Here fishy fishy...

“Sure is a lot of testosterone around here!” Sweetpea was making an observation as we sat on the boat in the slip last Friday afternoon. It was the Friday before the big Big Jon Pro/Am Salmon Fishing Tournament held every May in South Haven, Michigan. There were four boats in our marina entered in the tournament and all four boats were in a row in the slips. Crews drinking beer, preparing to fish the next morning, sharing fish stories, looking at weather reports. Burping, farting, joking around, the anticipation building.

Sweetpea was the only women crew member on these four boats. I had made the decision last year to change the crew around, down size a little. She said she would fish, and I would prefer nobody else at the helm while I’m leaning across the stern setting a line in high seas. Little did I know how true that was going to be. This is mostly Alpha Male territory, though you will find a growing number of women. Many wives and daughters fish also. The Pro division featured an all women crew this year. My crew consisted of Sweetpea, our son Thomas, and Jim, a friend of mine who crews charter boats during the summer who is also in my blues band "Microe and the Waves" (another blog subject).

The Big Jon Pro/Am has gotten quite large. Organized and held by the South Haven Chapter of the Michigan Steelhead & Salmon Fisherman Association 20 years ago, Big Jon Sports became the major sponsor a few years ago and this year there were 136 boats entered, 42 Pro, 94 Amateur. I have an old college buddy, Steve, that comes down from Rockford, Michigan and fishes it with his son and a crew in their boat “Lake Effect”. This year a 56’ boat came over from Wisconsin to fish the Pro Division.

We were entered in the amateur division for the third year in a row. I’ve always thought I was a decent fisherman, but this tournament quickly humbles me every year. It is affectionately known as the “Two Day” locally, because it is the only South Haven Tournament to fish both Saturday and Sunday. This is the real deal. Entry fee for the Amateur Division is $175 per boat. First paid $3000 dollars. Thousands of pounds of fish are caught.

We had intended on pre-fishing Thursday and Friday, but the weather didn’t cooperate. We could have on Friday but it was only Sweetpea and myself and it was rough. So we spent time getting all of our gear together. Late in the afternoon we went and checked in with Tournament Control and got our boat number, 62, and all of our paperwork. Back over to the Captain’s meeting in the evening, featuring lots of raffles and fish stories. Got to bed on the boat at a reasonable hour, didn’t have too much trouble getting to sleep.

The alarm went off at 5 am. I had been awake for about 10 minutes. I shut off the alarm, flipped on the radio and a light. Sweetpea and Thomas awoke pretty quickly. Got dressed and into the marina clubhouse for some coffee. The other boat crews were already buzzing around. Weather report for the Saturday morning was good. Jim showed up at 6:00 sharp. I fired up the big 260 hp V8 on the Lizzy Mae and about 6:15 am, backed out of the slip and headed down river toward the lake.

Now the start of the tournament is a sight to see. 130 or so boats, all ringed about 500 yards off the South Haven Pier head. At 6:45 am Tournament control comes over the marine radio and says you can now start fishing and everyone hits the throttle. It can be quite the ride as these big boats come up on plane and head toward deeper water. The boat wake criss-crosses combined with whatever waves there are. You have to pay attention to where all the boats are around you and that you don’t get caught at a funny angle in a trough that throws the boat on it’s side. The first time I fished the Two Day that happened and I dumped the microwave in the cabin on the floor. This morning we are blessed with only 1 – 2 foot waves. I head the Lizzy Mae at about 130 degrees, Southwest. She jumps right up on plane and is running great, at about 24 miles an hour. This is one of the few times a year I will run wide-open, uses lots of gas!

We are cruising for about 10 minutes, keeping right up with the big-boys and the engine starts acting up. Now what? It coughs and hesitates and acts like a couple of cylinders are missing. I back off the throttle and it comes around a little. I push the throttle back on and it does it again. We fight with it for about 5 minutes and mysteriously enough it goes away. As we continue to head for our fishing spot, I wonder what is going on?

I put a lot of work into the engine this year. She has always started hard when cold and I wanted to make sure my gas mileage was as good as it could be. So this year I did a complete tune up, spending quite a few dollars and hours upside down in the engine compartment getting intimate with the big MercCruiser. Spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor, spark plug wires, gas filter. Last time out she ran really good. So I am perplexed.

We hit water 90 feet deep about 5 miles off shore. I pull back on the throttle and give the wheel to Sweetpea and we start setting lines. Time to fish! I quickly set the starboard downrigger and about 60 feet down. Jim starts setting a lead core on the port side. I get the starboard lead core ready, hand it to Thomas and he starts paying out line. We are all excited and there is a chaos in the back of the boat as I rig poles and lines start to get set. I help Jim get the planer board on the port lead core and then I set the port downrigger. About this time Thomas starts grumbling, I can tell something is not right. He has got a nice birds nest tangle going in the big fishing reel. Paying out line too fast. I try to get it out, but it is a mess. About this time the port planer board starts going backwards.

Fish On! I hand the tangled pole to Jim and tell Thomas to get the net. It’s not a big fish, about 3-4 pounds. Thomas nets it and we get it in the box. I reset the downrigger. Jim has been trying to get the tangle out of the reel but is making slow progress. He gets it so we can reel the bait back in and we set it aside. A downrigger goes off! A knock off, fish hit it and missed. Reset the downrigger. Start putting out Dipsy Diver baits on each side. Starboard downrigger goes off. Fish On!

This is a bigger fish, 5 pounder. Jim nets it and we have two in the box by 8 am. We have a couple of more knock offs. I finally get the tangle out of the reel and after almost an hour and half of fishing all 8 poles are fishing. It is quite and array. 8:30 we get another 3 pounder on a lead core. By 9 am the fishing has slowed. We work our way south holding in 90 – 110 feet of water. Change baits on half of the poles.

I talk to Lake Effect on the cell phone. They are about 8 miles out in 160 feet of water and have 8 fish. Jim talks to a boat, the Merry-More that is fishing inside but not in the tournament, they have 6 salmon and are throwing fish back because there are only 2 people on board. At 10:00 we have a decision to make, go deep or head into 70 feet where the Merry-More is. The Merry-More is closer so we head in. A bad choice. We don’t get any more hits for the next 2 ½ hours. Change bait a bunch of times. Nothing is working. The fish have simply moved out. I forgot to take in account that fishing in the shallow water only works early in the day. On a bright sunny day like this is, the fish head deep around 9 – 9:30.

We pick up one more fish about 12:30 and head for the pier head at about 1:00. On the way back in, the engine acts up again. Sputtering, coughing at times, at times running fine. I’m a frustrated, a poor first day of fishing and a boat that isn’t running 100%.

The second most impressive sight in the Two Day is the boats returning to the harbor. All boats have to be inside the pier head by 1:30 pm. As a hundred or so boats race for a narrow channel and then wait in line to get to the weigh-in station it is a quite chaotic. To make matters worse this year, a Van Buren County Sheriff’s deputy decided that he was in charge and all these fishing boats were clogging the harbor. And damn it, he was going to do something about it. And he did, by making matters worse, causing a couple of near collisions and clogging the weigh-in dock while he bitched at tournament control. How dare these fishermen bring all their boats into the harbor and clog it up for an hour or so, while giving the local economy a huge shot in the arm with all the money spend in mid-May. Oh well, every town has to have a Barney Fife or two.

I let Sweetpea and Thomas off at the weigh dock with our fish and Jim and I headed for the slip. Not a good day fishing. I get back to the weigh-in with the Jeep. The way this tournament is scored is that you get 10 points per each fish you catch, and 1 point per pound total weight. You can only weigh 12 fish, of which only 9 can be salmon (Chinook, aka. King and Coho) and the rest have to be trout (Steelhead, Lake Trout or Brown Trout). 55.50 points is all we had. The last two years the winning scores have been over 400 total, 200 points per day. We won’t be winning squat this year. Lake Effect in the mean time is in the hunt with 12 fish and 189 points.

On the way back to the slip, we stop at 1st Choice Marine. They always have a big boat show on Tournament weekend, featuring beer, brats, and boats. We check out this really nice 27 foot SeaRay Amberjack, twin V6 engines and 10 foot beam (two feet wider than the Lizzy Mae). Would really be nice, but can’t afford it right now. Talk to my buddy Forrest who is a mechanic there. He says to change the water separator filter on the fuel line on the Lizzy Mae, sound like I'm getting wate in the fuel. Hell I didn’t even know it had one. Back at the slip, I’m upside down in the engine compartment again. Find the filter, get my arm stuck for a couple of minutes between the engine and the deck. Finally work it loose. That would have been cute had I needed help!

Go and get a new filter and a wrench. Then off to the fish cleaning house. The local Steelheaders chapter keeps all the fish from the first day, cleans them and freezes them for their fish boil each summer. I usually volunteer to help clean fish. 2 hours later I wash the blood and scales off my hands and arms. Back to the slip and change the filter, straighten the boat up and change my clothes. Sweetpea, Thomas and I get a steak dinner at the Moose Lodge for dinner.

Back at the slip, the boys in the boat next to us, Spoon Fed are playing Rodney Carrington CD’s and drinking beer. I’m tired and really start to feel it. I pour a Bacardi Select on the rocks and light up a $6 cigar. Shoot the breeze with the Spoon Fed crew. They have 180 points and are in the hunt too. Only one problem, the wind is out of the west and has been building all afternoon. Weather report is predicting a small craft advisory for Sunday and 3 - 6 foot waves in the morning. Everyone is wondering if we will be able to fish.

The Entertainer starts playing on my Blackberry at 5 am. I grab it out of the holster and it stops. I drift back to sleep, 3 minutes later it starts playing again. Where is that thing now? Oh yeah it is sitting on my chest. I turn off the alarm, turn on a light and struggle out of bed into the club house to the bathroom. Sweetpea is up when I get back to the boat, Thomas is a little slow this morning.

As we get things around I’m struggling to see the flag on the crane over at JB Marine. The river looks calm and I can’t feel any wind. Our slip is behind a dune and if the wind is out of the Northwest we can’t always feel it. This morning though I think I can hear the lake. At 5:45 Tournament Control announces on the marine radio that we are fishing. NOAA weather report says small craft advisories Waves building to 3 - 6 feet. At 5:55 I can finally make out the flag on the crane. It is blowing hard out of the Northwest.

Lake Effect gives me a call on the phone. Captain Steve asks me if I would call him on the cell if they end early. Seems his marine radio reception isn’t very good and he is having a hard time hearing announcements.

Jim arrives on time and once again at 6:15 we back out of the slip. It is cold this morning. I’ve got on a short sleeve T shirt, a long sleeve T shirt, a sweatshirt and my light hunting coat. As we get out into down by the bridge you can really start to feel the wind. There is 3 feet of chop in the channel and spray is blowing over the north pier some. This is going to be a tough day.

The lake is rockin’ and rollin’ already. As we head out the channel, Tournament Control reminds us about the procedure for ending the tournament early. We decide to head into the wind, Northwest to troll back with the wind. They let us go and everyone starts to throttle up. But the lake is blowing hard, 3 – 5 footers. I’m getting about 9 – 10 mph max. But so is everyone else. It’ is a rough ride and the cross wake doesn’t help. I take a couple of waves over the nose, spray over the top of the canvas.

I listen closely to the engine. No misses, no problems. I’m really thankful as I listen to a boat that has lost power ½ a mile north of the harbor. Tournament Control tells them to get an anchor out on the bow to keep it pointed into the wind. I surely don’t want to go up on the bow to get an anchor out today! If I had heard one cough or sputter I would have swung it around and headed in. Another boat decides it’s too rough and heads over to tow the boat that’s broken down. Other boats call it quits before the set any lines.

The wind is howling as we fit 65 feet of water about 3 miles north of the pier. I swing the Lizzy Mae around towards the south, throttle back and give Sweetpea the helm. Jim starts putting out the Port Lead Core, I start on the Starboard downriggers. We are going to run only 6 rods today. Two downriggers to starboard and one to port, two lead cores and one dipsy diver. I set the stern starboard downrigger, and as I lean out over the swim platform, watching a 5 foot wall of water come at me, I’m glad Sweatpea is driving. I quickly get both down riggers in the water as Jim with Thomas’ help gets the port lead core out.

Immediately the outside downrigger goes off. Fish On! It’s a shaker, about a pound or so of fish, but worth ten points! Fish in the box before 7:15! No skunk today.. I reset the downrigger and Jim starts on the port lead core. Things are going much smoother this morning. First of all we are taking our time, second I had all the Poles rigged before we left the dock. We get all six rods set and the middle downrigger goes off. Better fish, about a 3 pounder. Get it netted and in the box. Two in the box before 7:30!

Sweetpea is struggling to get us deeper. Wind is pushing us hard. By 8:00 we are almost sttaight out from the pier head. 6 foot waves are becoming common. We have the engine running as slow as it will go but the wind is pushing us at about 3 miles an hour! As the sun rises I would like to be about a mile and half further out. About that 90 foot range. Fishing slows up. We watch boats headed in. Many on the radio are going in with no fish.

We talk about pulling lines and running back to the northwest and going deeper. Jim is kind of un-easy about this proposition. I’m of the mind that I don’t want to continue South too much longer as it will be a long ride into the wind home. At 8:30 we pick up another shaker on a lead core. As 9:00 looms the wind has gotten worse. Waves are now 4-7’s and we are about a two miles out, four miles south of the pier head. I decide enough is enough. We aren’t going to win anything and we have proved we can catch fish in this weather, time to head in. We pull lines, and get everything put away and secure. She is going to be bumpy going in.

As I swing the Lizzy Mae around towards the pier head, I notice we are starting to see lots of 7 foot three sisters. That is 3 - 7 foot waves in a row. A sure sign of a true long term blow on the big lake. As I throttle up Tournament Control comes over the radio. Fishing is being called for the day. Everyone has to be in within one hour. As I’m running I remember and call Lake Effect, I get voicemail and leave them a message.

I dive the nose once or twice slightly. Nothing to worry about. Wind is off our port bow. Big waves are spraying over the windshield and canvas. About 1.5 miles out I can sea the waves breaking over the North Pier pretty hard now.

I takes us about a 35 minutes to get back in. I actually run about 10 miles an hour, The boat handled pretty good in spite of the weather. No engine problems either.

We are early. I let Sweetpea and Thomas off with the fish at the weigh in. I thought about not weighing, but damn it, we braved the weather, we caught fish and I wanted our second day score posted. We ended with only 90 total points for two days. But we did post both days!

I run back from the slip to the weigh in with the jeep. All the boats are in at this time and about half are weighing fish. Nobody has limited out. We walk up to town and get some breakfast. I haven’t eaten all morning. I’m tired, really tired, Fighting those waves trying to stand and fish was exhausting. Eventually we head back down to the awards ceremony. I find my buddy Steve captain of Lake Effect. He says thanks for the call, they didn’t hear tournament control. I ask how did he do. He said good they got 9 fish.

I walk over to the score board, A lot of 0’s on day two. I follow through the amateurs. And the winner is, with 314 points, Lake Effect! Well I’ll be damned….. So I go and find Steve and his crew and give him a bunch of crap about a radio that don’t work and they should be fishing Pro, and that I should be getting a cut of the winnings for calling them. They take it well. $3000 prize money and about $500 of other prizes. Nice for a couple of days of fishing. Hour Time, the 56 footer from Wisconsin wins the Pro Division.

Back to the slip and clean everything up. It was fun and I learned a lot as usual. Maybe next year. Can’t wait to get out fishing again, though that is the last time I’ll be fishing in 4 -7’s this year. Crew was a good crew this year. Jim was fun to fish with, I think Thomas enjoyed it, and as I said there is no one I trust more at the helm when I’m setting downriggers, leaning off the back of the boat staring 6 foot wall of water in the face. Little did I know!

L8r microe.

Get along Kid Charlemagne

Odd that I should be sitting here writing. I had other plans. I was to take the Scout Troop to Fort Custer State Park for a weekend of camping and mountain biking. But it has rained, oh my has it rained. There is a low pressure center that has been sitting center about 60 miles north for two days with no signs of moving. And mountain biking in the mud and sleeping in the rain just didn’t seem like a fun outing. So we postponed. Not that we don’t do things in nasty weather, after all we camped in an ice storm in January and had a blast. But we planned activities that required something less than monsoons.

So here I sit, home at the computer. Decided to clean my office tonight, or at least start. Based on the pile of bills I filed, it has been 6 months. I got online and bought a CD on the iTunes store, Steely Dan, Royal Scam. I’ve always like that album and never owned it. It just seemed like a Steely Dan night. Maybe I’ll download Countdown to Ecstasy before I head to bed.

As I said at the start it feels odd sitting here. It wasn’t supposed to be, but I find myself with a free, unplanned weekend. Life has gotten so busy, so complex lately that I don’t get much un-spoken for free time.

So what to do? First there is the dinner thing. Sweetpea didn’t expect us to be home, so what to have? Chinese Take-Out! Sesame Chicken, Szechwan Pork, Fried Noodles. We just went and ordered at Chan’s Palace in Paw Paw and waited for it. While we were sitting there we ran into an old acquaintance from Scouts and we got to visit. PureasSnow stuck her head in with a date, waved and decided it was too busy. The food was fattening but good.

Now what to do? Sweetpea and the T-Man headed for the Big Screen and the Sci-fi channel, SG1 and Dr. Who. How about something I didn’t think I was going to get to for a long time, clean the office.. Oh yeah, two kegs of home brew in the bar fridge that I haven’t hardly touched in a couple of weeks. An Irish Stout and a Scottish Skull Splitter Ale. I pour a stout. It is pretty wild, but that is good, I was having trouble getting it to carbonate right. It will settle out after a few drafts.

Fired up the iTunes Player on the computer, Royal Scam played and then into the Stevie Ray Vaughan collection, (no shuffle, alphabetical). Check the Tigers score on MLB.com. and start sorting paper.

Man there is a lot of crap in this office that should have got pitched 2 seconds after it hit the mailbox. The cat comes in and sits in the new (used) guest chair Sweetpea picked up at work. The part Siamese has claimed it, she likes the upholstery. Bills, Credit Card offers, general nonsense. Throw out the unimportant crap. Separate insurance stuff, life insurance, car insurance, boat insurance, medical insurance. Make sure that there is nothing pressing over looked. No, good, file it all.

Tigers win, 5 – 4 over Cleveland.

I haven’t been drinking a lot lately and two stouts later I’m feeling it.

Separate all the current bills and stuff out. Anything after April 1 gets put in the standard take care of on time folder. Throw the rest in a big envelop and mark it “Statements from Nov 2005 – March 2006” in case of questions or disputes and I gotta find things. No use sorting it now, history has proved that after about 18 – 24 months you can pitch the whole wad.

Just finished downloading Countdown to Ecstasy.

Pour a Scottish Ale. A Skull Splitter, copy 9 ½ percent alcohol.

Funny thing. I start thinking about how different I manage my household finances and my budget at work. It really is two different philosophies. At work I am responsible for over $750,000 budget, 7 salaries and all of the corporate software licenses. I keep pretty close tabs on where I am and planning when I am going to spend what when. In my personal life I take this kind of screw it attitude. I’ll take care of it when the need arises. I just love auto payments and pay online, cause I just don’t want to deal with it all on a personal level. Good thing I make a decent living, or else I would have to change my ways and tighten the ole belt more.

Diggin through the shelves on the desk now. There it is! That order for blood work for my next check up that I have been looking for the past two weeks. And look a whole envelope full of 8x10 photos from the last couple of years. Amazing what you find when you clean up. Put my guitars in the closet where they belong, straighten out the furniture.

Time to fire up the blogger. Oh there is more to do, a lot more. I want to re-arrange the desk, vacuum, and straighten up the rest of the desk shelves. But I got a good start and I can see the top of the desk. What deep subject to blog upon? Screw it, how about just a little “what’s up doc?” blog. I’ll save the philosophy for the Boat Blogs.

Speaking of Boat Blogs, Tournament week is upon us. Next Saturday and Sunday are the days for the South Haven, Big Jon Pro/Am Salmon Tournament. The Lizzy Mae is entered for the third year in a row. I am taking Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday off to prepare. So I’ll be spending nights on the boat, and thus Boat Blogging. Stay tuned.

microe

Sproing!

Spring has sprung and summer is just around the corner. The tell tale signs are all there. The weather has been shaping up and the boat is in the slip. Leaves are on the trees, we are mowing lawns and the cats want out constantly.

And I just realized we are entering that super busy time of year. My weekends are filling up fast. Scout campouts, fishing tournaments, graduation parties to attend, weddings. The trick here is not to get too stressed out about it.

I've been thinking about this and how there are two busy times of the year. Summer and the Thanksgiving to New Years holiday season. They are seperated by two relatively laid back periods, fall and late winter/early spring.

The busy times can be anxious times for me. I tend to get stressed when my calendar gets full and I feel like I'm lossing control of my time. But as I get older, I am learning to go more with the flow. This last holiday season was one of my best in years, (see my blog archive on my old site at this URL http://mysite.verizon.net/mikenlizroe1/microe/2005.12.01_arch.html Scroll to the December 11 blog). So now it's time to feel good about the upcoming summer.

Summer is usually easier on my stress level, as many activities are relaxing for me, such as fishing, sitting on the boat, outdoor parties, etc. The stress creeps in when I feel like something is getting in the way of these activities, like a Scout Campout, or a graduation party or wedding out of town. So I have re-evaluated these.

First Scout Campouts, these have been quite trying over the last couple of summers, a lot of stress. But I think that is changing. The last couple of campouts we have had I've had a lot of fun. I'm sure that a lot has to do with the fact I am now the Scoutmaster. Some of it has to do with I have more control. But it also has to do with the fact that my predecessor had this way of creating tension with poor planning, last minute changes and a gruff personality. We have made it a goal to make the campouts more fun and I think that we are achieving this. So scout campouts are becoming a outlet to reduce stress instead of increase it.

As far as those graduation parties or weddings or etc., I trying an new attitude. First we make a decision to go. Then I look for ways to make it as fun as possible. Go with the flow.

Lastly, I need to find a way to get back to stress relief through blogging. During these busy times, it is hard to find time to blog. But I have a plan here to. Boat Blogs. I like to stay on the boat a couple of nights a week in the summer and quite often I am all alone with just the stereo and my laptop. What a great time to contemplate life's little nuiances and put my thoughts in print.

So stay tuned for boat blogs, coming very soon. microe,,,, casting off until next time.