A wild goose chase for bluegills
I sat in a lawn chair under the camper awning watching a tweenage youngster driving some type of electric contraption up and down the campground road on our side of the loop. It looked like a version of one of the peddle powered contraptions that someone my age might have peddled in the early 70’s.
This new version had a device that went beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...as it approached, went by, and left. I got the idea of why he rode it on our side of the loop instead of the side his family camped on. Take me back 50 years and the thing would be fun. Hell, it looked like fun now to tell the truth, also looked like a trauma activation waiting to happen.
I sat there listening to the contraption beep, beep, beeping away because a line of storms were about 45 minutes out and closing fast. Fifty to 70 mile per hour winds the updates were saying. I decided against fishing, not due to the wind or worried about pretending to film a spinoff of Deadliest Catch, but more because who wants to land a boat in winds like that. I did it once over 30 years ago and that forever cured me of desiring to do it again.
Back up a few hours before the wonderful rhythm of the electric powered contraption, we pulled into the campground realizing our site sat next to the campground host. I just said “unbelievable” because it covered it both ways. Turned out to be a nice guy and quite helpful with the flow of things. The opposite of the Karen that held the same post at the last place we camped. The wind hit first and then came the rain. The rain ended 90 minutes later just after sunset. We lit a campfire and when our group broke up, I knew none of the others stood a chance of rising early enough to go fishing in the morning, so I slept in a bit too. Everyone told me that on this lake the bluegills would be found in the wood, in about 10 feet of water this time of year. The people I talked to in the campground said the same. The campground host told me the best spot involved about 3 miles of motoring. And a couple decent spots were even closer.
Why wouldn’t the bluegills live right around here, I thought. I found nice water from seven to 19 feet deep with drop offs and submerged weed beds. It looked like bluegill haunts to me. I just wanted enough for a fish fry or two. The east winds continued to blow. And the blue gills, they were probably in the wood three miles away.
We moved around following features and weed lines, marking fish but no action. Within an hour of sunset, I watched the guys from the campground who all told me where to find the bluegills head the opposite direction of the bluegills. Ironically, they were fishing about a quarter mile from me. They were all fishing for walleye.
About that time, I positioned over a large school of panfish in about eight feet of water with a weedy bottom. Between the two of us we tried several presentations. On my third or fourth I felt a bit of subtle weight on the line but no hook set.
I rebaited and did a little vertical jigging. Missed another. Rebaited a bit differently and wetted the line. This time I felt the subtle release of weight and set the hook. No way this was a panfish. It just didn’t feel like it.
The fish fought valiantly, forcing me to spend a lot of time controlling its direction to keep the line out of the trolling motor instead of reeling it off the bottom. When it swam away from the motor, I reeled line like a demon.
I could see it about two feet below the surface still circling. I pulled up and dipped the net into the water the same time bringing a perfect walleye sandwich into the boat. I repeated that and then the action stopped after the fish moved.
Back at camp just after dark, the other boats came back in without walleye. “Just a bad luck night,” one said.
“Yeah, I didn’t find any gills either,” I said. If it wasn’t for bad luck panfishing this year...
Through a
Decoy’s
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