On Wisconsin Outdoors...First Fish Fix
By Dick Ellis
Reader Note: When reading any of Dick Ellis’s 1200 Wisconsin journeys taken over two decades as a syndicated columnist, be sure to check current regulations when planning the trip yourself. This trip, taken on the Manitowish Chain in 2003, highlights a first musky taken by a Wisconsin angler. For information on guides, lodging, dining and entertainment in Oneida, Vilas and Iron Counties, connect with the following tourism experts:
Manitowish Waters Chamber of Commerce, chamber@manitowishwaters.org or 888-626-9877. Hurley Area Chamber of Commerce, info@hurley.com or 715-561-4334. The Minocqua Area Chamber of Commerce, macc@minocqua.org or 715-356-5266.
The heavy rod-tips continued to dance as Ed Ruemler pulled on the oars to begin the long trip back across the 1000 acre Vilas County lake. We had been row trolling for 90 minutes without success. Near “Flat Iron” bar, I had given up the oars, trading the pilot’s seat to spit out orders as the captain of this narrow, $200.00 fiberglass special with the “you’ll probably make it back” guarantee.
More accurately, I was trying to find the words that would help my friend who had never before tangled with a musky know what to expect in the event of a strike. One never knows when or if those precious few seconds are on the docket. Ed didn’t know it, but his baptism to the Wisconsin Musky Club was less than two minutes away.
“There will be no mistaking a strike if it happens,” I said. “The rod is going to bend over good. Stop rowing, and grab the rod as fast as you can. It might be hard to get out of the rod holder because of the resistance from the fish, depending on its size. Grab it here, above the holder and slide it out this way.”
“Lay back and set the hooks hard. Keep constant pressure on the fish but don’t force it. Often she’s going to run right at the boat and it will feel like she got off. Reel fast and keep up with it. That mistake cost me the biggest musky of my life right here several years ago. By the time I caught up with it, the fish was skiff-side. It gave me one good look and was gone forever. At least 25 pounds.”
Ruemler, of West Allis, and I had pushed the narrow rowboat from shore last week near Boulder Junction, not in search of a story, but in simple search of one man’s first musky. Too often, the scheduled and meticulously planned journeys that begin as a hunt for newspaper copy and photos fall short of expectations. Other tales, though, unplanned, unexpected, but welcome, seem to fall from the skies. Or like a first-ever Eddie Ruemler musky, seem to rise from a deep-water drop-off.
Musky action has been uncharacteristically good this summer for one reporter, a story profiled earlier in this space on row trolling the mayfly hatch. Although Wisconsin turtles, flatheads, loons and gamefish have kept the trolling Tomahawk beached with the exception of a single, three hour excursion, that trip had ended with another 36-inch musky caught and released. Ten strikes, and seven fish caught at an average time-on-the-water clip of two-hours per fish were making up for years of singing the “No-fish Blues.”
Our plan this week was simple. We would trail two perch-colored musky lures that have been red-hot in enticing recent strikes. I would row the first half of an approximate three hour tour. If a fish hit on either rod assessable only to the rower, I would pass that rod back to Ed for the fight.
Half way through a time-proven route that invades rock bars and shoreline drop-offs, deep-water no-mans-land and sand points, I gave up the pilot’s chair. Any strike from that moment on, and this entire cow would be Ed’s to milk, from setting the hook to ultimate triumph or defeat.
A stone’s throw from the oarsman’s switch, the rod doubled over and sent with it a double dose of patented adrenalin rush. Our fix of Wisconsin Natural High had arrived big-time. Ruemler was on it, and I passed along the confident captain’s order that comes only with poise, experience, and many successes. “Ed,” I hollered, “Prepare to panic…”
With the exception of one tactical error that was exclusively my fault, Ed fought the fish like a seasoned veteran. Immediately with the hook-set, the fish surfaced to shake the lure, giving us a first look at the heavy body and a very impressive head. Ruemler stood, naturally, to fight the fish. A move that in this mini-Titanic is virtually the same as deciding to fight the fish from the bottom of the lake. And the one little secret on navigational instability that I had neglected to share.
The boat rocked hard left to right before the only order-prayer that I really gave that day fell out. “ED, SIT!” I yelled, yanking on is shirt and was quite relieved when I didn’t lose my guest. After all, he was holding a $150 musky rod.
At 41 inches but a true heavyweight, this particular fish was a contender for the belt; it fought the good fight and showed no inclination to negotiate any surrender. Ed stayed with it. When he led the musky to the net, it was time for handshakes to blend with a bit of first-fish shock. With the musky’s release, we just drifted in our yacht, basking in success.
Ed Ruemler of West Allis prepares to release his first musky,
a fat 41-inch fish taken row-trolling in Vilas County.
As the oars dipped again for the long haul in, we didn’t even reset the rods. Pure satisfaction hung with us, there was no need for any more. A man’s first legal musky, and a beauty to boot. Now that… is something to write home about.
COLUMN END
ONE NAIL HAMMERED…Fish hooks angler”
Anytime a musky comes on board, there is a routine an angler goes through with the ultimate goal being to return the fish to the water as fast as possible. Ed Ruemler’s first musky didn’t endorse the plan, and instead elected to set the hooks back in me.
I kneeled to remove the musky’s hooks when she shook violently. I keep sharp hooks. One treble hook scored a bullseye directly into the middle of my thumbnail, penetrating instantly until the barb had traveled well beneath the nail. Still hooked herself on the next treble hook the fish remained embedded, taking my thumb for an excruciating ride with her every twitch.
I would have cried, “Mommy”, but knew she was 300 miles south. I would have cried “Uncle”, but the musky’s eyes showed no inclination for mercy. I would have cried….”owie, owie owie, owie”, and, well, actually, that’s exactly what I did.
A person’s mind works at warp speed when options are few and pain is high. There was only one option. I grabbed the hook by the thumb and fingers of the free hand and pulled it right back up through the nail, although it took an adrenalin’s rush of energy and a conscious decision not to think further about it. The hook made a new exit hole coming out, but relief was immediate.
Our final tally was one nice fish released and one nail hammered that within days had fallen off the thumb. A good trade I would say.
“NEAR MISSES...Part of outdoor world and reporter’s job”
Outdoor stories, like a rutting buck, sometimes slip through the fingers just agonizingly out of reach.
Cases in point; Recently, I met my friend Jeff Dahl in Superior, and we headed east 40 miles to the Pike Chain in search of smallmouth bass on flyrods. Dahl is an expert fly fisherman who routinely and expertly places his fly beneath an overhanging branch at 50 feet, or precisely in the shade of a protruding log. The Pike Chain is home to some big smallies, and Dahl catches them in good numbers.
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| Jeff Dahl of Superior works his flyrod over a stingy Pike Chain in Bayfield County at sunset recently for smallmouth bass. A cold front on this trip sent good fishing south. | |
Dahl’s heavy flyline carried its cargo hundreds of times to those places where bass should be. Hours of bright sunshine turned to a brilliant sunset, and to black. Time burned away, but in the wake of a cold front our fishermen’s take was two bluegills, and a lone, five-inch smallmouth. That’s reality, for any outdoorsman, but for an outdoor reporter, it also loading blanks when live ammunition is needed for a story.
After hours of virtually no action in the wake of a cold front, flyfisherman Jeff Dahl of Superior hooks into a 20-plus inch smallmouth bass on the Pike Chain in Bayfield County recently. Dahl lost the fish at boat side following a great fight.
When the Dahl’s fly was quietly sucked in under the Bayfield County starlight, and the flyrod bent under the weight of a good fish, there was hope. As Dahl brought the smallmouth boat side and estimated 21-inches when the fish offered one brief peek during a great struggle, there was more hope.
The night-flash on the camera was ready. This would be a picture fish worth waiting for. When the fish gave a final surge, and threw the fly, there was simply a hopelessness. And a promise to return soon for another try at capturing the story.
Photos too, won’t wait for a reporter’s mistakes. My telephoto lens is always ready next to me in the boat, truck, on foot or treestand. So when the eagle cut the blue skies of northern Wisconsin directly over my boat with an 18 or 19 inch walleye grasped in its talons, I was ecstatic as I reached for the camera. And sick as I scrambled to change the standard lens to telephoto before the bird disappeared forever behind a veil of pines. It was a race I lost.
This summer alone my camera has missed a doe and fawns standing too-deep in an angry Wisconsin River of central Wisconsin. A coyote drinking from a fog shrouded pothole in southern farmland. And a good buck in full velvet at the edge of an early-morning field made ready for crops.
By the time I stalked, my models were gone. Outdoor stories, and photos, you understand, do not wait. They must be captured. Despite the best laid plans and truest intentions, failure is often my companion. But like any other hunting or fishing journey in Wisconsin, it’s the near miss, I think, even more than the success, that brings us back for more.