ANDREW
RAGAS

Andrew's Adventures

End of Season Up North

Mon, October 17, 2011

This past weekend I was back up north for my final trip of the year. My objectives were to cast my arms off for muskies, winterize the boat, and close up the house for the season. I was joined this weekend by my dad and grandpa.

After a dismal week of fishing the previous week, weather and conditions were finally more comfortable and seasonal. Air temperatures barely touched 50 degrees all weekend, it was cloudy and overcast throughout,  and all the fall foliage had fallen. This was my kind of weather.

Coming into the weekend, I was excited. One of my goals for the year was to net 20 muskies in part-time service. I only needed 8 more fish for the year and I thought there was a good chance I’d end up close by the time all was finished.  Three fish days aren’t difficult to achieve during the fall, and I had three days to fish.

I was expecting to fish for far longer than three hours total in three days, but due to different circumstances that couldn’t happen. My goal was never achieved. Here’s why:

As soon as we arrived on Wednesday night, I was raking up the pine needles in our yard. When I finished up, I headed into my room. I then proceeded to step, bare foot, on a large wasp that was camouflaged into the bedside rug. OUUUUUUUUCH!

Throughout the entire fall we’ve had a bee and wasp infestation in our house and after killing hundreds of them in September I’m surprised that this didn’t happen anytime sooner. We found the source and there was a nest on the roof. But how did they get in?

So I got stung. No big deal I thought.

30 minutes and a shower later, I broke out in a rash all over my body.

“Dad, look at me! I’m getting chicken pox as a 25 year old!”

I took a few benadryls to alleviate the rash but then things got even worse. My face swelled up to the point that I felt I was mutating into the next X-Men character; self-titled, “The Atomic Bee”. What’s next?  I’ll sprout a pair of wings and shoot stingers out of my ass? Something wasn’t right, and I was feeling worse and worse.

Dad took me in to the emergency room at 11pm.

After an hour, following some drugs and steroids, the swelling and rash subsided.

The diagnosis: I am severely allergic to bee stings. If unprepared, the next one could probably be a lot worse. I guess people’s nasal passages and lungs can stop working altogether.

Therefore I was given one of these to carry on me at all times.

Happy 25th birthday to me!

After sleeping off the sting, the rash, and the swelling for almost twelve hours, I was put on a strict diet of medication all day Thursday.  Despite being on an all-day high, I felt pretty good for fishing and if I was to go anywhere, Dad would have driven me wherever to fish because I was in no condition to operate a vehicle.

Sadly, Thursday was a washout. We received the first substantial rainfall of this fall, almost an inch and a half.

Upset due to my allergic reaction to a bee sting, and all the rainfall, I was going to go fishing on Friday, regardless of anything.

I was expecting to fish all day Friday but early morning rain and strong 30mph winds put a hurtin’ on my mood. Luckily there was a window in mid-afternoon from 2-6pm, so we went for it.

We fished a local lake that had been producing well for me since September. Good action from the high 30’s to low 40’s fish.

While en route we picked up a few suckers, and got dad a scoop of fathead minnows to jig with or throw over the side while we drifted and I cast.

Due to the strong winds we weren’t able to fish much of the lake, so we were relegated to a few wind-protected bays and shorelines. Each of these areas had deep weeds with open water nearby. Good feeding shelves for mid-fall.

In three hours I quickly raised four on my favorite Suzy Sucker. Due to the medication, dad thought I was imagining things but I clearly wasn’t.  Although they were the typical high 30 inchers, these fish were running hot and were active as heck! Good things were going to happen.

Throughout my drug-induced casting I ran a quick-strike rig behind the boat. I encouraged my dad to operate the suckers (because he bought them) but since he knew I had goals to achieve he forced it all on me. I obliged.

I typically like to fish with larger, meatier suckers, but of the three we had, the first one I rigged was a smaller energetic fellow that was barely ten inches. Throughout our drifts he was dancing in the water and going crazy while set at 5 feet. Since the bigger, lazier and meatier suckers hadn’t produced well this fall up to this point, maybe the little energy guy could entice and provide us with a spark.

Dad kept a close eye on the sucker rod while I kept casting. He thought something was happening down below because the sucker was going bonkers as we drifted along a deep shoreline.

At around 5:30pm the float exploded downward and the rod secured into the holder was bent in half. I usually like for the fish to set themselves into the hooks before I take the rod out of the holder. Most of the time, sucker muskies will be lost due to premature hook-sets. All it seems to take is one bend of the rod and once you grab it from the holder, the fish is guaranteed to hold on following a reinforcement hook set.

Dad was seated in the captain’s seat, jigging for dink fish. I went in back, grabbed the rod, and set the hook. No chance this one was coming off!

Fish on!

After a quick fight with some explosive runs towards the deep, my 13th and final fish of the year came into the Frabill. It measured 42” even.  It tied for my largest of the year.

Despite my medicated state and lack of energy, I was one happy camper.

By then it was already getting dark. At 6:15pm we called it quits and headed in.

We were going to fish heavily on Saturday by fishing a large river system that has good action but due to even stronger winds (40mph gusts)  that wasn’t happening. In fact, the boat never even made it off the trailer at all. We winterized it at the launch while still secured.

Instead, we shore fished the Wisconsin River where we caught some pike and experienced several break offs with live bait. In addition, we revisited a few other smaller backwoods streams where many of my best childhood memories were made. Taking trips back to memory lane, to places that actually taught me how to fish, cannot be beat.

By the time Sunday rolled around, it was time to close up the cabin till next spring. The water system was drained and shut-off, as was the electricity. The boat was winterized, fogging oil was sprayed, fuel line was drained, sta-bill was poured, and trailer was lifted on blocks in the garage.

Just as it happens every fall, 12 trips later since my first trip summary of 2011, my year of fishing up north has sadly come to an end.

From now until April, I will be landlocked; unless this job thing up north actually happens.

This year a total of 62 days were spent up north. Last year I went for 72 which was my most ever, and the year prior was 63. Not a whole lot of difference in the amount of days spent fishing, but for quality and success 2011 was one of the worst I’ve had in recent years.

Here’s a quick version of my 2011 assessment:

LM & SM Bass - The bass were pitiful this year. Action days were few, and successful trophy hunts were rare. This was my first season in forever in which I did not catch a single bass topping 20 inches. What the heck?!? I fished everywhere for them this year. My designated action lakes were lousy and the worthwhile trophy [next potential state record] lakes weren’t much better. If I had to attribute any excuse to the poor fishing I had for them, I would blame overconfidence,  unrealistic expectations, and inconsistent weather as the main culprits.  If any of you recall how awesome my 2010 season went, I was expecting the same, if not better for 2011. I’ll make up for it next year.  Hopefully I’ll be able to juggle another year between muskies and bass.

Northern Pike - Not so good from that department either. I put most of my effort in for them in May and early June and I don’t think we had a single productive outing when exclusively fishing for them. I have a couple of go-to lakes that are loaded with pike and can be fished successfully during spring and fall and even they weren’t kicking out fish.  But on the other hand, Wisconsin doesn’t manage its waters for pike and even if they do it’s an extremely poor job. Therefore I shouldn’t have such high expectations for quality pike in the first place.

Panfish – I didn’t try so much for them anywhere. Unless it’s huge crappies I’m not thrilled. I neglected them during the early spring warm-ups. Every time I tell my friends that I will fish for them, they roll their eyes at me.

Other Fish – We definitely missed out on this year’s massive redhorse runs on the area rivers. Thank you late spring! I was really looking forward to catching a few while wading with fly gear.

Walleye - I don’t bother fishing for them unless I’m out somewhere with the boat during the middle of the night, or fish rivers. Easily they are the most pressured fish species in all of Wisconsin. Why fish for something that probably sees a jig with live bait every ten minutes of their life? On top of that, why fish for them when chances are that all you will catch are smaller 12 to 18 inchers that barely make it to sexual maturity because they are always being kept? Tribal harvests and overfishing have led to their decline. This year I spent less than ten angling hours for them.

Musky – I fell short of netting my goal of 20, but if there was one fish species that showed some promise and worthwhile fishing, it goes to muskies. Approximately half of my year was spent casting for them, and much of it took place beginning in August and lasting until now. There were a lot of great and entertaining moments while there were several heart-breakers. The only way I can judge whether it was a good year is if I caught and saw more fish than the previous year. I did for both. In addition, this was only my fourth year of fishing for them, and I learned a lot more than I ever have before. I didn’t catch any coveted “gilfs” (45 inches or bigger), but it was a good year with action and finding them.

Another reason why 2011 was so “BLEHHHHH” is that I neglected exploring and learning new bodies of water. I kept beating a dead horse with the places that I fish with regularity, as some places I fished upwards of ten times before stubbornness was defeated by logic. I fished approximately 50 out of my consistent pool of 150 different lakes and the fishing this year was only decent at half of them. Next year will see more explorations and adventures to new water – which is something I did with regularity during an awesome 2010. I feel that learning new places and knowing when and when not to fish certain waters will only improve in success and enable me to fully maximize peak feeding and fishing conditions.

As it occurs during most years, there are too many places to fish in such little time. I can name over a dozen different places I had never fished before this year that were originally on tap for this year.  These will be on reserve on the 2012 bucket list.

Who knows how much longer I’ll be able to travel back and forth and keep doing this. My eventual goal is to be north all the time so that I wouldn’t ever have to travel again for anything. But who knows. Life works funny in some ways.

In closing, I’d like to say thanks for reading and joining me on the adventures and my obsessive pursuits in 2011. While I wait for phone calls I have the local river systems to keep me busy with until first ice.

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