Editor's note: This is a guest post from my good friend Aaron Swanson about a recent trip to Lake George, NY.
There was time when you could do it Connecticut. In the 1970’s, the DEP (now DEEP) captured a 30-pound brown trout in their trap nets from Washining Lake, a large (for Connecticut) deep-water lake that produced the stuff of legends. When I was first introduced to ice fishing, it was a place of numbers with enough mystique to make one believe the chance still existed. By the time I learned enough to start catching holdover browns in the kind of numbers it takes to potentially contact a giant, the herring population that sustained the fishery where I could jig up 50 fish a day, and mostly holdover fish, was crashing. After a couple years of pounding our heads against the wall that the writing was on, we just stopped going.
There was time when you could do it Connecticut. In the 1970’s, the DEP (now DEEP) captured a 30-pound brown trout in their trap nets from Washining Lake, a large (for Connecticut) deep-water lake that produced the stuff of legends. When I was first introduced to ice fishing, it was a place of numbers with enough mystique to make one believe the chance still existed. By the time I learned enough to start catching holdover browns in the kind of numbers it takes to potentially contact a giant, the herring population that sustained the fishery where I could jig up 50 fish a day, and mostly holdover fish, was crashing. After a couple years of pounding our heads against the wall that the writing was on, we just stopped going.
This is not to say there aren’t other lakes in Connecticut
where you can’t have a decent day jigging up trout. But “decent” has become relative to current
conditions we’ve been living with. Warm,
dry summers (though last summer was pretty wet), lake drawdowns meant to kill
weeds that choke the docks and props of lakefront homeowners, and a host of
other factors have led to what amount to lowered expectations when targeting trout through the
ice with a tiny rod. There are large
fish to be had, sure; beautiful mutants grown and stocked by DEEP. And there
are lakes that still hold-over trout.
And there are the host of other species Yankee ice fisherman can
chase. Great. But unless there’s a huge conspiracy to keep
fantastic jigging action for trophy trout somewhere here in my home state
hidden from me…well, as they say, the fishing ain’t what it used to be.
Enter: The Road Trip. As it turns out, a person, or a person
and his fishing partners can jump in a car, cross the state line and experience
holdover trout fishing “like the old days”
(that’s a joke but not a joke) with numbers and possibilities of
unicorns—legit 20-pounders. They might
not be brown trout, but they are trout nonetheless, beautiful and more ancient.
Specially adapted to probe the depths in search of cold, oxygenated water and
food. We can go jig for lakers!
Until a couple of years ago, the ingredients for this type
of road trip hadn’t really started to mix and congeal in our minds. Like I said, we had numbers and possibility
right here in the Nutmeg State. As our
attention turned to targeting other, more prolific species through the ice like
northern pike and walleye, the thought of driving to find the kind of action
and conjecture we used to enjoy when staring at electronics and looking for marks
on a screen started to sound much more appealing. I missed it.
We missed it. Understand, pike
and walleye fishing are great and hold incredible potential to see a true monster
fish for the region. The thing is, it’s
mostly done by setting tip-ups and forgetting about them in between sips of
brown liquor, waiting for short flurries of chaos and excitement. The urge to use the kind of continued focus
it takes to drop a piece of metal tipped with some meat down 70, or 80 feet to
waiting trout finally started to grow
into a necessary reality.
Expectations are always high
heading into a trip, no matter how long in duration or how far your travel may
bring you. A fishing trip that takes you
away from home for a few nights or more does funny things to your brain. The possibilities are always endless and
YouTube only serves to inflate your expectations. Watching unknown anglers, in say Quebec or on
Lake Superior, haul up fish that would be records on the body of water you’re
headed tend to stretch those limits of possibility even further. Combine this anticipation with a fantastic
inaugural trip that exceeded expectations the prior year and you’re flirting
with THE. BEST. TRIP. EVER.
Luckily a contact, who none of us
had ever met in person, yet has continually bestowed up to the minute
information to us helped to temper our zenith-set sights to a more realistic
level. The bite was tough. Guys were landing say three for every five
hooked, or four for six, seven for seven.
You had to work. Ok; who doesn’t
love a good challenge, especially before you even show up and strap on your
waterproof bibs? This was certainly a contrast to last year’s excursion to the
same body when 50 fish days weren’t out of the question, but how tough could it
be? With the car packed the night
before, tailgate sagging toward the ground, we got a couple of shitty hours of
shut eye and were off to jig up some lakers; or at least go down trying.
We hit the bait shop by 7am, right on schedule. We loaded up on small minnows to represent
the smelts that make up one of the most prevalent bait sources our intended
quarry relies on as well as some larger baits, you know, for “the one”… or
something like that. The procurement of
a few jigs and other toys not so readily sold closer to home saw us out the
door and doing our best clown car impression unpacking the storage unit’s worth
of crap out of my tailgate at the southernmost point of the 32 mile long lake.
The mile-plus walk to the “numbers” we’d been given was
exhilarating. Sweaty, but
exhilarating. Funny thing about the “numbers”
was that we essentially followed a foot path that turned out to be the tracks
of our contact from the day before. Some
old fashioned sleuthing right there. Excitement
and anticipation culminated with disappointing first drops. The screens were
mostly blank save for the lines representing our jigs bouncing up and down in
80-plus feet of water. The reports we
true. Despite the best tricks our
sleeves could muster we had a whopping total of two fish on the ice and two
missed hits by noon. Thankfully, the guy
in the group who was making his first trip of the season was the lucky lander
of those two, respectable fish. While
everyone was there to catch trout, the big numbers seen during the previous
year’s foray didn’t seem likely to materialize anytime soon – at least where we
were.
The good news was that the sun was still shining and we had
the better part of a half day ahead. Our attempt
to pack ”light” motivated us to take off on foot and start covering frozen
water to try and look for fish that would be more willing to attack the white
piece of metal so highly regarded by the local lake trout whisperers.
Nothing, I mean, absolutely nothing. Having walked the better part of three and a
half miles without observing another interested mark the proverbial “plan B”
started look better than defining insanity by hoping something might finally try to attack one of our lures. Only problem was, the details of plan B
didn’t quite exist, other than the realization of “this isn’t working.” Then, lady luck intervened and brought
details of some potential next steps into sharp focus. Another angler within earshot seemed to be
doing a little better than us, but not by much.
As we continued to listen to him banter with buddies, he stopped short
to take a phone call. The voice on the
other end of the line, now on speaker phone, described a wholly different scene
than the one we were part of. The spot, named in detail, gave up 20-plus fish
to 26-inches to the lucky, unseen angler.
We made sideways glances at each other, eyes widened as if trying to
conceal our giddiness at this good fortune.
At the call’s conclusion the recipient stood up and announced to his
partners “Welp boys, change in plans.”
Change in plans indeed!
Instantly renewed with confidence and energy, we made the
long trek back to the car and re-arranged the copious amounts of gear that did
not catch us fish. We were off to the
spot, thankfully named without shame by our unknown benefactor. We called our contact during our eight or nine mile drive north to the promised
land and confirmed not only the spot we were headed to, but that contacts in
his lake trout circle were there and, indeed, bailing fish! Our hopes were
restored as we scouted potential access areas and found, oddly enough, anglers
departing the ice who were willing to talk honestly about the day’s action. For
three tight-lipped fish seekers and sometimes surfcasters from the Constitution
State, this was not normal protocol.
Back home, our smallish bodies of water and smaller productive areas
they hold are closely guarded and competed for in the freezing pre-dawn
hours. And here were guys telling us
exactly where to walk to, how many fish they caught and what they were caught
on. I suppose the mere size of a lake
like George, multiple access points to productive water, and the fact that, as far
as I can tell, the bottom is paved with fish, makes information flow a bit more
easily in the Adirondacks.
JonA became Jon the real person early the next morning in a pitch
black parking lot about a third of the way up the western shore of the
lake. Our presence combined with good
reports caused him to break his usual routine of avoiding weekends in favor of
less crowded weekdays. Our previous
day’s speculation as to how to access the deep water out in front of some
islands was for naught as he followed some of his regular contacts out to “the
spot”. The cool part about this spot,
and likely why anglers in the region are so forthcoming with news and
information, is that there is plenty of room for all along the tightly grouped
contour lines of the lakes depths. We set up shop and got ready to scratch the
old itch. Numbers on the jigger! And we were on our way, between the four of
us we managed to put a quick pick of fish on the ice, none huge, but marks that
would follow your jig off bottom and bend your rod during its ascent through
the water column. There were smiles all
around, a few high fives and maybe even a couple of pictures snapped. And then, the bite shut off.
It wasn’t for lack of effort. Between all of us we threw the old kitchen
sink at the fish we saw. But most of the
day went like this: a mark appears on your screen, moves toward your offering,
you move it in anticipation, he’s following, (yes! keep coming!). The mark stops, you drop down with it, drop
below it and raise it back up. The mark
follows again, but only half as far, maybe five feet off bottom this time. You drop back down and try again. The mark disappears. Repeat. At least those fish gave you
hope. The ones that would appear a foot
or two off bottom and never move, those are the one’s I’d like to yell at if it
were practical to stick my head through an eight inch hole in the ice. “Move you sonofabitch!”
Of small consolation was that Jon’s repeated phone calls to
other anglers, huddled in blue portable Clam ice shacks strewn across our field
of view weren’t doing a whole lot better.
Even the best guys who fish multiple days a week struggled to put up
double digit numbers. As the sky started to glow pink through the clouds
dropping snow on our stationary hut, the realization that reliving the “glory days”
on this trip was sliding further out of reach.
If we were to have any success, it would be during our abbreviated
window the following morning.
Still though, there were shots and beers to order at another
local bar; laughs to have with new friends and pretty bartenders to sneakily
stare at (I’m sure it wasn’t sneaky by the time we left). Once that was accomplished we could get back
to the business of meeting Jon, again at an ungodly hour, in nearly the same
parking spaces we had pulled into nearly 24 hours earlier. A front was coming. The second of what would turn out to be three
dreaded “polar vortex’s (should that be vortices? Thanks a lot cable news) was
due to move into the region and we pontificated on the mile walk back out to
the spot as to what that might mean for the fishing. For all our faults it seems to me the one
shining commonality among anglers is the ability to hope things will get
better. To believe that “tomorrow is the
day we’ll get ‘em good!”
Well, that morning was the morning we “got ‘em good”. The old days.
Fish shooting up off bottom to grab your jig and struggle during their
entire journey, up 80 feet until their beautiful bony faces popped into your
hole. One after another, hoots and
hollers rang out from the randomly spaced group, barely a minute passing
without a hook up or groan of a missed fish.
There is something about having success on a rod barely three feet long,
especially when your quarry all tape out in the range of two thirds of its
length. Were these fish huge by lake
trout standards? Absolutely not. Was it
a blast to hook up one after another and gather round the hole, taking pictures
and shooting video to preserve the fun of the moment? You bet your Swedish Pimple it was. When the bite slowed a bit we switched to jig
heads adorned with stinky soft plastic baits and used a different technique to
continue to fool fish into eating our little puppets, danced specially for them
13 fathoms below our feet. Did I mention
we caught all of our fish jigging?
The ride home was one of satisfaction. We hadn’t killed it all
three days, or pulled up a giant, or some ridiculous number. But the possibility was there, and we got
‘em. I managed my largest laker to date,
we finally fished with our New York contact and learned a few new tricks for
finicky trout. But the simple pleasure of fulfilling of a goal, one we don’t
get a chance to try and achieve all that often anymore, was enough. We got ‘em just jigging.
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