Jul 22 2010 5:57 pm
the toad life
The ferry sucked cars off the dock in Charlevoix for thirty minutes before I climbed on and plowed over 31 miles of upper Lake Michigan. Kevin was waiting on the dock. A few hundred feet away was a bar. They had Short’s Huma-Lupa-Licious on draft so I had one of those which might have been a mistake because I hadn’t eaten anything all day and that beer is on the strong side so I picked up a good buzz straight away. Steve wasn’t back from his trip yet so we went to another pub and had a few more beers, some wings and a big bowl of fish chowder that was white but seemed yellow I think because it was so buttery. Finally caught up with Steve and went back to that second pub and had more beers and I had the local perch fry which was pretty great.
In a fit of fascination Kevin insisted we go to the three day music festival. We stopped and got some beer and a bottle of Popov, loaded up the cooler and hit the road. Turns out there are actually a lot of roads on Beaver Island though most are dirt. Many residents have island cars: no license plate, rough around the edges, old. It’s hard to get kicked off the island but it can happen. We shot south through fields not wearing seatbelts sipping vodka tonics, jumped off the asphalt and onto the dirt, diving into the woods where all the leaves on the side of road were coated in a thin film of gray dust.
We turned onto a two track in a tunnel of trees and cars were pulled off into the woods and there were hippies everywhere, dusty tent cities, a row of booths with fortune tellers and jewelry vendors and a wooden stage in a big hole in the woods on a small island in a big lake and a bonfire and a few hundred people milling around with drinks in their hands.
We ran out of the harbor and between different islands idling from four hundred yards out then cutting the engine in two foot of water where the rock and sand flats stretched far away dropping off abruptly into the deep blue and green water in the distance. Both the giant smallmouth and the carp are spooky as hell on these flats but the smallmouth spook only for a second, usually coming back to check out whatever it was that made all that noise. The carp, on the other hand, spook out on a bad cast and won’t take a fly again for weeks probably. The smallmouth fishing up there is ridiculous. Absolutely stupid. The fish are all big and they are everywhere in shallow water.
The waves build toward the end of the day and the run back to the harbor can be a shade rough but apparently 2-3 foot seas ain’t shit up there. The points of my ribcage hurt from sleeping on the floor. The whole trip was pretty surreal.
Check out this video on Third Coast Fly. Have no fear, I’ll have the adults-only version up here sooner than later.
Jul 18 2010 8:34 pm
Is your electronic choke sticking?
It's beautiful here. Cold and blue like January Jones. Lording over Lake Michigan, up on a throne, once the most productive freshwater fishing grounds in the world. He had a goose tatooed on his shoulder. The fat of the land on nature's machine. Slowing economic growth for a while now. Beaver Island is probably where the next Michigan state record smallmouth lives. And probably the next fly rod record carp. I hope to get close to one tomorrow. And the next day. And maybe the day after that.
Jun 19 2010 11:52 am
I'm your ice cream man
The wind blows off the lake every day. It’s cool here, ten degrees cooler than ten miles inland and a lot more pleasant than southern Indiana. Of course come January I may be singing a different tune, probably Van Halen’s Ice Cream Man, but it could be something else, I don’t really know. See, all my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy.
No more run-ins with the neighbors and my mailwoman is hot. The fishing has been off the chain yo. Yes, off the chain. Epic. The real deal. Rather good.
I’ve pulled the boat up more dirt roads and over those same railroad tracks more times this past week than I care to remember. Driving rt.10 at night is disorienting. It’s so long and straight. High beams three miles away look like aliens. The battleship looms in my rearview and those stupid national forest parking tags get sucked off the dash and out the passenger side window with some not uncommon frequency.
I owe a lot to Steve Martinez for helping me learn the river and get settled in Ludington. Maybe one of the most competent guys I’ve ever met, hell of a fisherman and more than willing to go out of his way to help me. Thanks Steve.
And have you seen the new Drake? I actually have a piece in there about Indiana creek smallmouth with a reference to thick women, always a positive.
Jun 1 2010 9:06 pm
don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard
If there's one thing I like blogging about, it's blogging. That or tweeting. But when Dr. Cameron Mortenson of Fiberglass Manifesto fame shoots you some pictures of him wearing a Fishbeer.com t-shirt, then you gotta blog about blogging. Thanks for the photos dude. All the propers in the world. No lie. No take backs. Jinx. Personal.
He was apparently "testing" the new Liquid Logic Versaboard while wearing said shirt. You ever notice how much stuff he "tests"? Like Scott's Fiberhammer switch rod? Did you see how he is now a William Joseph Ambassador? Man, I wish I got to test stuff. I wish I was on a pro-staff. Maybe if I went to a better guide school I'd be on a pro-staff. I like beer. I wonder if I can get lead poisoning from my anchor? I like beef jerky. If I guided in the salt I'd probably be on a pro-staff.
If I fished with Ben and Sterling more I bet I'd be on a pro-staff.
