Storm brewin'...

[GF.]

With Bill last week and Danny out there this week, what's your prediction for the fishing over the weekend? Should I get after it because the tide will be in at dawn & dusk, or bag it because the weather will have them off their feed?

[Bushman]

Did you go out, or stay in and ride it out? I remember going trout stream fishing once when some of the blackest storm clouds that I'd ever seen were in the process of hatching a tornado. I was catching brook trout in places where I'd never caught anything but a creek chub any other time. When we salmon fished on Lake Michigan a lot, I was always surprised at all the little boats that were bobbing around out there in some big wave water. Weekends only came once a week and hell or high water, lots of those tiny (mostly MN. Lunds) boats were out there.

[GF.]

Stayed home, but shouldn't have. The more I look into it, the more the data suggest that bad weather makes for good fishing; winds push bait on-shore, clouds cut down the sunlight that pushes big fish deep, and falling barometers seem to put a mighty keen edge on the fishies' appetites. I remember seeing the trout turn on one March afternoon on the Roaring Fork just outside of Aspen - just hammered 'em for about 10 minutes before the snow hit but good, so if it works at sea level as well as it does 6 or 7 or more thousand feet up....

So from now on, I'm gonna throw on a slicker and take a bailing can with me. Unless I have time to get into a deer stand.....

[Bushman]

What is the value of a fish though? The people on the boat are the weakest things on the boat. We saw that all the time charter fishing. I remember one salmon that we hooked into just after we got out of the harbor when it was really blowing up bad. That fish at times was above us in the waves and we were in a 25 foot boat! You need to have a healthy respect for the weather too. I was trolling out in the lake one time and a storm was blowing up on the horizon with lightning. I went to grab one of the rods and there was a blue arc of static electricity that came off that carbon fiber rod! They make lightning rods out of carbon fiber. My buddy and I were trolling in a 14 foot boat up on Lake Superior when the wind changed. We each looked at each other and said "Did you feel that?" Without saying a word my buddy took out his fillet knife and cut all four lines! He had grown up in Duluth and knew what that lake could do. He was right, it was wild when we got back to the landing.

[GF.]

Ma Nature can be a little impatient with those who test her on stuff....

Did I ever tell ya about the time I paddled from Grand Portage to Isle Royale (and back!) in my kayak? :D

Fortunately - in a rowboat - I don't get out far enough to run into the really sick stuff, but I do have a couple of good spots to hit on an ebb tide, and any big waves that I might run into will generally help me homeward, as they'll either be what has reflected off of the leeward shoreline and will be headed right back to where I put in, or they were headed fr the barn in the first place. There's the better part of a mile fetch that I'd have to buck up-wind in a nor'easter, but this boat handles a lot like a canoe, and all I really have to do when it blows the wrong way is move to the forward set of oarlocks and put my legs into it.

Your story abut the little blue arc reminds me of the time I had just given up fishing the North Platte up near the CO/WY line (on account of the weather) and put the key into the lock of the old Land Yacht I used to drive . First time, I thought I had grabbed the flyrod right over the hook keeper and that the hook digging into my fingers was what was causing that weird sensation. Second time I recognized the tingle as being real similar to what you feel when you touch a hot fence. Big electrical storm rolling in, and there I stand holding a 9-foot flyrod one hand and sticking a key into the lock of 5,000 pounds of steel with the other. In wet waders :eek:

That's another one of those things a guy will only do twenty years ago....:rolleyes: