Fencerows: An Ounce of an Opener
By John Luthens
The sun broke the horizon to reveal a winter wonderland in southern Bayfield County. The landscape was blinding white and the jack pines and burr oaks were capped to the gills in snow. It was the first day of Wisconsin’s catch-and-release trout season and it was uncharted territory. If I’d calculated my history correctly, it was the earliest trout opener on record. I was buried in a historic moment.
We busted through a snowdrift and slid sideways onto a logging road. The map I was studying bounced out of my hand. The dog lowered herself deeper in the back seat and whined. My son had recently gotten his temporary license permit and was driving the truck. This was another historic moment: the first time I wasn’t white-knuckling the wheel while goose-chasing a northern Wisconsin trout stream.
I’d suckered my son into coming with me by telling him he needed to brush up on his winter driving skills before taking his actual driver’s test. I’d neglected to tell that if you are rolling through the back trails of the barren land in the heart of winter, rolling on anything but a snowmobile, that is; you’re simply rolling the dice and taking your own chances. Besides, if we got stuck – and I’ve been plenty stuck in this country – I needed a young, strong back to shovel us out of trouble.
I scratched my head, peering at the surrounding pines and hills. Puffs of snow blew from the pines and exploded on the windshield. I’d been here before on summer fishing pilgrimages, but everything looked so different in the snow. I might as well have been navigating into Siberia. I was still looking perplexed when my son, still driving as admirably as an ice-road trucker, pointed out that I was holding the map upside down. Even the dog laughed. I regained my bearings, pointed left and right another half-dozen times, and we finally slid across a small bridge and came to rest on the snowy banks of the Ounce River.
Tunneling along the banks of the Ounce River.
The Ounce flows through the Douglas and Bayfield County line. It is hidden in a tangled bog on the edge of the Northwest Wisconsin’s Pine Barrens. There are no well-traveled routes or fisherman’s parking lots. It is one of those trout spots that take a little exploring. In fact, it is one of those spots that take a little exploring even if you’ve been there before.
It was a rumor that first took me to the Ounce River many years ago. There was a mounted brook trout in a small-town, corner grocery store that was of eye-popping proportion. It was purple-backed and fat and it went a foot-and-a-half. The tarnished copper plate on the bottom stated two simple words: Ounce River.
As far as rumors go, this one was a whopper. I, myself, never actually set eyes on the mounted trout. It was related to me by my father, who couldn’t remember the location of the store where he’d discovered the mount. This was not surprising, seeing that he spent half his life trying to remember where he’d left his car keys, and the other half trying to recall where he’d set his eyeglasses.
He always managed to remember where he’d left his fly rod, though, and I have to admit he knew what a brook trout looked like. God knows he gloatingly dangled more than his share in front of me over the years. Dangled his share of rumors too, which I always fell for hook, line and sinker. So, in abbreviated form, leaving out the miles of dead-end logging roads and miles of death marches through unforgiving brush – that’s pretty much how I found the place.
“Nice driving,” I patted my son’s shoulder. “Your grandpa would be proud.”
“Where’s the stream?” he asked.
“It’s just on the other side of that alder brush thicket.”
“Where’s the alder brush thicket?”
“It’s buried under a little snow.”
“Looks to me like it’s buried beneath a nuclear winter,” said my son “Grandpa is looking down right now and laughing his butt off.”
“It’s your grandpa’s fault that we’re here in the first place,” I answered. “It’s opening day, let’s tunnel in and have at it!”
The Ounce River in summer is a dandy brook trout stream. Once you crawl through the brush and find water, there are deep bends and logs and swirling riffles. Once you find the river, the fishing can be phenomenal.
I imagine it is still a dandy brook trout stream in winter. But flows of ice had covered most of the deep holes. The ice was thick enough to hold my weight for a few seconds before cracking apart like cheap plywood. I broke ice in my hip boots and managed to find some open-water riffles that were fishable.
First open water of a new season.
My fly line sucked beneath the ice. The catch-and-release season is artificial lures only. I was using a scud pattern, designed to mimic a freshwater shrimp. Doubtless, there were fish beneath the ice, but they were obviously not shrimp eaters. Dynamite technically falls into the artificial category, but I was fresh out. Didn’t matter, really; Even a charged blast wouldn’t have broken all the ice.
We let the dog run free along the bank. She squirted through the paths of least resistance, and we followed on our bellies to reach the next section of open water. I only lost one fly all day. The dog tangled up in my fly line and ratcheted off about a quarter-mile of line. Thankfully, the fly didn’t end up stuck in the dog. I couldn’t have properly explained that veterinary bill to my wife.
At the end of the day we were covered with snow. It would have been difficult to tell us apart from the snow-capped balsams that dotted the upper reaches of the river valley. I was glad we’d brought the dog. We might not have found our way back to the truck without her. There was a tin of left-over Christmas cookies in the back seat, and the dog had no problem dragging us out to share in the spoils of victory.
Week 1 in the books –Trout caught: 0. But, as my laughing and optimistic father might have put it, “On the bright side, it was easily the best trip of the season.”
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or atwww.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com