FENCEROWS...Fins and Feathers
By John Luthens
My friend Dave Schrader can be hard to read. Talk with him for a minute and his dry and straight-faced humor will leave you guessing long after the conversation is over. His comments and observations on life as he sees it continue to roll around in the back of my head like a magic eight ball shaking up an answer to a hypothetical question.
Did he just say that? (Definitely) Was he serious? (Signs point to yes) Was it meant to be funny? (Not sure) Did he really just send me a picture of a bald eagle hooked to the end of his musky rod? (Hold on! Hands up and step away from the magic eight ball!)
Shake it once more, same result. Clear as day on my computer screen was a picture of an eagle sitting arrogant in the water and tangled to a float bobber, which according to Dave, was still hooked to his musky rod, which also according to Dave, currently rested on the lake bottom in 20 feet of water. I had to scratch my head and really ponder this Schrader observation.
After all, Dave is an artist. He is darn good at penciling realistic sketches. He’s a fine photographer too. But he is also a professional Desktop Publisher, meaning he knows the magical depths of Photoshop better than I know the cut-bank holes on my favorite stretch of trout stream.
On the other side of the coin, or another shake of the magic ball if you will, Dave is an avid musky fisherman. He is conservation-minded and advocates catch-and-release, not to mention being quite patriotic. Cutting and pasting an iconic American symbol onto the end of his casting rod doesn’t really fit his profile.
I do recall seeing a trail-camera shot above his desk that captured an eye-popping ten-point buck grazing at a bait pile, while Bigfoot slowly ambles through the trees behind the deer. I personally believe that I stand a better chance of tracking down Bigfoot than ever bagging a buck like the one in Dave’s photo, which doesn’t speak volumes towards my hunting ability, but does speak volumes towards a better profile of Dave Schrader’s Photoshop humor.
The only way to keep the magic eight ball from spinning of its axis, the only real recourse of validating the photo, was to track down Dave and get a first-person account of the events surrounding it. So I made the trek to Oshkosh and met Dave at his place of employment, finding him in his office, surrounded by desktop computers, color monitors, not to mention scanned pictures and proofs on the wall of a devious nature.
Dave was sitting behind his computer with a straight face and a smile at the same time, which sounds impossible unless you have actually met him. He knew I was coming. He even had a video clip of the rod-tangled eagle rolling on his computer screen.
“I’ve gotten something like 200 hits on my site already with this video,” said Dave. “I think that’s pretty awesome. Think I’ll get an Oscar for it?”
“The musky is the fish of ten-thousand casts,” I said. “So on the cast after that you caught an eagle?”
"Yeah, did you see the pictures?” said Dave.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said.
“Oh yeah” he answered, like he just remembered why I came. “What kind of awards do you think Wisconsin has for video production?” He added.
“Ask the magic eight ball about video awards and tell me the story,” I said.
Dave leaned back in his chair and scratched his chin. The story behind the picture unfolded. And despite Dave’s humorous nature and awesome abilities at manipulating computer images, and despite his ability to keep me second-guessing, the story turned out to be 100% true.
“My son Levi and I had been out fishing for six days in Vilas and Oneida Counties and had already landed three muskies. It had a great fishing trip,” said Schrader.
I am not a musky fisherman. I don’t understand the passionate depths of fanaticism involved in the sport. I thought three fish in six days seemed a low average and I told Dave exactly that.
“All it takes is one musky to make you go back for another six days,” he said. A far-away look in his eyes told me that it must be true.
“We were casting baits from the front of the boat and soaking a sucker on a float bobber from a rod in the back. It was a lively sucker too, diving up and down, rolling around below the surface. We saw the eagle watching from a tree perch, but we were more intent on the casting and didn’t pay the bird much attention.”
“What kind of line was on the sucker rod?” I asked. A morbid curiosity aroused in my mind on how ramped-up a rig needed to be in order to snag an eagle.
“Thirty-pound braided,” said Dave. “It started zinging out of the back of the boat like a big fish had taken hold. When we looked back, the eagle had swooped down and grabbed the sucker bait. It soared back up-or tried to anyway- the rod went right out of the back of the boat, skipping over the waves like a water skier.”
"What goes through a musky fisherman’s mind at a moment like that?’ I asked.
“I was concerned for the eagle,” said Schrader. “I was also glad that it wasn’t my most expensive musky rod. The eagle crashed twice into the water while it kept trying to fly. The rod was too heavy and finally sank. The eagle just sat there and looked angry next to the float bobber.”
An eagle struggles against the weight of a musky rod, after it hitting a live sucker rig on a lake in Oneida County
Schrader and his son had cameras and video equipment on the boat. The equipment was intended to capture amazing muskellunge battles. Instead, it captured something far more elusive and rare.
They moved the boat closer to the trapped bird, Dave intending to cut the line to free the bird, the bird looking angrier by the minute, and his son rolling the camera.
“I don’t know, Dad. I think this is a bad idea,” Levi Schrader says as the boat draws near.
With a tremendous flap of wings, the eagle gives a mighty pull right at the boat’s edge, breaking free of the line and soaring to freedom. It is an amazing sight, and it is all caught on the camera.
Levi Schrader shoots video of the tangled eagle
Dave was able to grab the float and haul in the line to retrieve his musky rod. I asked what he would have done if the eagle was unable to free itself.
“I guess I would have used the landing net,” said Schrader.
“What would you have done if you landed the bird,” I asked.
“Gone and found a good taxidermist,” said Schrader.
Dave wasn’t serious when he said the last comment. He’s far too ethical to actually do something like that. But he said it with such a straight face. I bet he could have even fooled the magic eight ball. I hate it when he does that.
To view Dave Schrader’s video of the caught and released eagle, go to the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_goov3w_w
And if you are interested in seeing one of Dave’s annual Fourth of July video productions, I’d recommend the one involving a homemade rocket launcher and a stuffed gopher. Due to graphic content, you’ll have to track that one down by yourself.