Make mine muskies!

It's already started. I had a dream last night, and there I was, knees braced against the stern, and a rod bowed almost double from the force of a big muskellunge that was steadily taking line.

This dream had some basis in fact, and it was three years ago when I first fought and lost a huge Lake St. Clair muskie that wouldn't come up off the bottom.

Muskie dreams are just what they are: dreams of big toothy fish. Occasionally my muskie dreams will contain combined elements from two or three different and unforgettable muskie fishing experiences.

What causes these dreams? Beats me, but I suspect it comes from thinking of muskellunge fishing.  Two years ago, I tipped an old buddy -- Larry Ramsell of Hayward, Wisconsin -- off to a Michigan hotspot I've known about for 30 years. I couldn't go because I was recovering from one of many eye surgeries, so I gave him a clue.

Larry Ramsell (above) of Hayward, Wisc. fishes all the great muskie waters.

The general locale was the St. Marys River in the eastern Upper Peninsula, which encompasses a large chunk of watery real estate. He and two others fished the first day and got lucky. They caught a 42-inch fish.

The next day one angler landed and released a small fish, another angler hooked and lost a large muskie, and then Ramsell nailed a 53 1/2-inch muskie that weighed approximately 45 pounds, and they still were nowhere near my hotspot.

Ramsell is a great muskie angler, and perhaps the most savvy of all. He recognized good muskie water, and fished it hard and caught fish.

A photo of Ramsell and his trophy fish appears above, and I'll probably dream of it tonight. However, to illustrate how fickle muskie fishing can be, Ramsell returned the following year and never caught a fish. A cold front moved in, and he and I fished in high winds and rain for two days without either of us having a strike.

The odd thing about muskie fishing is the reason we fish for muskies is it becomes a personal quest for a trophy fish. The above fish isn't Ramsell's first 40+-pounder, but very few fish of such honest sizes will tip the scales to that weight. He admits that the quest, the enduring search if you will, for an even larger muskie is what drives him and many others to travel widely and fish often for a larger muskie.

Satisfying that quest does occur, but not for everyone. I've hooked three or four 40-pounds in many years of fishing for them. The trick is to fish all the known big-fish waters but never fail to try other lakes. Nearby Long Lake undoubtedly holds 40-pound fish or even larger, but very few are landed. Most are hooked by accident by people fishing for other species, and invariably the fish breaks off and gets away.

Years ago, I boated a big muskie on Dale Hollow Reservoir, on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. That fish weighed 36 1/2 pounds, and it is the biggest muskie I've landed. But this muskie fishing is like an itch that needs a good scratching. It’s something like poison ivy of the brain.

The only thing that relieves the itch is to go muskie fishing again. And always, lurking in the darkest corner of our brain, is the thought of our biggest fish. A quest to top that fish, and not necessarily to keep it, is what keeps us pounding the water.

Lake St. Clair is gaining the reputation as possibly the best muskie lake of all.

The Lake St. Clair fish I hooked three years ago was never seen. Fish hooked while trolling, and this is especially true if it is a big fish, is they will stay deep. It may roll on the surface toward the end of the fight, but they normally stay down until they get plumb wore out.

My unseen fish hit a down-rod on the corner of the boat, with the lure in the prop wash, and it ripped off yards of line. We cleared other lines, and that fish and I tussled for more than 20 minutes. I'd move it up off bottom, and down it would go again, and take out more line. Back and forth we went until I could sense the fish tiring, and it rolled under the surface where it was impossible to see the length and girth, and then rolled over and the lure came free.

Then there was a muskie hooked while fishing after dark. The lake was Murphy Lake in Tuscola County. Me and another guy were casting huge plugs that sputtered along on the surface with gurgles and small splashes from our muskie-size Hula Poppers and Jitterbugs.

"Blub-blub-blub" would come the sound as we retreived the surface lures with an occasional pause. My partner got a big backlash when his lure was near the boat, and a big northern muskie struck the lure and broke the line.

An hour later as we lamented the lost fish I had a massive jarring strike. I'd worked for an hour on those hooks, and they were razor sharp. That fish hit, and I pounded the hook home twice. That fish took out 30 yards of line, and I played her with a cool hand.

Even at that, the fish was a monster. One develops a sense for big fish after hooking a number of them, and I'd triggered that fish quick and hard. It was hooked well, and I played it under the light of a bright moon. Nearly 20 minutes into the fight, the fish ran toward the boat, rolled over, splashing us with water and we came undone.

I suspect the prolonged fight and the big hooks wore big holes in that fish's jaw, and when it rolled, the heavy lure fell out, and the giant muskie swam free.

Lost big fish often are the rule rather than the exception. Many simply get away.

I remember another big muskie that followed a Suick twice in three days on Wisconsin's Tomahawk Lake. It looked half as long as the 16-foot boat but I know it wasn't quite that big, but it was well over 50 inches long. Could it have hit that magical weight of 40 pounds?

Undoubtedly. My buddy from Wisconsin, who had seen and caught several very large muskies, estimated the fish at 55 inches and at least 45 pounds. That 'lunge still figures in an occasional dream.

Another time on Ontario's Lake of the Woods near Kenora, I had a savage strike at boat-side from an unseen muskie. The fish missed the plug after I began lifting it out for another cast.

The next thing I knew there was this enormous muskie camped three feet behind my Bobbie Bait. I kept the lure moving, plunged the rod into the water at the boat, and kept it moving. That fish followed it through several Figure-8 and J-stroke rod movements, and then it sank slowly out of sight without offering up to hit the lure.

How big was it? I had caught a brief glimpse, and it was well over 55 inches. Was it one of those legendary 60-inch fish? Beats me, but I know I saw that fish in my dreams for two or three years. Writing about it now may bring the dream back to life again.

Years ago, Craig Lake in the Upper Peninsula was a hotspot for big muskies. It was a small lake, hard to reach at that time, and motors were not allowed. A good man on the oars could row around the lake easily in two hours.

A buddy was fishing a spinnerbait when a muskie struck at the fast-moving lure and missed. I pitched a Suick over there, and the fish bulged the water behind the lure but didn't hit. I applied rod-tip English to the lure, and it followed the lure all the way to the canoe. That  fish probably weighed 40 pounds but we'll never know.

Later that day a buddy caught a muskie weighing 25 pounds at the opposite end of the lake. It would have been dwarfed by the earlier fish.

I've been privileged to have caught a great number of muskies in my life. I'm missed some very big fish, hooked some that were truly huge, and lost all but the Dale Hollow fish, and it remains my largest so far.

Will Lake St. Clair produce something big this year? I honestly think so. It produces plenty of muskies, and a goodly number of 40-45  pounders have been taken and several fish much larger have been seen. Luck, and being in the right spot at the right time, are things anglers truly need to be successful with these big fish.

It is very difficult to crack that hallowed 40-pound mark, and although some anglers do it each year, it is not a common situation. Granted, on occasion a novice will catch a truly big fish by accident or good fortune, but for dedicated muskie hunters, nailing a 40-pounder is why we chase these grand game fish.

And, once we crack that mark, we'll try for a 45-pounder. Go figure!

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Pre-season scouting pays off

Locating trophy whitetail bucks requires several things: a spotting scope, good binoculars, a high vantage point, the ability to stay downwind of the animals, and perhaps some luck.

You'll notice I said nothing about a bow or firearm. Those may be needed when hunting two or three months from now, but locating a good buck means spending a good bit of time in the field with the above mentioned items.

It requires a good spotting scope to determine how good the anglers are on this buck.

One of my buddied locates Upper Peninsula bucks by sitting high on a rocky outcropping overlooking a crop field with close proximity to some heavy cedar swamps. He sits quietly, often 500 yards or more from where the deer are seen feeding in an open field, and studies them with binoculars or a spotting scope.

Another friend uses a tall free near a busy highway. He knows the deer won't be crossing the road during daylight hours, so he has constructed a safe and sturdy stand that sits 30 feet off the ground. He crawls into it, fastens his full-body safety harness, and studies the deer and how they approach the field in the early evening.

Sometimes he crawls into the same tree while it is still dark, waits for the dawn, and checks out how deer exit the feeding area. After several early morning or late afternoon visits, he knows where the deer are coming from and where they are going ... and which trails to hunt.

The savvy sportsman does this in several locations, and long before the bow season opens he knows where the deer travel. And best of all, he knows how he will set up on them once the season does open.

Locate travel routes, bedding areas and where deer feed during pre-season scouting.

Knowing where deer bed down, where they feed and their exact travel routes, can be pin-pointed during the late summer months. These areas will not change unless humans move into the area when deer are normally moving.

I used to have an elevated coop in the middle of an open field. I could see 250 yards to one end of the field, 350 yards to the other end, and the field was about 400 yards wide. Walking in to this elevated coop was a snap, and I'd do it long before the deer would start moving.

The coop had stood in place for 15 years, and deer had come to accept it as a permanent fixture. It had plexiglas windows on all four sides, and a flat floor that allowed the use of a tripod and my Bushnell spotting scope.

I dressed in camo clothing, and had two stools in the stand for use during the firearm and muzzleloader seasons. In mere seconds, a deer that was spotted was instantly brought into sharp focus. It was easy to tell where the buck had come from, and backtracking that animals trail wasn't important. I knew the swamp he bedded in, and the trails he used to enter the field to feed.

The value of my spotting scope was it allowed me the opportunity to zero in on the buck's rack, and determine his size. On many occasions, if I had a friend who really wanted to shoot a decent buck, I knew which stand would be the most productive, where the buck would come from, and when he would show up.

Keep a ledger of when and where bucks are seen and what time they arrive,

This pre-season scouting, and timing of when bucks arrived, became so skilled that I could predict within two or three minutes when the buck would walk in front of a particular stand. It paid off for many hunters, and if I told them the buck would arrive at 7:23 p.m., they came to realize that I had these bucks pegged. It led to a good number of hunters shooting their first buck.

What I've been able to do with pre-season scouting isn't difficult but it can be time consuming. What works for me can work for you, but getting out into the field, laying down some foot prints, and studying deer from afar requires a large investment in time.

Some hunters are willing to invest that time, and give themselves a better chance at scoring on a nice buck, and some are not. It's hot, dirty, dusty work, and the bugs can be bad. The results can be commensurate with the effort and work spent gaining in-depth knowledge of a deer and his travel routes.

Many hunters rely on luck to put them in the right spot at the right time, and other sportsmen make their own luck by knowing when to be at the right place at the right time. The big difference is skill will normally out-produce luck almost every time.

Me, I prefer making my own luck. It's more fun that way.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Fish the hot, muggy nights

There is a certain excitement about fishing after dark that isn't experienced with other angling methods. Gone is our sense of vision, of seeing a strike, and our ears become what helps guide our casts.

It tells us how far away the fish is, gives us a sense of its size based on the commotion it makes, and we know that accurate casting based on what our ears tell us is all the help our body can deliver.

Night fishing for bass and walleyes is a great way to spend time on the water.

Years ago there were a number of lakes I'd prowl with a small row boat. The oars were evenly matched, which is always good, because it helps us row quietly and lets us ghost up on feeding fish. The same can be done with an electric motor  but rowing provides some exercise.

My bass lures came in two basic varieties, and both were top-water models. I liked a black Jitterbug because it was easily silhouetted against the night sky. A frog-colored Hula Popper was the other.

The boat would glide along smoothly with less noise than a stalking cat, and I'd ship the oars onto rubber pads (to muffle that noise), and I liked the Jitterbug best. It could be cast near docks, swimming rafts, lily pads and it was a very productive lure.

The lure would hit the water on a tight line, and I'd let it sit for a minute before taking one or two slow turns of the reel handle. That would make the lure gurgle along on the surface for a foot or so, and then another pause. If a largemouth bass didn't hit after the second pause, I retrieved it just fast enough for it to chuckle all the way back to the boat.

However, strikes often came after the first or second pause, and I wouldn't strike at the splash but once the fish was felt, and then, as they say in the great state of Texas, I'd cross their eyes on the hook-set.

Fish key locations hard.

Probing into likely areas was always fun because night fishing for bass is a bit problematic. One fishes all the normal hotspots, and hopefully one or two fish will produce the desired results. At times, a fish can be heard actively feeding, and an angler could concentrate on that fish until repeated casting put it down or the bass struct the gurgling lure.

Walleyes have always figured highly in my night-fishing escapades. I preferred to cast for them rather than troll because even though trolling allows an angler to cover more water faster, casting allow us to cover the water more thoroughly. An important point, to my way of thinking.

My casting lure of choice for these game fish was a Heddon River Runt Spook in the black-and-white shore minnow pattern. It came in floaters and sinkers, and the floaters usually produced the best action for me.

Walleyes, on drowned river mouth lakes that are connected to the Great Lakes, fed on alewives after dark along a drop-off, point, gravel or sand bar, shallow bar with nearby deep water, or around and over old slab docks left behind after the timbering era ended. Hitting  walleyes is a matter of good timing; missing them means bad timing.

Blind casting with a lure off points and other key locations can produce although night-time feeding walleyes often herd alewives up close to shore, and slash through the bait fish like a school of piranha. One can prospect by motoring to key spots and casting. If you fish a lake often enough to know where walleyes beat up on the alewives, go there to wait.

Sit and wait for feeding fish to move your way.

Sitting silently and waiting in an anchored boat makes sense. A dark quiet night, and the hot muggy air will wrap you up like a hot dish rag, and anglers wonder why they sit there feeding mosquitoes.

Suddenly, out in front, small splashes are heard as alewives leap from the water as walleyes move up from below and start shredding and gobbling the hapless bait fish. The trick is to be able to cast accurately without seeing. Turn on a light, and the walleye school will vanish.

Pitch the lure tight to shore, and reel just fast enough to bring out the lure action. The floating model River Runt will dive on a steady retrieve, and if the lure is close to a fish, it will hit and start tugging for bottom.

I always used 8-pound line, and I never broke off on a big walleye, and landed many fish to 12 pounds. Keep the line tight, keep the fish coming, net it, grab another rod rigged up with the same lure, and cast again. I've landed as many as three big walleyes before the school breaks up or moves off.

Most of the big fish are released. If the school holds 18-inch fish, allow the first hooked fish to lay in the bottom while you get another lure in the water.

Night fishing for bass and walleyes can produce great action but it's important to work them hard and fast while a school hangs around because once it moves on, the chances of finding it again are slim.

For me, fishing at night means dealing with the unexpected. Sometimes the fishing is great, and often it is poor. Do it often enough, and fish enough nights, and the good-bad times seem to average out.

And that is one of the nice things about after-dark fishing. It is great fun, and at times, will produce fast action.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Prevent sea-sickness

It’s a malady that can bring a man to his knees faster than a sucker punch, and it can happen to anyone, at any time.

Sea sickness can happen on calm water or rough seas. Al Stewart with a big muskie.

It can strike young and old alike. It’s called seasickness, and early summer salmon trips on wind-swept waves can cause major problems for those who are ill-prepared.

My buddy was deep in the throes of this marine illness. He was gut-wrenching seasick. Knee-walking ill. Puking his guts out, and then a bad case of dry-heaves. A feeling of dizziness swept over him. His face was pale, perspiration dotted his brow, and he was sucking air like a person after running a 1,500-meter race. He was in sad shape.

We were 10 minutes out of port, and the boat was rolling in five-foot swells pushed by a stiff northwesterly wind like today’s that was blowing foam off the top of the whitecaps. Five minutes after reaching open water, he was hanging over the rail while I kept him somewhat upright by grabbing his belt and hoping it would hold.

All this didn't make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel even worse but I was trying to keep him from pitching head-first into the rolling foam-flecked waves.

“Oh, God, I’m sick,” he sputtered, vomit dripping off his chin. “How long will this last?”

Many skippers are not sensitive to people who don’t take medication first.

The skipper, unsympathetic as most are to people who are afraid others will think they are a wimp if they take medications to prevent getting ill, said: “It will last until I turn this boat around and drop you off on shore.”

Bob’s ongoing vomiting brings truth to an old saw often spun by ancient and modern mariners -- when a  person first get seasick, they are afraid they will die. After a prolonged bout with this malady and the dry heaves, they are more afraid they won't.

This is how Bob felt until we took him back to shore. Five minutes after his feet touched dry dirt, and he kneeled to kiss the ground, he experienced a miraculous recovery.

Seasickness can affect anyone, at any time, and its causes are many. The only sure cure is firm ground underfoot, and even then, nausea or queasiness in your guts can linger for hours.

What is seasickness, and how is it treated? I've never (that’s me knocking on wood) been seasick, although I've had an upset stomach several times. What causes the illness is hard to determine although there are many guesses as to its causes.

Knowing what it is, what can causes it and heading off the problem early, is the key.

Boating sickness is another name for this problem. Motion sickness is another. It can occur in a car, boat, bus, roller coaster, Ferris wheel, or bumpy airplane rides, to name a few. Motion upsets the middle ear, which helps us maintain our balance or equilibrium, and this sets up a feeling of exaggerated movement. Rough water isn't the only thing that makes people ill.

One major factor in seasickness is fear. Few people readily admit they fear the water, but they may be very uncomfortable being on big water, regardless of the boat size or the captain’s skills. They subconsciously think about the boat tipping over, them being thrown overboard, and they become nauseous and ill.

This part is all in their head. They talk themselves into getting sick, and this is the one thing over which they have some control. Don a life jacket, tell your friends you’re a weenie, and go fishing and don’t think about the waves, motion and stomach queasiness.

What an angler or boater eats or drinks can trigger seasickness as well. What a person thinks or hears also can do a nasty job on those on the cusp of becoming ill.

Drinking alcoholic beverages before or during a boating trip is one major cause. A booming morning hangover after a long bout on the bottle can lead to a naval stomach disaster.

Certain foods are known to precipitate motion sickness. Orange, grapefruit or other citrus juices are high in citric acid, which can trigger seasickness. Avoid tomato juice as well, and apple juice can make some people very sick.

Be careful what you eat or drink, and get plenty of rest the before, can help.

Little or no sleep will hammer most people prone to this problem. Too much coffee or pop are major factors that lead some folks to becoming sick on the water. Eating fried eggs, hash browns and greasy bacon or sausage for breakfast, and then chasing it down with a large OJ, is a great recipe for on-the-water barfing.

Sometimes, even talking about motion sickness makes people ill, and some old salts who never get sick take savage delight in talking about the illness. I once watched a father talk about getting seasick, and he literally talked his son into leaning over the rail to upchuck his breakfast.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I told the father. "Sometimes that kind of comment will come back to haunt you."

His son recovered, and then the Old Man got sick. He got zero sympathy from his kid or me. Keep such comments to yourself, and it makes for a better fishing experience for everyone.

Learn the early signs of sea sickness, stand upright and out in fresh air.

Impending seasickness is easy to spot. The victim begins to sweat and often feels nauseous. Gradually, skin color becomes pale or white, and cramps hit the abdomen like getting kicked in the stomach. The cramps can, and often do, double a person over.

Sucking noises are heard as the victim tries to take in more air through the mouth to offset hyperventilation and to ease stomach cramps. The next step – nausea -- continues until the stomach is emptied and the dry heaves set in.

It's no fun for the victim. Frankly, others never enjoy watching the results of this malady in other people. It can be contagious, and if one person gets sick, that causes others to do the same.

What can be done to prevent seasickness? Numerous over-the-counter medications such as Dramamine are available. One or two pills should be taken the night before a trip and one should be taken at least 30 minutes before leaving the dock. Check with a doctor to see if Dramamine or any other motion sickness pill is right for you, and prescriptions are needed for some medications. Plan ahead to keep in happening.

Don't take anti-motion pills after becoming ill. Scopolamine, an anti-motion sickness medicine, is released slowly into the skin through a behind-the-ear patch, and it works for many people when  properly used. The patches are obtained with a doctor's prescription. It's recommended that a patch be applied the evening before a boating or fishing trip.

Take medication the night before, and before the boat leaves the dock.

If you start feeling ill, start doing some boating chores. Don't sit motionless and hope the queasiness will go away. It usually won't. Don’t go below deck and sit in the head (bathroom) because that will only aggravate the motion problem and make matters worse.

Rig tackle, watch other boats, study the rods or look at the distant shoreline or horizon. Stand in fresh air, hopefully with the breeze in your face, and breathe deeply. Don't inhale gasoline or diesel exhaust fumes, and do not sit or lay down. It only makes it worse.

Avoid unpleasant odors. A lack of ventilation and close quarters can cause an attack. Never go below or lay in a V-bunk if illness strikes. Stay in the fresh air, and remain upright, and look at the horizon. Never look down at the deck or down at the water.

Try eating dry bread, gingersnap cookies, lemon drops or mints. Eat slowly, do not swallow air and think about something other than a queasy stomach. Do not drink milk, alcoholic beverages or soft drinks. Bottled water and mints are good to rinse out a mouth after vomiting and the mints will freshen the mouth and relieve some of the nasty aftertaste of vomit.

Seasickness can strike anyone, anytime. I've been lucky, but someday I'm sure my time will come. Hopefully I'll be able to follow my own advice, and conquer the problem before it overwhelms me.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

I hate hot weather

The idea of going fishing today was just an idea. It quickly faded as the temperature crawled steadily upward from 90 degree.

The best fishing that year was in the Northwest Territories’ Great Bear Lake for lakers.

The heat index in Traverse City was shimmering hot, and I had a doctor's appointment. There we were -- Kay and I -- in a car when the air conditioning decided it wasn't going to push out any more cool air. At best, it just kept the warm air circulating around.

Afterwards, we came right back home. I went out to water our new bushes and trees. It took about 45 minutes, and I was weak-kneed when I came inside. The rest of the evening I was sick. Heat exhaustion, I guess, but I still feel the effects today.

It hurt my head to think about being outside, on the water, fighting the heat, the broiling sun, the reflected sunshine off the water, and gave it up as a lost cause. Memories of countless days like that came to mind, and most of them were in the late 1960s and through the 1970s when, as a free-lance outdoor writer, it was write and sell stories or starve.

One summer, Kay, my daughter Kim and I traveled all summer hoping to catch fish. We were all over Canada, northern Michigan and Wisconsin, and throughout the mid-south. Everywhere we went that summer the temperatures were in the 90s or higher, and fishing was horrible.

Almost everywhere we went it was broiling hot & the fish didn’t bite.

We spent a great deal of time on the water from before dawn until 9 a.m., and from 7 p.m. until dark, and it was sweltering. I remember a northern pike trip to Quebec's northern area, set up shop behind one of their new hydroelectric dams and fished the flooded timber for big pike. We barely caught enough fish to eat, and for those of you who read the outdoor magazines, no one is interested in hammer-handle pike stories.

We fished for jumbo walleyes in some of the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) lakes in Tennessee where 10-pound walleyes were reasonably common years ago. We never saw one, nor did we catch a walleye. The unbearable heat took the fish deep, slowed their metabolism, and it was just another busted trip.

There was a big-bass bite going on in a Georgia lake for a bit in the spring, but by the time we got there, no butcket-mouth bass had been caught in two weeks. The weather hovered near 100 degrees, and then at mid-day, it warmed up.

I was as brown as mahogany, and we dipped our hats and shirts in the water and put them on again. Thirty minutes later we were dipping them again. We'd start the day with two 10-pound blocks of ice in our cooler to keep beverages cold.

Forget it. We had melted water within three hours. Coleman had yet to invent their famous cooler that keeps things cold for nearly a week at a time, regardless of the outside temperature.

We went to North Dakota to fish their reservoirs, and did catch a few early-morning sauger and walleyes, but the fish were small. The bigger photo fish were conspicuous by their absence. Another story shot down.

We came home, fished for Lake Michigan salmon, and early morning and last-light seemed to be the only productive times. We did manage enough big kings for a feature story, but all of the other feature stories for Outdoor Life, Field & Stream and Sports Afield were a complete bust.

Sales don’t happen without great photos & good stories.

Strange thing, this free-lance outdoor writing business. Get the story and great photos, and everyone wants to buy stuff. If you can't catch cold in the heat, and the photos are of small fish, no one is interested. It turned out to be absolutely the worst summer of my writing career.

Were there some hot tips? Everything was hot, but the tips were only lukewarm. Fish early, fish late, fish when the sky was overcast, put in the time, sweat a lot, and go home empty-handed. Try to come up with some other stories.

Fishing, normally a contemplative sport, became very boring that summer. The scarcity of willing biters, and constant battering of a hot sun on our bodies, slowly took its toll.

We finally cancelled some of our summer trips, and doubled-up on the fall trips in hopes of recovering some lost income. It worked, up to a point, but one thing about a broiling hot sun, you can never make up everything you've lost.

We well remember that summer when we boiled in our own juices. I mean, really, how could we ever forget such a pitiful summer? Such trips, hopefully, are a once-in-a-lifetime affair.

I've had a belly full of hot weather, and am longing for an October cold snap. I need it to recharge by drained batteries.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Go fishing anytime

It was a lesson I learned many years ago. The best time to go fishing is when you can sneak away.

Pick a time and go fishing.

In days of old, and I was taking care of my four  children while recovering from a broken back, the first sign of the afternoon school bus was when the old man got up, stumbled around a bit, and once the kids hit the bathroom, we'd jump in the car and drive five miles to a small lake.

We could park along side the road, and it looked like one of those circus clown tricks where people kept tumbling out of the car. I'd grab the can of worms, set the bobber at three feet, and we'd go fishing.

One after another of the kids would hook a bluegill, crappie or sunfish, and I'd sit there on the road shoulder and unhook fish and bait them up again. A wire mesh container held the fish in the water, and it didn't take the kids long to catch a good mess of fish.

We'd fish for two or three hours or until they carried on about being starved, and we'd go home. The fish would be cleaned, and it didn't take long to cook up a big mess of panfish. I'd keep cooking as long as they kept eating.

Going fishing on a schedule is what I've had to do for many years as a full-time outdoor writer. Meet a charterboat at 5:30 a.m., and head out onto Lake Michigan for chinook salmon as I'll be doing soon. Come in, rest up a bit during the middle part of the day, and head back out in the late afternoon and early evening for more salmon fishing.

Bluegills, crappies, salmon, trout or whatever. Just go fishing.

It was like working in a factory. Be here at a certain time, eat lunch at another time, and punch out at a different time. Much of fishing is regulated a good bit like being in military service.

Been there, done that, and now that I'm a bit older, I'll play the fishing-by-schedule game when it's necessary but frankly, I enjoy going fishing when it suits me. Give me a four-hour respite from pounding the keyboard to write my daily blogs, and I'm as likely to slide out for two or three hours of bluegill fishing, chasing brook trout, or fishing for salmon of steelhead, depending on the time of year.

Over many years of fishing for a variety of game fish, I've learned one important thing. Fish do not wear wrist watches, never look at clocks, and have absolutely no concept of time. They feed when hungry, and don't feed when they are not.

It's not a bad life except small fish always run the risk of being eaten by a larger fish, and I suppose that is a bummer, but fish don't think like we do. They react to instinct and stimuli, and when the belly rumbles, they go looking for dinner.

There are exceptions to every basic rule. Fish often feed well in the early morning, as we hope to prove tomorrow with a good catch of chinook salmon, and also feed well as daylight fades into darkness. Those are commonly accepted times, but the spring Hendrickson hatch is a gentleman's insect. They get going in the early afternoon at a reasonable hour, and are unlike the Hex hatches that occur about the time most people are heading for bed.

Enjoy the day, with or without fish, and take each trip as it comes. Each one is special.

Fishing is a sport with many wonders, and I'm a firm believer in trying to learn something new every time I go fishing. Sometimes I do, and on occasion, I'm not only skunked by the fish but fail to stick a little tidbit of fishing know-how in some hidden recess of my brain.

Fishing, to me and to many people, is not a competitive thing. Most of us find little necessity in catching more fish than the next person. We fish because we enjoy areas where fish are caught, and feel better about life when we have a pleasant day on the water.

Most of all, we learn that fishing on an unscheduled basis can be fun. What do I have left to prove? That I can catch more or bigger fish than someone else?

Naw, that's not for me. Fishing is supposed to be a contemplative pursuit, where being there is every bit as important as catching fish, and in some cases, more important. So, for me, it's every bit as much fun to fish when the mood strikes rather than when other people think we should be on the water.

In my dotage, I'm become a bit more like the fish. I eat when I need to, sleep when I must, and spend the rest of the day outside enjoying the best that nature has to offer. What I find is complete satisfaction in a great day well spent.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors