Fencerows: Bluegill Stakeout
By John Luthens
My partner Tom Nigl and I staked out the bluegill ambush for weeks in advance. We traced the scene of the crime into a back bay of Lake Winnebago, just outside of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to a place where a fallen willow tree had folded into the water over a sloping shoal. We made a vow that nothing would sneak into those sunken branches without getting caught.
We developed a daily routine, poking around work until 6 pm, going outside in shifts throughout the day for routine weather checks and wind-sightings on the flag pole across the street. Our fishing weapons lay loaded in the back of the truck, and we honed our skills razor sharp. It got to the point we could be on the water before the quitting bell had even stopped howling.
The path to our stakeout cove ran through tall grass, shadowed groves of cottonwood, and high drama. The early forays were especially treacherous, as geese had nested in the grass along the shoreline and were apt to come charging and hissing from behind a cottonwood. There were also a bunch of baby rabbits, which weren’t so scary, except when one’s mind is amped for a charging goose and a rabbit busts from cover at their very feet; high-pitched screaming and high drama, indeed!
Days dragged longer. The mouth of the bay faced west, the sun hanging a bit higher in the sky on every evening stakeout. We divided our talents, Tom probing the bottom of the bay with minnows and leaf worms, and myself flinging flies along the silent waters.
Tom Nigl stakes out bluegills in the setting sun over Lake Winnebago.
We arrested gangs of vagrant crappies early on, watching further out in the bay as mighty carp smashed in arcs through the air to shake their eggs loose. Some of the carp seemed as big as dolphins, and their bombing dives echoed through the bay like shotgun blasts. But the bluegills themselves continued to sulk in the cold shadows of Lake Winnebago.
On the solitary week that I was absent, abdicating the endless bluegill stakeout for a crack at some northern trout, Tom stayed patient. I returned to hear stories of a wave of bluegills that had attempted to break through, only to end up in the prison of his fish pail. As these fish were promptly executed into the frying pan, there was no evidence.
I told him it would never stand up in court. He objected in no uncertain terms. The court battle was heated enough to nearly end our partnership. But due to the technicality that no one else was obsessive enough to volunteer for any bluegill stakeout with either of us, we were forced to stick together. We sullenly resumed the patient waiting game beneath the fallen willow.
Suspicious activity appears along the shoreline grass.
When we finally made the bay, the sun was bright and there were no fish rising. Tom stoically probed the bottom, while I contemplated a nap on a bank of zebra mussels. Bugs kept falling from the trees and disturbing me. They were small lake flies, and soon they were falling everywhere, spreading down and across the water. It began to seem suspicious.
The last glow sparkled on the water when the first fish rose. Tom was serenely silent on the other side of the willow, but I heard the splash of fish falling into the bottom of his bucket. Very suspicious, indeed! I tied on a small fly, and thus began one of the wildest chases I’ve ever experienced.
Bluegills boiled across the surface. I waded to my waist in the bay and swung out my fly, watching in awe as the wake of a monster came to the surface and sucked it in. It dived hard for the bottom, as only a big bluegill will do. There was no horsing the fish, and it took nearly 5 minutes to get it in. Fishermen have been known to stretch the truth, but I can honestly tell you that it went three-quarters of a pound.
A Lake Winnebago bluegill surrenders into custody.
One after another, I couldn’t lay my line in the water fast enough. Tom was having the same trouble. He picked them off the bottom and I stopped the ones that tried to run the gauntlet of fallen flies on top. Fish surfaced at my feet. We kept a few, but many more were paroled back into the water. All of the fish were heavy and fat through the middle. Again, not trying to distort the hard and cold facts, I’d have to estimate that we landed a solid 20 pounds of bluegills between us.
It was long after dark when we were finally forced to retreat. We were being overrun. The bluegills were still coming in rising waves, but we didn’t have headlamps. We were giddy and we shook hands in congratulation of a successful stakeout. Then we holstered our smoking rods and faded into the shadowed cottonwoods with careless abandon.
John Luthens is a freelance writer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com