If you've read Ted's articles on keeping fishing journals, you'll understand the level of frustration we were feeling at the end of the 2004 muskie season when Ted declared that he was renouncing science and the moon phase concept when it comes to fishing muskies. East wind, west wind, gale force wind—whatever. We found that the only pattern we could recognize was a short feeding window of about an hour—no specific hour, of course—during which we agonized over whether we were in the right spot and which end of the hour we were witnessing. Clearly neurotic behavior, but that goes with the territory of fishing for the fish of a thousand (or ten thousand if you're really neurotic) casts.
We experienced a cold, rainy summer on Chautauqua Lake, and while we both equaled our previous year's catch—I think Ted caught a few extra—we had begun with high hopes of maybe doubling our records. I, for one, had dreams of getting a 50 incher. Was that too much to ask, to better 2003's 49 incher by only one more inch? It's only natural to think that with experience come better results, but obviously the variables are brutal and uncaring. I know all about cosmic irony, that kind of irony where the universe seems to be playing a trick on you, where you expect one thing and get something else instead. I know about it, but that doesn't mean I like it. Here's a clever little lesson on cosmic irony from the American writer Stephen Crane in 1899:
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
But maybe the universe had something else in mind for us last year. To understand how unexpected it was, you have to understand Ted and me in social contexts. We are very suited to each other, both with that kind of Northern reserved attitude that retreats in social situations. Often people get the wrong idea about whether we're friendly because of our demeanor. I think the word "aloof" comes up a lot, but it's really not us. We're just happy to fish all day with only necessary conversation; that means that sometimes we talk a lot (for us) and sometimes very little. People have even asked us if we talk at all to each other when we're alone. Well, of course we do, but you can see that our social reputation is that we are distant.
So, if you had told me that the summer of 2004 would gain us more friends than fish, I would have lent you my psychiatrist's phone number. Since we moved up here and started fishing Chautauqua in 2001, we began recognizing some of the regular muskie anglers by their boats, but I don’t' recall actually getting to know any until 2003, so let's begin there with Bob Barbel.
Bob fishes out of a 14 ft. aluminum boat, much like our first one, and has fished Chautauqua for around 40 years. He's from the Cleveland, OH area, so he has quite a drive, usually coming over to his cottage every weekend and for a few full weeks in the summer. Bob collects vintage lures and travels to shows where people swap and sell them. Ted has an old interestingly-colored Bagley lure that Bob is always interested in. Apparently, it's a hard-to-find issue. It's gotten to the point where it just wouldn't be a complete day if we didn't stop and talk to Bob for a half hour about what we've seen, where we've seen it, and about lures that we think have potential. We have pretty similar ideas about fishing muskies, all of us preferring to cast because of the fun of the bite and of landing them. We met Bob in 2003, but it wasn't until 2004, the weird year, that we exchanged names and became regular friends. There have even been a few dead calm days when we all make an appearance on the water just to talk, knowing the conditions are unlikely to produce fish.
We met Tom Pallotta at the end of the worst five days of my fishing life. Generally, we don't fish five days in a row, since the lake is an hour from home. We have more of an off and on pattern that preserves our sanity. But conditions were so dismal that by mid-July we were pushing the endurance envelope a little too hard. I didn't even "see" a fish in those five days, and was worn down. I took the next few days off, vowing never to make such a run again. We met Tom at the dock as we were setting out again after a brief lunch and pitstop. He has a nice Crestliner and we got to talking about lures, of course. Tom is from Cleveland and was new to the lake. We had been throwing Ted's bucktails and showed off a few. Tom eventually bought a few, and although we haven't run into him again on the water, he regularly emails, sometimes just sharing his sense of humor, which is right in step with ours.
Ted was out alone one day, probably when I had a hair appointment, and was lucky to run into Joe Malanowski and Shar Simerale, the couple with the green boat and white bimini top we were used to seeing. They saw him land a nice 48 incher and came over to help out and to take pictures. Also from Cleveland, it turns out they have been fishing there almost as long as Bob, but they stay all summer—that would be nice. They were almost as excited as Ted about the fish, and when I finally met them on another day, they happily retold the whole story. And I have to say that it was great to see another woman fishing for the big fish. There are a few around during the big tournaments, but they're not regulars.
Speaking of tournaments, we actually entered an informal one organized by the Cleveland/Akron Chapter of Muskies Inc. late in the summer. Based on the honor system, you just filled out a form for every fish caught, and met at the parking lot for prizes and drawings. Ted caught a 38-inch muskie, but didn't win any prizes, and we got a couple of lures in the drawings, but mostly we met a bunch of new muskie anglers. I had been participating in the discussion board for the Chautauqua Lake Musky Hunters site and now we were all putting usernames to faces. We met Jim Ott, who goes by "Otter," and turns out to be from Erie, like us. That was a surprise. Mostly he fishes the south end of the lake and we fish the north, but we do the email thing and he sometimes calls us out on the discussion board. He's a great person to have on a discussion board to keep conversations going, setting up quizzes about fish behavior, and such. Sometimes he calls Ted to talk about fish biology.
which in my case was NOT WELL. I guess I should reconsider that evaluation in light of all the people we met, though.
