6 June

Fish Trip II: Jacks in the Box

I’ve mentioned before how my ol’ fishing buddy Muddy saved my life; Not once but twice…that we are counting. It’s just your basic save a dude and he owes you forever deal. First, he pulled me to safety when I was trapped in a hail of bullets which was not as dramatic as it sounds. Later, he plucked me from the sea and into a boat before I was dragged to the bottom. A bottom which happened to be a hammer head shark mating ground at the height of hammer head mating season. That one was more dramatic than it sounds. During the first incident, he had a moment of poor judgement. The second incident he was far more concerned about my safety. He thought if I sank, drowned and was eaten by horny sharks, hopefully, in that order he would have to fish out and carry the equipment that was on my back.

For his reward, or at least until I forgive him for saving me and a few other things, I have sworn an oath to let him take me fishing multiple times a year. Thanks to his folly, I have offspring who he also gets to take fishing. So, over Memorial Day weekend, I called in my marks for a second time to get Nick on the boat for a little dead man fishing angling action.

With great confidence, we hit the same spots we fished during THE Great Pie and Walleye Run in April. We used the same rigs and same baits which included tipped minnows on our secret rigs. It was an enterprising individual’s secret rig shared for just $5.99 plus tax. Really, no matter what you use, a minnow is a sure thing on walleye which are allegedly meatasaurases, in theory.

The excitement was palatable when we arrived and dropped lines in the sweet spots from last month. That moment was to be the peak of the morning as time went by with no action. Being experts with patience, we calmly adapted and changed colors, beers, jig speed, weights, pants and religions yet still no bites. After another ten minutes went by without a nibble we moved spots and did it all again and still, nothing. We tried deep, we tried shallow, we even tried redundantly pounding the same spots to no avail. We found nothing but more tension.

I am on record for stating that you cannot judge a man by his cat and I stand by that but I can unequivocally admit that you can judge a man by his boat and fishing rod. That thought crossed my mind while fishing another apparent dead spot when a couple rookie, noob looking fishermen on a horrendous non-fishing boat and ridiculous white rods with tuna fishing reels on them happily drifted by us…reeling in walleye after walleye…

I swallowed what pride I had left; it was on the floor, I had to pick it up and pop in the pride like a little pride prescription pill. Asking the guys, “Hey, is that a bottom bouncer with a crawler rig you’re using?” The nice noob who was currently a far better angler than me while using a ridiculous rod and sinking boat, was very helpful. “Yep! Some guy told us they were biting on worms and these rigs, it’s the first time we’ve been out here fishing, even. This is greeaaattt!” He declared as he drifted on by until distracted by another pesky walleye hanging on his line. He was last heard yelling to us, “Nice boat!” Muddy, mumbled under his breath, “We’re fishing schmucks today.”

Now, I know eye’s like worms but I never dreamed that it would make a difference between minnows and worms. If there was a choice to be made, I would have confidently declared minnows are the first choice. I’m not one to argue with the type of science we just witnessed so I hit the throttle, trimmed down the bow and flew back, skipping waves, to the marina and power swerved into the dock. Muddy was off the boat before we had her tied off or were even near shore. Up to the bait shop he rushed to fill up on crawlers and bouncing rigs.

While tying off our boat, I saw two guys pulling in near me who looked relaxed and done for the day, not stressed and empty handed like us. I asked how they did and they were all smiles, “GREAT!” They said. They went on to explain how they couldn’t find minnows that morning (we found minnows, lucky us!) so they used crawlers. Even saying, “Crawlers aren’t minnows but every idiot knows that’s not just a theory, eyes are meatasaurases!” As a result of their inability to get minnows, they banged walleye all day! I looked at their rods and they had the exact same secret rigs on that we did. I asked, “Hey, did you put your worms on those secret $5.99 rigs?” Then they got serious, “Those are $2.99 rigs. Only a noob would pay $5.99 for that secret.” I took a breath, time to shrug it off and stay focused, “Where did ya’ll fish?” My thrifty new friend named a half dozen places then finished with a wave and, “They’re everywhere out there, man.”

Now it has been said that, “Words can never hurt you.” Let me tell you, those words weren’t like sticks and stones at all. They were more like a flaming mule kick to the cojones. I’ve never been on that side of a fishing conversation before; at least with an adult. A couple grade school kids have talked to me that way when trying to steal how they are catching so many trout out of the Driftwood. They’d say, “It’s easy, they’re everywhere, Mister.” That didn’t sting as bad. Even then, I could hide behind adulthood and say, “Hey kid, I was just making sure you’re doing it all legal.”

Muddy got back to the dock before my sudden realization of fishing mortality fell like a black curtain on my soul. He snatched me back from the abyss by grabbing my elbow and guiding me to our boat. “We’ve got night crawlers”, he whispered. Those magic words brought me back from the brink of the fishless abyss; saved yet again.

I never would have guessed it but worms over minnows made all the difference in the world. Later we were told, early eye’s want minnows and late eye’s want worms. We were in late walleye time for the area. We went from no bites in five hours to catching walleye consistently and picking up a good number of nice jacks for the live box. Schmucks no more! Maybe if we had tuna rods and a leaky boat, we would have limited out. When we pulled back in to the docks that evening, a wild eye’d walleye fisherman with minnows was asking for tips. I told him what we learned and furtively slipped him a secret rig. I would have given him worms but we were out. When he asked where we scored, I managed to refrain from using the phrase, “They’re everywhere, man.”

See you along the stream