It was supposed to be a jigging trip, but the moment I woke up, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Which was a problem, because in this job there is pressure. Real pressure.
On the third Thursday of every month, I’ve got to get a story to Allison. And that leaves me exactly four Saturdays from the story before to write about something that is in season and will not be out of season four weeks later when the story is published. What makes it worse is Chris Smith, our de facto union boss, keeps reminding us that it’s not enough to wax poetic about memories afield. Like an older brother bringing workers on a jobsite, he feels responsible for what we produce, and he actually expects us to hook and bullet things. Not always an easy thing to do on command. How Bob Gwizdz did it 52 times a year is beyond me.
Which brings us back to the problem at hand. All week long it had been glass calm on Little Traverse Bay. Daytime temperatures had hung in the low 70s. What a perfect time to jig for lake trout. The way it works is you cruise around at a speed way too fast to troll, cover ground and look for fish on the sonar. When you find them, you stop the boat and drop lines. The first trick is finding the lakers. The second, and often more difficult, is finding windless conditions on the Great Lakes.
I lay in bed listening to rain hitting the roof and a stiff breeze blowing out of the northwest. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees from the day before. I had rushed through the year’s first lawn mowing and snowblower storage on Saturday in order to get the boat out from the barn so we could fish Sunday morning. Guilt from skipping church kept me company in bed, but duty called and this was the only day to perform it. I roused my daughter, Madeline, from bed as my wife looked worried.
“Maybe we could go out and hunt for morels. You could write about that?” Kristin suggested.
“We never find morels.”
“True, but you never catch any lake trout either.” She had a point.
By the time we pulled in to the Petoskey marina, the flag was snapping smartly, and I was growing increasingly worried. The rain had quit and the waves had not grown tall enough to blow us off the lake, but it was only a matter of time. With an average 41-degree May water temperature, Little Traverse Bay is not to be trifled with. Being the maiden voyage of the year, who knows how the boat motor would cooperate. If engine troubles surfaced, no one would be there to help. The marina was deserted. “Boys of Summer” by Don Henley cycled in my head though it was the other end of the season.
Nobody on the road.
Nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air.
The summer’s out of reach.
Empty lake. Empty streets.
The sun goes down alone.
I’m driving by your house. Though I know you’re not home.
Out at the gas dock where we had walked to get our seasonal launch permit, the harbormaster studied us. “You going to do some fishing?”
“Yeah, we thought we’d try for some lakers. Anyone catching any?”
“Yeah. Patrick (local charter captain) was out this morning.”
I scanned the bay. Well, he sure wasn’t out there now. That thought made me feel a little silly. The pro had already come and gone before we even launched our boat. Mushroom hunting was beginning to look like a good idea.
Knowing we might not be able to jig, I had thrown in our Cannon hand-crank downriggers that easily slide in to the built-in rear rod holders. A 17-foot fiberglass Scout Dorado, my boat is small and simple. So are the downriggers. I have no planer boards, no lead or copper line, and only one Dipsy Diver. I have no trolling motor, gas or electric. I can’t use spot lock to set a course or hold us in place. Trolling for lake trout and salmon in the summer, I run three rods. Compared to the serious trolling boats running 12 lines, I’m like the Detroit Lions. As in the 2008 Detroit Lions (0-16, by the way).
But like Malcolm Gladwell wrote in “David and Goliath,” “Every strength is a weakness and every weakness is a strength.” The 90 hp Yamaha always starts and dead batteries for multiple electronics aren’t a problem. My right bicep is chiseled to perfection by cranking up downrigger balls. (False releases at 150 feet do, however, create cries of anguish.) Today we brought two light 7-foot spinning rods loaded with 8-pound test for jigging. We’d use them on the downriggers.
Madeline pointed the boat into the waves as I set the downriggers. I set the thin mono deep in the rubber jaws of the Cannon downrigger releases and doubled the rods with tension. The deeper rod ran a chartreuse spin and glow behind an old-fashioned Luhr-Jensen 00 (small) dodger. The second rod pulled a small blue and silver Northport Nailer.
The underwater topography of Little Traverse Bay is relatively straightforward. Not far past the pier, a shelf running parallel to the shoreline drops sharply from 50 to 100 feet of water and then slowly levels out at around 150 feet. There’s a vast plain between 115 and 150 feet. The shelf drop is sharper closer to the harbor then becomes less pronounced as you reach Magnus Park shortly after which there is a another shelf running perpendicular to shore halfway between Magnus and Bay Harbor. Nearing Bay Harbor, deeper water closes on the shoreline.
We hadn’t trolled 15 minutes when with no visible shaking or change in the bend in the rod, I noticed our monofilament line was a good 20 feet behind the downrigger cable. I set the hook, the light line and light rod stretching. It still felt like we were clipped to the downrigger cable, though I couldn’t believe that was true.
“Madeline, I think we’ve got a fish.” I handed her the rod.
“Seriously?”
Why is it that all of my family members can’t quite believe it when I catch something?
Finally, the rod began pulsing, and it was clear we were not only into a fish, but a good one at that. Now, Gladwell’s maxim came into play. One of my pet peeves is the disrespect anglers have for lake trout, both in their fighting ability and their taste. When you drag a lake trout from the bottom with 20-pound test on a level wind reel attached to a stiff salmon rod straight up the back of a moving boat, you’re right. It doesn’t feel like much of a fight because it’s not. But give a lake trout a fair fight on light line, and it’s a thrill. Because my boat is small and my equipment sparse, when an angler hooks a fish, I pull all the lines, raise the downriggers and shut off the engine. Then it’s just you, the fish, the wind and a whole lot of big, deep water. Madeline fought the fish well, keeping the rod tip up and pressure on without forcing it. The waves knocked us about as the fish slowly gave way from the depths and neared the boat. I leaned and scooped, a huge feeling of relief coming over me as I felt the fish’s weight in the net.
We trolled for another 45 minutes finding one more fish hanging close to bottom in 85 feet of water, right on the edge of the shelf. Then, with the pressure released by having hooked something for Hooks and Bullet and having savored the fight by using our weakness as a strength, we returned to the dock, feeling every bit as victorious as the 2023 Detroit Lions.