of geese winging high and voices lifting tilted every neck in our group.  Large pond weed was rotting along the shoreline.  Spider webs dripped silvery dew.  We caught fish.  We stringered a mess that took three photos to get visually correct for the rest of our lives.

Rocks arranged, kindling lit, wood smoke drifted into the air.  Fresh fish was filleted, cooked, and we had our last true shore lunch of the season.  Fire put out, rocks kicked away; it was the final act before packing up and hiking out.  

I gazed at it all.  I smelled as much as I could.  I burped part of the day.  My buddies were smiling and we all have our specific aches we generally go over, but for some unknown reason, not today.  

We flushed grouse trail-side and a woodcock doodled about on the logging road.  Leaves had fallen in the past week’s nipping frosts.  The humus was aromatic.  I stood still.  One last look back at the day we went fishing.

Trout whisperer

Colored Ice

Last month the ice along the shore of Lake Superior was grinding like a giant slushy.  Today it’s tinkling along as far as I can hear, much like the sound of a slowly moving set of tinkling wind chimes.  Thin little bits of ice, long glassy plates of translucent ice, and I am pretty sure I’ve seen every possible ice configuration.

You ever try to figure out what color ice is?  At one angle its black or silver white. I’ve seen ice that is blue as any sky. I’ve driven over black ice, gray ice, and ice with hues of pink from a rising sun.  Ice on fire from the ball of orange setting sun. Ice has a hard color to get my mind around. 

Why this all becomes ice’ingly important is Lake Superior is doling out salmon candy to those patience enough to bobber fish the open water. I get the accidental Looper or steelhead and their fun to catch, but my opinion is at this time of year they taste a bit like a Popple tree.  It’s the salmon I want.  Silver sided coming out of the lake and oh what an orange glow coming out of the oven. 

These past few mornings have been magical. The skip jacks, as we call the smaller salmon start to hit right after the sky goes pink in the east.  The bite lasts until the big lakes winds come up for the day.  Then the slammin' salmon day is over. 

Today it ends with me being blessed with two beauties.  Neither weighs over three pounds.  If I kept track of how many line cleanings between fish, the average in ice scraping would border on the ridiculous to some.  Yet for me, I probably knock as much ice off the end of my nose in any given morning. 

Two geese flute back and forth to each other as they swim past me.  I can’t see any ice forming on the big birds.  I wipe my nose off on my jacket sleeve and wonder how they can be swimming in that liquid refrigerant.

I lay the salmon in the back of my truck in a cooler.  Strikes me as very funny that the fish really don’t need to be in a cooler.  It’s also amazing looking at the sides of the salmon; suddenly they match the very color of the ice.  Ice for today, at least, is the color of salmon.

Trout Whisperer