Is It Spring Yet?

I love the changing seasons in Wisconsin. I don’t think I could live in a climate that did not have distinct, even dramatic variations from season to season. I think most people born and raised in the Upper Midwest feel the same. The seasonal transformations in temperature, precipitation, vegetation, even color mark the passage of time. They become markers in our life. Sure, a person may prefer one season over another. Who doesn’t enjoy a balmy summer day? I do enjoy a midwinter break in a southern destination. But I don’t consider the variation from “warm” to “hot” to “really hot” to “Stay in the house with the AC!” legitimate seasonal change. Nope, I could not live there all year round.

Like many others, I look forward most to the arrival of Spring. No matter how you might enjoy ice fishing, skiing or running your snow machine, the Winter still gets tedious. We yearn for the open water and all the angling opportunities that Door County offers. But when does Spring really start? We all know what our calendars say, March 20^th (or 19^th or 21^st). This is based on the astronomical calendar.  Around March 20^th the vertical rays of the Sun are exactly at the Equator. In other words, if you were in Brazil near the Equator fishing, say Peacock Bass, the Sun would be directly overhead, at your zenith, at noon. This is called the Vernal Equinox. The reason it varies among these three days is due to differences between the solar year and the Gregorian calendar. Same reason we have Leap Years. During an equinox, theoretically, each location on the Earth would experience exactly 12-hours with the sun above the horizon and 12-hours below. Turns out this is not exactly right because the Earth is not perfectly round, but its damn close.  However, tracking the motions of the Sun is not the only way scientists define the seasons. Weather and climate scientists more often use the months to determine meteorological seasons. The months of June, July and August comprise Summer. September, October and November, Fall. December, January March, Winter and April, May and June are the Spring months. This puts the first day of Spring on April 1^st (No fooling!).

I don’t rely on the calendar to tell me when Spring has arrived. I don’t think most people do. We laugh when we hear announced that the first day of Spring has arrived, whether it’s April 1^st or March 20^th, and we are getting three feet of snow. In another year we might have bare ground and sixty degree temperatures. No, we look for concrete evidence. Events, observations or activities. Many people use a phenological approach, observing the movements and behaviors of animals and plants. The sighting of the first Robin, the budding out of trees, the blooming of the Trilliums or a chorus of Spring Peepers. We may also depend on cultural events. When I was a kid, Easter was spring to me. I had to go to church, but then I got to eat tons of candy. In high school the seasons were defined by whichever activity I was involved in. Spring was when basketball was over, and track practice started. In college, it was springtime when the coeds started sunning themselves outside the dorms to work on their summer tans. Of course, once I started teaching, the seasons were dictated by the school calendar. Spring break was the marker for the start of spring and the final push until summer. In recent years, know spring is close when a member of the Gibraltar baseball team shows up at my door fund raising. I always buy whatever they are selling.

Now someone with the temerity to call himself “The Harbor Angler” must rely heavily on the activity of fish to mark the seasons. True, but this has evolved over the years. As a young boy and through high school living Oconto County, I fished the many trout streams near my house. These streams were ones you could step across in places like Hines Creek, the Waupee, and McCaslin Brook. Me and my buddy Howie loved walking these rivulets, crawling on our bellies attempting to ambush a feisty Brook Trout. Six inches was legal size. If you caught a nine incher, it was a trophy. Howie’s mom would drop us off early in the day and pick us up in the afternoon a few miles downstream where a backroad crossed the stream. In between we had total freedom. No adult supervision. We would get wet, muddy and mosquito bitten. We loved it. During this time in my life, the most important day of the year and the true marker of Spring was the opening day of the trout season. I would spend the entire winter pouring through my Herter’s catalog to find that one combination of lure, tackle and line that would be irresistible to a wily brookie. We always ended up using a hook and a big gob of nightcrawler as our go-to bait relegating our homemade spinners or fly to the tackle box. Opening day also meant I could start targeting bass, bluegills and pike on Anderson Lake right across the road from my house. This was truly the start of the best part of the year. Spring had arrived, no matter what the weather.

That changed once I left northern Wisconsin to go to college and eventually get a real job. I started fishing waters that did not really have a closed season, therefore, no opening day. The Wisconsin River, Lake Winnebago and the Wolf River could be fished all year round. Opening day lost its allure and magic. It no longer marked the beginning of my fishing year. The spawning habits of walleyes did. Spring arrived when I could cast below the DuBay dam and walk away with a stringer of walleyes. Or ply the upper reaches of the Wolf by boat or waders with hundreds of other anglers all in search of marble eyes. Even to this day, I join the hoards on the Fox River below the DePere Dam to get that first “bump” of a walleye on my line.  As with the brook trout outings, my actual catch rarely reached the level of my expectations. The walleye runs, however, became the indicator of Spring for much of my adult life.

Then I had the good fortune of moving to Baileys Harbor and things changed again. By then I had acquired a boat and plenty of gear to embark upon the big water of Lake Michigan. I was somewhat familiar with the waters as I had been visiting the area since high school with my uncle Den to catch Brown Trout. I got involved with the Baileys Harbor Brown Trout Tournament and walleyes faded to the background as my Spring target species. I now mark the start of Spring as the first time I can launch my boat and start catching browns. Ice often needed to be cleared from the boat launch. Mini-icebergs out on the lake had to be avoided, but if you can get out, there is great chance of boating beautiful post spawn brown trout in the shallow waters along the Door County shoreline. Fortunately, I ran into a guy, Paul, just as passionate (i.e. crazy) about catching early season browns as I am. Misery does welcome company.  The date of first launch, it turns out, is much more variable than using the astronomical calendar to determine the start of Spring, but much more satisfying. It is typically in the last weeks in March or the first week in April. However, in the last five years, I have caught browns in open water as early as February 12^th (remember the warm anomaly of 2024). The latest I have gotten my boat in and caught fish was April 15^th.  Whenever it is, it marks the start of my open water season. The brown bite eventually fades, but walleyes, smallmouth bass, perch, Chinook salmon, rainbow trout and Northern pike will follow in turn to fill the void. Ironically, Brown trout are also one of the last fish I catch as they move into the shallows in the late Fall to feed and spawn. They bookend my open water season.

As of this date, I am still waiting for Spring to arrive. I have yet to find a local boat launch ice free enough to slip the Maggie Leigh into the water. I am hoping it will happen within the next week. Once Paul and I do get out there, we will let the fish announce the arrival of Spring, not a calendar, astronomical or Gregorian.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Bruce

Questions or comments to bsmith733@gmail.com