TR- The Ol' Folks at Home

Took a quick little trip to visit my folks about 50 miles from our
house in Merrill. They live near to a flowage that was primarily built
for duck habitat but which does contain some fish, especially species
that can survive the low O2 levels found in places of this type in
mid-Winter. Bullheads, perch... and northern pike.

So on this 75 degree October day we visited for awhile; talked
politics, had a bowl or two of my Mom's vegetable soup (cabbage,
rutabagas, carrots, potatoes and beef), tossed around a frisbee and
wandered around their "estate".

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I'd tucked my 10wt. in the back of the Subaru and, after ascertaining
from my Dad that they were catching fish down at the flowage, drove
down to the pullout about a mile from their place. Cast there for a
while with nothing to show for it.

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My Dad showed up and I followed him over to one of the lake's boat
landings. It was sheltered from the wind that had had me ducking my
bulky pike flies as they whizzed by my head at the more exposed
pullout. My first retrieve along the reed banks lining the landing
caused shoals of tiny, silver minnows to skitter out of the water. As
they settled back their was a big swirl as something toothy that way
came. I had the same thing happen on the other side. The small fish
spooked into becoming a too tempting target for the bigger fish lying
in wait. This is going a turkey shoot, I thought to myself.

It wasn't.

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I got a couple of half hearted swirls as I slowly worked my way
through my pike flies. But soon they stopped and after awhile even the
minnows disappeared. My Dad got tired of watching and left. I was just
about to pack it in myself when I clipped a big Whistler onto my
leader and apathetically cast and retrieved it in the lowering light
of the early evening. Finally, on a retrieve that was slower than the
others, with long pauses between strips, my line tightened and I felt
the live weight of a fish on my line. The pike splashed and dove a few
times, even taking a little line off the reel. But he soon surrendered
and I pulled him up on the drifts of wet duckweed floating on an inch
of water next to the shore.

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Not a huge pike (I'm sure the first swirl I saw was a much bigger
fish) but a better fighter than many other northerns I've caught. I
forcepped the fly free and sent him on his way. After a couple more
casts I packed up, drove to the folks house to pick up the boys (who
had passed on fishing) and headed home.

A great way to spend an Indian Summer day.


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hth

GeoC