For the Love of Fishing
Fishing reports, tales and musings about fishing in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin and the world.
There’s a little secret that most anglers are not willing to admit to. There is a lot of luck involved in catching fish and even more luck in getting a fish in the boat. When anglers talk about luck, it is usual “bad luck”. Bad luck that their line broke,...
I carefully ease my boat towards a familiar spot on “The Flats”, just as I have done more times than I can remember. The Flats is a renowned smallmouth bass habitat on the east shore of Sturgeon Bay between Pinney County Park boat launch (aka The Quarry) and Sunset Park...
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...
I was strolling the aisles of Main Street Market in Egg Harbor the other day when I came upon the glass case displaying their fish offerings. I seldom, if ever, buy fish but out of curiosity I checked out what they were getting for fish these days. Walleye, $13.99/pound. Whitefish,...
My ice fishing season started slowly this winter, primarily due to the lack of “good ice”. As I described in a previous post and as most of you experienced, an extended cold blast enveloped Door County and much of the country. Though many residents and visitors grumbled about the frigid temperatures, the...
Lying in bed wide awake, waiting for the alarm to sound, I contemplated what I was about to do. My nephew Tim had invited me to join him for a day of trolling for big fish in the middle of January. It was not a prospect I had considered before....
I have often found myself “walking on thin ice”, metaphorically as well as literally. The former usually involved my wife Pam or some other authority figure. The early cold weather we have been experiencing has literally put me on thin ice. I have conflicting feelings about the transition from Fall to...
If I’m not going to catch fish, I’d rather not catch muskies. If you find this statement confusing, even paradoxical, let me illustrate my point. A guy walks into a bar. From his appearance, you would guess he has spent the day fishing. His face is wind burned, his hands...
Well, hello there. It has been a while. My last post to this space was about nine months ago. Seems like a lifetime to me. Before I get into the fishing stuff, I feel I need to proffer a short explanation. I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in April of...
Lift, drop, wiggle, pause……. Lift, drop, wiggle, pause……. Lift, drop, wiggle, pause. Seventy feet below my crampon festooned LaCrosse boots I envision a slug of purplish rubber mirroring the movements of my rod tip emulating the motions of a frantic goby. Lift, drop, wiggle, pause……. Lift, drop, wiggle, pause……. Lift,...
Anglers have no off season in Door County. Whether it be Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, there is always something biting and biting well. That said, I have to say that my favorite season to fish is the Fall. Not because the fishing is that much better, it’s that there...
The horizon was void of boats. As Paul and I made our way out of the Baileys Harbor Marina I scanned the water. There was a small sailboat attempting to fill her sails in the bay and one or two pleasure boats near the county beach to the north. That...
It wasn’t much of a fish by Lake Michigan standards. In fact, we were not even sure we had a fish on at all. It was a classic “shaker”. Paul and I were trolling off Baileys Harbor in about seventy feet of water dragging our usually array of lines. We...
I don’t mind fishing alone. In fact, at times I prefer it. When I fish by myself, I am always the best angler in the boat. I never get out fished and if I get skunked, there is no one there to witness my shame. If I find a hot...
Standing on a sun-drenched beach, barefoot, up to my knees in cool saltwater, I slowly draw back an 8-foot saltwater spinning rod high over my head. With a steady swing of my arms, I send a 3-ounce pyramid sinker and circle hook draped with some bits of shrimp I bought...
I was driving back from Sturg after a haircut appointment. My new barber, Desirée at Razor’s Edge, had done a pretty decent job, considering what she had to work with. On the way back to Baileys Harbor, I decided to drive up North Shore Drive past the old stone quarry...
Seems like I have spent the first portion of this winter season not ice fishing, but fishing for ice. Even as late as Christmas I was still launching my boat into open water rather than dragging my ice shelter onto a frozen lake. (See my Merry Fishmas post.) The mild...
Christmas Day was always a special time. There was typically a crispness in the air and a lightness in everyone’s heart. A sparkling blanket of snow covered the ground, quietly waiting to be disturbed by skis, sleds and shovels. Christmas also brought a break from my job teaching high school....
I must admit that I take a perverse pleasure and maybe even a bit of pride in doing things that other people think are crazy. I relish any person’s reaction as I relate my experience at the Jacksonport Polar Bear Plunge, describing myself wading through the ice strewn water and diving...
When you can. That’s it. You can stop reading now. That’s all you need to know about when to go fishing. Yea, I know that are lots of opinions and theories out there about when is the best time to catch fish. Some would say you should consult the solunar cycles,...
Door County is a narrow peninsula with world class fishing in every direction. Literally. Each day, as a recreational angler, I get to choose where I want to fish and what species to fish for. However, this choice is not unfettered. My freedom to fish is stifled, more often than...
I’ve been getting more exercise lately. I have been attending to chores around the house that I just didn’t seem to have time for most of the summer. Pam and I have spent a bit more quality time together. I finished reading a book. These seemingly positive changes in my...
What if all the fish in Door County stopped biting? That’s not hard to imagine for those of us who spend a lot of time on the water. The bite gets slow at times. However, I’m talking about the total collapse of the bite. No salmon and trout in the...
With the salmonid bite waning on the big lake, my attention turned to other fishing opportunities in the area. Smallmouth bass are active on both sides of the peninsula, mostly on the edges of drop-offs. The bass are seeking cooler water as the surface temps warm up under the summer...
I spent my thirty bucks for a K/D ticket. I consider it an annual donation. Sure, it is possible, that I could have won the fifteen grand and that beautiful ring. I could have won the Power Ball too, I suppose. If you don’t enter, you can’t win. I wasn’t alone....
The steelhead and salmon bite has been excellent so far this summer. The best I can remember in many years. It recalls the heady days of 2012, the first year I started fishing with Paul. That summer we caught so many fish so easily that I got the mistaken impression...
Every summer we wait, wondering when or even if they will show up. Some summers they don’t show up in big numbers until the 4th of July. Sometimes later. When they do come, you never know how long they will stay. They may be with us all summer, or they could be...
If you want to catch some big, maybe even enormous walleyes, here’s what you should do. Go to Lake Erie. Or Lake of The Woods. Perhaps northern Minnesota. Don’t bother with Green Bay or Door County. Nope. Nothing to catch here. Just pass us right by. Oh, who am I...
I have evolved into a “Gentleman Angler”. Meaning that I tend to target fish who have the good sense to actively bite during a reasonable time of the day. I typically am not out on the water until I have had time for a cup or two of coffee at...
We can close the books on the 35th Annual Baileys Harbor Brown Trout Tournament. This year’s tournament featured plenty of big fish including the top five fish coming in over twenty pounds. The top twenty-five fish all measured over 30-inches, with most over 34-inches. Of those twenty-five largest fish, eleven were registered...
First, I want to state clearly that any angler who legally catches a brown trout has every right to harvest that fish, adhering to the relevant size and bag restrictions. Whether anglers choose to keep or release a fish is up to them and others should not pass judgment. It’s none of...
It was bound to happen. After almost six weeks of imposed abstinence, it was inevitable. A red-blooded angler can only take so much. There are desires that must be attended to. Since hip replacement surgery earlier this winter, my fishing opportunities were much limited. Open water options were non-existent. Ice fishing...
As we rumbled out onto the ice of Green Bay, where in a normal winter, we would gaze out over a sprawling “WhitefishTown”, all that could be seen was a modest whitefish hamlet, comprised of about a dozen dark red guide shacks surrounded by a menagerie of blue Clams, red...
One of the best ways to get an overall sense of the ice conditions on Green Bay and area lakes is to access the MODIS satellite images of Lake Michigan on the NOAA Coast Watch Great Lakes website. These are real color images developed by the University of Wisconsin Madison Space Science...
Seventeen days. This was the time between the last outing on open water and my first step out on a frozen surface of ice to drill holes. Paul and I made a fruitless quest for brown trout (or whatever would hit our lures) to Egg Harbor early in December. With...
Now the slips are all empty, let the diehards take the stage. The marinas around the county are abandoned. Most boat owners have stored their boats in clean, dry spaces or wrapped them, mummy-like, in protective plastic. The piers that spent the summer months serving watercraft, have been pulled and are...
Perhaps we should not have gone fishing this day. It was overcast and cold with a blustery, biting wind. The forecast was for rain and “the S-word” was even mentioned. What kind of fool goes out in weather like that? On the other hand, this would be our last chance...
I was skeptical as I tentatively backed the trailer towards the broken concrete launch ramp. “I don’t know if this is going to work, Ed” I whined. “Looks pretty shallow.” Ed and I were looking for a way to get the boat out onto the waters of Lake Michigan to...
Call me Sal. I was born in Michigan. Since my youth, I have dwelt in many locations in the Great Lakes region. I spend much of my time in the states surrounding Lake Michigan: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. On occasion, I have found myself in Ontario. I have always...
The world is not really a terrible and dangerous place. Murderers, terrorists and thieves are not lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on you and do you harm. At any moment, most people on the Earth are not dealing with a flood, hurricane, tornado, wildfire or earthquake. Much of...
To those friends and fellow anglers who have read my musings in the past, I hope I can continue to engage you with this new format. For those of you encountering The Harbor Angler for the first time, thank you for staying with me this long and I hope you...
Door County, USA It is ephemeral. If you attempt to find it at the wrong time, it won’t be there. It will have vanished even from a location it had existed in the past. When it does exist, it can be impossible to get there. Once you arrive, it may...
