Howie, Granny and myself went to Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior today. The forecast was iffy. We knew we were pushing it. But all that being said, it looked like we could squeak a few good hours of fishing in before the rain and wind hit the fan. I questioned things however on our sunrise drive from Hayward to the world’s largest lake. The edge of the front was in sight, lit by the morning sun. Pretty, but closer than we expected.
It’s a little over an hour from our house to the Washburn boat launch and by the time we met up with Howie and dropped in his boat, things were looking better. It was as if the stormfront vanished into thin air. But that’s how these storms have taken a lot of boaters. Storms are sneaky. We headed out to Madeline Island to look for brown trout and splake but at the same time watching our backs.
We got in about 30 minutes of casting. We were hucking streamers. I was using my fast-sinking SA Sonar Titan. Howie’s line sank fast too. Granny kicked back. She always waits until the fish are truly biting. That might be smart. Then the wind started and we watched a wall of rain scream across from Bayfield towards us.
We reeled in fast and put on the gear. Probably just in time in fact. I’m glad we hadn’t seen a fish. There was no temptation to fight it out. Then we made a beeline for the Bayfield docks. It was raining cats and dogs by now as we made the two-mile crossing. Once we made it, luckily the peninsula offered us some shelter from the wind. When we looked back the waves were huge. We could see had we waited a few more minutes we could have been screwed.
But we didn’t wait and we weren’t screwed. We were safe – close to shore and civilization by now. Had thunder and lightning started we would have kept on going but it didn’t and now that we were mostly sheltered from the wind, and with good raingear at hand, we started fishing again.
We worked the shoreline the rest of the morning and until about 3 pm this afternoon almost all the way back to the Washburn dock. And there were some fish. They were hard to catch, but there were fish.
Howie, Granny and I all hooked up with at least a couple coho salmon. Keeping them on was problem however and though between us we may have hooked ten, we only landed two. But both were beautiful and we whacked them. Fresh coho is hard to beat.
Our salmon was big enough to feed Granny and I for two meals. Tonight Granny baked one fillet with vegies and we each got half. Friday the other side will hit the smoker. A delicious end to a safe day on Superior.
One song about Superior and ships in storm is enough. Good call, Jeff.
Yum!