BEATING THE STORM

I should have known the "Perfect Storm" would be a-brewin’ this weekend. Doug Wheelock and he Iowegian Team of fishermen were scheduled to make the drive from Sioux City, Iowa for 3 days of Lake Michigan fishing. Not that we have never had nice weather when the Iowa-guys have come for the last couple of decades. We’ve experienced the rare day of calm seas and warm sun. Usually, however, they bring wind. Often lots of wind and then think back to the rainy days, the snowy days, the hail storms and other weather anomalies. So it’s no wonder I’m writing this instead of just leaving the harbor for another day of adventure on the Brother Nature.

The wind is howling at 30-knots–due east. When we quit, yesterday it was 21knots northeast and we climbed over a few 8 foot waves heading back to Hammond Marina.

Calumet Harbor, built prior to WWII, offers several miles of protected breakwall for a northeast wind. So that’s where we went on day one of the Iowegian visit. It took about 15 minutes to bounce the two miles from Hammond to the detached breakwall and about 5 minutes to hook up with the first coho.

I’d like to report the action stayed that fast but it didn’t. It never died completely and actually, as the day progressed the bite got better. Perhaps as the waves outside the breakwall intensified, it pushed more fish to the inside. Our last 5 fish came in about 15 minutes.

When Wheelock and I fished in Ludington last summer, our best lure was a "Wonder Bread" J-Plug and so with rumors of kings being caught, recently, we put one of them out, mid-morning. Lucky for Roger Gruber, Wheelock was playing a coho when the downrigged J got bit. Doug knew it was the "big-fish" rod and has been known to jump the rotation at the sound of a reel’s drag being tested.

Gruber wrested the rod free and ended up with a trophy brown trout to score top honors for the day. Of course, with 19 cohos to go with it, no one went home with empty hearts.

So we are sidelined today and with the winds predicted to veer to southerly quadrants tomorrow, dawn will find us, slickered against the rain, ready to do battle.