The More I Fish, The Luckier I Get!

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, bad luck that the fish threw the hook, bad luck that they dropped the net in the water. When things go well, it is typically ascribed to their skill and acumen as an angler. “Did you see me set the hook”, “I really played that fish out!”, Hey, I landed that fish without a net! I am a Master Angler!” (aka “Master Baiter”)

The truth be told, there is an awful lot about fishing that is out of the angler’s control. This no more evident than when you troll big water for salmon and trout. Now I do not want to dismiss the amount of skill and experience required to consistently hook into Chinook Salmon or Rainbow Trout in the voluminous expanse of Lake Michigan. Selecting the proper lures and then putting those lures at the right depth at the right speed and in the right location are competencies successful salmonid anglers possess. The ability of a good crew to deploy multiple lines, six, twelve or more at a time, and keep them from tangling into an impossible cluster is amazing. Being adept at these angling skills will give you the best chance of enticing a strike from a huge King salmon. Even at that, you are still dependent on the whims of the fish to strike the lure. It’s a lot different than hunting for sure. With a gun, once you have your prey within range be it, deer, turkey, duck, or whatever, the hunter controls whether the kill is made. Imagine if a hunter, instead of just pulling the trigger, they had to entice a deer to pick up the gun and shoot themselves? That’s kind of what an angler must do; Convince a fish to purposely impale themselves on a deadly hook. It’s astounding that so many of them do just that. However, once the fish strikes, it is then that the balance between good luck and bad plays out. During two recent trips on the lake, Paul and I were on both ends of the luck spectrum.

One Tuesday evening Paul and I headed out on the lake about 4:00PM. The lake was unusually calm, and it did not take long to run out to the location we wished to start our search. Setting our six lines at various depths from twenty to sixty feet, we settled in for what we hoped would be a productive outing. It did not take long before one of the planer boards shot backwards and we had a fish on. The fish immediately broke surface with a spectacular leap revealing itself to be a big rainbow. After another thrashing aerobatic display, the fish settled into a tug of war with the planer board as Paul slowly moved the board nearer the boat. Just as I was about to retrieve the board the line went slack. The fish was gone. But why? Who knows, nobody knows. Perhaps the fish was not hooked well initially. I had sharpened the hooks earlier. Maybe the leaps, twists and turns had worked the tines of the hook loose. Paul and I assured ourselves that we had kept the line taut, we were no slackers. We thought we had done everything right, yet the fish was gone. 0 for 1. Bad luck. 

Our next chance came a few minutes later, this time on a downrigger. The line was pulsating as Paul handed me the rod. It felt like a powerful fish. I kept the line tight and adjusted my drag as Paul tracked the boat to keep the fish in the middle of the stern. With some effort, I kept the fish out of the other lines. Everything was going well as Paul reached for the net. Then nothing. This fish had gotten off as well. 0 for 2. Again, why? Our night continued like that. We did manage to put four fish in the boat, but we lost five others. 4 for 9. All the fish came off for some unknown reason. We had not tangled with the other lines or the downrigger cables. They were not lost while attempting to net them. Each fish just came off. We shrugged our shoulders. Bad luck. I guess.

Fast forward to two days later. The lake was calm, just like the night before, and we set up just north of Jacksonport Reef. Since the water temperature profile had not changed very much, our plan was to fish the same depths and location. Paul deployed four downriggers, a planer board with 100-feet of copper wire and a Dipsey Diver. We set out an array of spoons that had caught fish for us in the past. Once we had all the lines in the water, we settled in for a pleasant evening on the lake. After about thirty minutes, one of the downrigger rods, straightened up and the started pulsating. I grabbed the rod and right away I could tell it was a nice fish. The fish made a powerful run, stripping line off my reel at an alarming rate. Once it stopped running, I steadily pumped my rod and moved the fish closer to the boat. Then it made a second run. In the commotion, Paul and I had failed to notice that one of the other downriggers had “popped”. We had a double! Paul started playing a leaping rainbow, while I continued to coax the Chinook Salmon to the boat. As the salmon got closer to the boat, we noticed copper wire was looped around the line. Apparently, one or both fish had gotten into the copper line. Since both of us were occupied by fish, nobody was at the helm, and the boat was twisting and turning. This led to the Dipsey Diver line to hook at least one of the other lines. It was a cluster! By this time, I had worked the salmon to the back of the boat, doing my best to keep the fish out of the other downriggers. We were also worried that the copper wire might get caught in the spinning prop of the kicker motor. A first attempt at netting the salmon was sloppy as the fish hung on the net frame before flopping back in the water. On the second attempt we managed, barley, to get the salmon in the net and lift it onto the floor of the boat. Now our attention turned to the rainbow. It too was tangled into other lines; we were not at all sure which ones. I cleared the net of the salmon so we could net the trout. Fortunately, this fish was played out from several leaps and dragging all the excess line around. We slipped the rainbow into the net.

We had two fish flopping in the boat surrounded by a tangle of leaders, lures and some rather kinky copper wire. We got both fish in the cooler and went to work at cleaning up the mess. We pulled in the two remaining downrigger rods and the Dipsey Diver. Paul had to cut much of the copper wire as it was hopelessly tangled. When we went to retrieve the planer board, we discovered it was gone. Somehow during the battle, the line to the board had parted and we had lost the planer board. Figures! It took us about a half an hour recover all the tackle and get lines set again. The lake remained calm, and we started trolling back over the same location where we had gotten the fish. After only a few minutes of trolling I spotted a flash of yellow bobbing in the water off the bow. It was our wayward planer board! I maneuvered the boat close enough to allow Paul to retrieve the board. The lake had yet another surprise for us. There was a line still attached to the board and Paul felt life on the other end. There was a fish on even though the board was floating free. Hand over hand, Paul retrieved the line and the fish. He finally lifted the fish into the boat, it was a seventeen-inch Brown Trout with two lures, one in the fish’s mouth and the other tangled in the lines wrapped around the fish. We were baffled as to how all of this happened. Incredibly, we boated all three of the fish and recovered our tackle despite just about everything going wrong. I would love to claim this happened due to Paul and mine’s angling skill. I would love to, but I can’t. It was dumb luck. Good luck. 

By the end of the night, we boated five more fish and never lost one. We went 8 for 8. Five Chinook Salmon, two Rainbow Trout and a Brown. The night before, we lost half our fish. What was the difference? Nothing. Same boat, same rods, same lures, same intrepid anglers. Perhaps the fish gods were smiling on us one night and not the other. Maybe the fish were more aggressive one night and were hooking themselves more deeply. Our results both nights were due to factors beyond our control. When I was younger, I might have beat myself up about losing a fish, and indeed I have lost many fish through sheer stupidity. Over the years I learned not to do as many dumb things and my success rate has increased.  But I still lose fish. Everyone does. It’s part of the game we play with the fish. Often the fish wins. I must tolerate my bad luck, so when good luck comes my way, I am more than willing to accept the largess.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish,  Bruce

Questions or comments to bsmith733@gmail.com