Switching Thing Up...

My alarm chirped at 4:50 am sharp and I hopped out of bed and snuck out of the room, careful to not wake Katie.   I clicked on the coffee maker in a sleepy haze and slapped on my spf 50.  A big   A couple  minutes later I had a hot mug of jo in one hand,  and pushed the Lund away from the dew-covered dock.  I still had 15 minutes until the sun would peek from behind the far shore, and I noticed a lot of loons on the water as I made my way up Gull Lake to Grassy Point and the bulrushes.  Only now do I tend to find bass in these shallows early in the morning.  While you can chuck a bunch of different stuff to these early-morning feeders, I prefer to switch things up this time of year.  I keep my baitcasters in the rod locker and instead pull out a fly rod.  Over the years I've found fly roddin' to be deadly for shallow fish and maybe, just maybe, I find throwing unconventional gear in conventional territory a bit fun.   In fact, it's become such a hobby of mine that each spring, I now brainstorm and tie a couple dozen homemade bass poppers.  A few friends have even started collecting 'em.   Most recent was the series made out of wine corks, the result of a bet from a buddy...

On this morning, I  reached for my fly rod.  Whoops. 
A Mess!
Appears one of my crank boxes didn't want me using that darn rod.   Spent the next ten minutes untangling that mess, took a swig of my now lukewarm coffee and grabbed my popper box and pulled out one of my 2009 patterns.  It's essentially three sheets of 2mm foam glued together and cut to size.  I tie in a 3/0 hook and legs and add eyes.  
My 2009 and 2010 Patterns
I like to throw my bigger bass poppers using a 6 or 7 weight fly rod with heavy bass lines and 10lb leaders.   I picked up a 6 wt and got to the casting.  
A Fishy Spot...
When I fish a long line of bulrushes, I set the boat to slowly move parallel to the outside edge of the weeds and I just start casting, picking out pockets and lanes.   I prefer to have an accurate shot, so I keep my casts to about 60 or 70 feet.   The other thing about shorter casts?  It can be tough to get good hook sets on fast takes when you have too much line out....

Hooked Up!
As the sun just started to peek over the edge of the trees, I threw my first casts, letting the popper settle, then pulling just a couple of aggressive twitches,  "BLOOP!"  "BLOOP!"  I love that sound on quiet mornings.... Eventually, that swirl I love so much....
Fish on the Bottom!   He sipped in the popper,  I set the hook and we battled it out, fish jumping from the water repeatedly and me slowly working him closer and closer to the boat until I leaned over, lipped the tired fish and popped the fly from his mouth.  As I laid the fish back in the water and he slid away, I laughed a bit, knowing my summer topwater bite had started.

I REALLY look forward to this fishing pattern.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm about the first person on the lake.  Maybe it's the idea that I'm tricking fish into biting using something I created?  Maybe it's the sounds of sunrise on open water.  All I know is I wait all year long for mornings like this.   In a window from 5:45-7:30 I boated around two dozen fish.  A couple pushed the 3lb mark, pretty good for Gull Lake.  I lost one popper to a fish that startled me when he took the fly.  Let's just say my hookset was a bit too much for the 10lb leader.   I also used my 2010 pattern tied using wine corks.  That fly worked just fine too.
The Wine Cork Popper!
 By the end of the weekend, I had torched my 6 wt, probably the result of hard use over the years and a bit of rough treatment in the boat.   I prefer to tell people I simply caught too many fish for the rod...

 Another One Bites the Dust....

A Fishy Win For Camp Confidence!

Man,  the rods are piled up in the boat at the moment.  I've got wads of rods tangled with cranks tied, Lindys danglin', tube baits twisted, even a few bobber rigs bouncing around.  It's 'cause I'm a bit mixed up, maybe, like the fish this year.  We've had a cooooold, wet spring.  The good news? Water levels in many parts of the Midwest are back up where they need to be.  The bad news?  Fish aren't quite in their timely patterns yet and last week, that would prove to be a good thing for the Sherck/Swendra team.....

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Each June, I volunteer to guide a team of anglers as part of Camp Confidence's WONDERFUL Classic Tournament.  This was the event's 28th strong year in existence.  The tournament is a chance to raise big dough for the camp, which provides outdoor opportunities to literally thousands of people with developmental disabilities.   This year, I had buddies in the boat.  Rob Swendra and  I always seems to talk about going fishing, but just never seem to get around to it.   Rob anteed up for the event and brought along his wife, Karen (turns out she would be our ringer).   We pulled a good number for the tournament, #7 and we were one of the first teams to blast off on Saturday morning and head out onto Gull Lake's expanse.  Dead calm and heavy gray skies.  Perfect.   The tournament format is a fun one.  Three fish limit in separate bass, walleye, northern and mixed bag categories.  Rob and Karen hoped we'd find a few walleyes, so we took a fifteen minute trip to the north end of the lake and dropped a few Lindys over the side.  In the first two hours, we found and landed a couple of small wallies and I mean tiny, like 12-14 inchers.  Hmmmm.  Not the way I like to start a tournament.  We decided to move down the lake a ways and I noticed no one on another of my favorite spots.  We threw a few small Northland fireballs tipped with redtails into the weedy spot and soon had a 23 incher in the livewell.  "Good", I thought.  We had one good fish and had 2 1/2 hours to find a few more.  Walleye fishing on Gull can be a grind at times, so I decided to switch us up and head to a bass spot.  *Bang!* Rob's wife put a nic e 3 pound fish in the boat right away. A couple casts later, *bang!* another nice bass.  Suddenly, I wondered if we should ditch the walleyes and switch to the bass category.  After all, we had two nice fish.   Again, I decided to change things up.  We threw a few Rapalas on trolling rods and slowly headed down along the edge of a fishy weedline and settled into a few sandwiches.   Two bites in,  Rob dropped his turkey and swiss and grabbed the #1 port-side rod.   Moments later, we had a small pike in the boat.   I don't think Karen was halfway through her roast beef and cheddar before her rod popped and suddenly she had a nice pike in the boat. 

Karen's First Pike!

The next pike would be our keeper.  Remember that Purpledecent Shad Rap I used to nab the big pike in Canada?  Well, I'd tied that on and had it down about 8 feet when a nice fish grabbed it.  Rob netted our pike and suddenly I smiled. "We're actually looking pretty good for the mixed bag tournament."  "What do you guys want to do the last hour?"  "I say we just fish for fun".  "Cool..."   We snuck over to another of my favorite areas and started throwing Rapala DTs and on Rob's first cast with the Crawdad Red, he put a 4+ pound largemouth in the boat! Rob!  Way to go! 
Karen and Rob's two biggest bass
Suddenly we had a SOLID bag for the bass category.  Good Lord! Well,  we caught plenty of fish in that last hour and with roughly 10 minutes left, I put another 23+ inch walleye in the boat and decided we'd had an awfully good day of fishing.  As we zipped back to the weigh-in, we decided to pick the mixed bag category and enter Rob's bass in the lunker contest.   
Getting our fish ready for weigh-in and release!
 Turns out, we would win the mixed bag tournament and Rob would also get the lunker award. 

  What a FUN day of fishing! Even my son got in on the action winning a new fishing pole after taking part in the kids casting clinic.  Does he look excited or what?

   All I can say is THANKS to the good people at Camp Confidence.  They put on one heck of a tournament and run the best darn camp in Minnesota.  PS:  Did I mention that the Classic weekend raised $100,000 for campers.  Amazing......

 They didn't look giant in photo, but weighed HEAVY on the scale!

Oh Canada, 2011!

 Well,   I'm back and both my hands are completely toasted.  Every year, a week of hard fishing in Canada chews 'em up.  Turns out this year, a giant pike would too.....
Our Cabin at Bear Paw
Dad, Cousin Mark and I hit the road 6:30 am sharp, headed straight north through I-Falls, Dryden, Ear Falls and down a 61 kilometer gravel road to Kabeelo Lodge.  Kabeelo's a pretty special place.  Years ago, I shot a couple of television stories up there and fell in love with the place.  The Shercks have been going back for the annual family trip ever since.   This year we set up shop on Bear Paw Lake for four days.
First bit of business?  Load the DeHavilland Beaver for the roughly 25 minute flight out to Bear Paw.  I never get tired of hearing that radial engine fire up on cold mornings... Chug, chug, chug, chug....

"Our" plane

The view from 800 feet...

Once unloaded and unpacked in Bear Paw's new cabin, we set up a couple boats and headed out.   Bear Paw's reputation is all about giant pike.  Fact is, every one of Kabeelo's lakes we've been to has big pike (40+ inchers), but for some reason, people want Bear Paw.  We were more interested in the lake's walleyes.    With heavy wind and fog (due to near freezing air temps), we dropped Northland jigs and spinners and got to work.  Wasn't five minutes and dad had our first big fish.

Way to go Dad!

  We actually found hundreds of walleyes over our first two days.  The best part?  A few of them were what you'd consider a Kabeelo trophy, 25+ inchers.  Nothing at 30, but who cares!
       

Nice fish Mark!  

 We caught so many fish on Northland Fireballs I eventually switched over to Rapalas. Guess what?   The Wallies ate up those too!

Our second evening, Dad hooked a nice fish on the rocks and fought it to the boat.  Wow!   A monster of a pike.  Now, some of the old outpost nets are a bit too small for these kinds of trophies, so I leaned over to pick this big female from the water, as I've done hundreds of times over.  One quick swirl and the big pike had taken a swipe at my finger.   Why I didn't snap a photo of my hands and rain suit covered in blood is beyond me. Would have been fun to have!  The shots a day later just weren't quite as tough-lookin'...
Ouch!

We did find a few of the big pike in the lake, althought the cold weather kinda screwed up any pattern.  And yes, I mean cold.  Did I mention we had snow the last days of May?  Good Golly!
Snow! Brrrrrrr!   A Monster on a GIANT X Rap

 I think our other two highlights came after we flew out of Bear Paw and back to Kabeelo's main lodge.  We like to stay there a day or two and fish Confederation Lake for Lake Trout.  Problem is, the last couple of years, they've been tough to find on Grandpa's old "Green Box".   So, this year, I took out my Humminbird portable unit.   We never did see anything shallow, but a check of an old spot revealed piles of fish suspended from 40 to 60 feet.  Dad asked, "How do you now those are fish? "  Seconds later we had doubles and triples going!
Trout!

 Mark and Dad w/ Another Double!

It's always with sadness that we drive out of Kabeelo's gravel driveway and head south for home each year.  I think the Kabeelo crew knows it too.  Lorraine, our longtime buddy up there, surprised us with handmade beaver tails for breakfast before we left.  While I can't get into all the details of this northwoods delicacy, I can tell you, Lorraine deserves to be the focus of a national cooking show just for this dish alone.

Mark and Lorraine AND the Beaver Tails!Beaver Tails!

The only thing she won't tell us about this breakfast creation?  How she sneaks up the beaver lodge and, first, grabs those fast swimmers off a log and, number two, then wrestles the tails off those scrappy guys!  Thanks Kabeelo for another great family trip.  We'll see you in 2012!

Wind, Rain and Walleyes...Another "Normal" Minnesota Opener.

Well,  the dock held.  That's good news....

Big Rollers for Gull Lake!

   Long ago Dad taught me to rope up the boat between corners of the dock so it can move freely in big waves. The real plus? The boat never touches the dock, avoiding any dock rash.   When the wind howls like it did this weekend, it's nice to know the boat's properly tied up, although I laid in bed Friday night worried my 1/2 inch dock ropes might snap from all the pressure.  At one point I snuck a peek about 3 am just to make sure the boat hadn't washed up on the beach.  I woke Saturday morning to find the boat weathers the "inland gale" just fine.   As I idled out through the waves at 6 am, I was amazed at the wind.  Howling out of the north.  Chattering on the rough water.  Darn cold too for mid-May.   I fished a few of my normal spots and found spot-tail shiners on a Lindy rig was the ticket.  Didn't find fish very shallow, although I had a tough time controlling the boat in those spots. I brought plenty of walleyes to hand, even though I couldn't  feel 'em biting out in that wind.  You'd just kinda feel the wind pushing your rod around (and whistling through the guides) and then notice a bit of extra weight.  I'd  set the hook and fish on.... Ha.  Not really normal, but effective. 

"Eater" Walleyes

The big highlight of opener this year was son Brady's first fishing trip.  Although we had to wait out the cold and wind Saturday, we finally got on the water Sunday. 
"Jonesin' " to Fish

I figured we'd go out and hit a few crappies and call it a trip in an hour.  In the morning, we hit a small pond connected to Gull Lake where we found the water temp 9 degrees warmer than the main lake.  We fished in there a bit looking for shallow crappies.  About 20 minutes in, Brady's bobber disappeared and I helped him set the hook.  He proceeded to reel in a heavy fish on his UL rod.  At one point, the darn tip of that rod was just about touching the handle as the fish about pulled Brady out of the boat.  Ha.  First fish of the trip.  Nice bass Brady!

  We have to throw that back! Bass season isn't open yet!  We zipped home in rough water to grab a little lunch.  After, Brady asked if we could fish again.   Mom gave us the okay so Brady and I headed up the lake to the smaller series of lakes on Upper Gull.  We snuck down to a favorite panfish spot and Brady caught more fish than we could count. 

 After about an hour of that, we took a cruise and Brady assumed his new favorite position in the boat. He likes to stand on the rod locker, inbetween the windshield and watch the world roll by.  Not a bad place to be.

Brady's Catch...

 
As we all drove home last night, Mom asked Brady if he'd like to stop and get dinner. In a slightly pouty voice, Brady responded, "No Mamma, I don't wanna eat dinner."  "I wanna go fishing."  

Goal accomplished...

Time to Fish AND Boat!

Well, now that I've got my 2011 turkey hunt off my plate and in the past, I'm all fishing now.   Still hoping to head north in the Due North /Rapid Marine Lund and chase a few sturgeon on the Rainy River.  I had to cancel last week's trip, due to a bout of flu.  After the Rainy, we're off to Wisconsin to celebrate the Bass Opener around Hayward.  I can't wait!  Meantime, here's a great little update from our "wraps shoot" for Due North Outdoors.  A cool behind-the-scenes look on the Rapid Marine site at how we produce our shows!  Thanks to Amy Hannay!

http://www.rapidmarineboats.blogspot.com/