Fencerows: Golden Cove
By John Luthens
The afternoon trees sank with humidity and the path to the golden cove was thick. Tall grasses fought for the sun’s rays with growing strands of nettle. The stinging vines were just tall enough to bite unseen at the ankles. I could smell lilacs blooming but I couldn’t see the flowering bushes in the jungle. A date with destiny waited in the sun-streaked waters at the end of the path.
There were boiling rises in the cove when I arrived. There was the same bank that looks like gravel from a distance, but is really a washed fossil shelf of clam and mussel shells. Care must be taken stringing the line. The shells are sharp as razors and can cut through a tippet.
Golden shiner from the hidden waters of Wisconsin.
The bank crunched underneath as I knelt down to tie on a popper fly. There were more rings circling in front of me. The back cast had to be watched because the jungle creeps right up to the shell bank. The water of the cove was glass and the sun hit it like a mirror. It was golden. This was going to be easy.
Too easy – two hours later I had run down the gamut in my fly box. The sun was setting just right. There were splashes that came from odd angles and set my heart to beating. I’d cast to no avail. I was down to the smallest flies my eyes can see to thread on a line – size no. 16 elk hair caddis imitations that need to be dipped in floatant gel and whipped just right to stay on top of the water.
This is technical fishing – long, fine leaders and roll casting to avoid sticking in the jungle. It is casting best left to the experts – which I am not. It is casting which should not be necessary to tempt a lowly bluegill.
In years past, in this golden cove, I had scored big on bluegills. They took anything and they took it with abandon. Time turns tricks on the water. I hold that it is theses mysteries that keep you humble; hours when you struggle and it is only you and an endless parade of casts. On the days when you bask in the glory of monster catches, you can forget the slow days. You can pretend they never existed and brag to your friends that you are fish-catching machine.
I cast wind knots into my line. I lost flies in the trees. A pair of mallards swam by and showed off their new family of ducklings. I talked to the ducks about my problems. They said it was a wonderful day to be alive and about on the golden water. Ducks are pretty smart.
Ducks along the shell bank of the golden cove.
My smallest fly finally turned the trick, but with a different outcome than expected. It disappeared in a bubble of water and I stripped in a golden shiner that was 4 inches long. Another cast and another small golden shiner, and soon I was into some real dandies. The cove was alive with the bait fish. Reeling, one was followed by a largemouth bass that must have weighed 2 pounds. The bass nosed up against the prey on the end of my line, never attempting a bite, before tailing back into the deeper water of the cove.
I’d never caught a shiner in the cove before, but I’d also never attempted to fish it with such small flies; another mystery of the water revealed. Before the sun set, all I managed was a pair of small bluegills, but as for the golden shiner action, well, I could have set up a live bait shop right on the shore.
The ducklings came to the shell bank and huddled at dusk. I wished them luck, thanking them for their insight and giving fair warning about an autumn hunting season to come. I took my leave from the golden cove with fly rod and camera in tow.
It was only later, looking at my pictures and doing some research, that I came across the hook and line record for a golden shiner in the state of Wisconsin. The record shiner was 12 inches long and weighed 8.3 ounces. I stared carefully at some of my pictures.
Alas, I threw them all back. Fame and fortune eluded me once again, and it won’t be the last time either. It was just another day of fishing along the golden coves of Wisconsin.