A little branch of water that never freezes and holds its temperature at 42 degrees year around is nestled on the southwestern tip of Lake Erie. Only the brave would be caught out on this brisk winter day with winds at 15-20 miles an hour. My heart raced with excitement as I pulled in the driveway and I quickly got out to say hello to the one person I saw standing there.
“Are you doing any good?" He said,"Yeah! I caught one there” and pointed to a stringer tied at the post.
“Do you mind if I look?"
"No go right ahead.”
I raised his stringer and found a beautiful 15 inch Rainbow trout. “Wow, that’s nice!'
He said,"Yeah and there are a lot bigger fish than that in here, they keep coming to the top.”
"What are you using?" I ask.
He said “Shiner minnows! I always do better with minnows in the winter.”
"Do you have to pay to fish?" I ask.
"Yes! You put five bucks in an envelope, write your name on it, and drop it in the slot there at the front of the store.”
"Where can you buy bait around here?" I ask.
He told me “Right up the road, a place called Belleview bait store.” While we were talking I watched him catch a small yellow perch.
I drove to the bait store and bought a dozen night crawlers and a couple dozen minnows. I had intentions of fly fishing but the wind was so strong and the creek was much smaller than expected, so I pulled out the spinning reel. I had some small bites on both types of bait and caught one little perch. It fell off the hook about four feet off the top of the water. Then I noticed someone else’s line and walked down the edge of the dock to realize there were two Canadian anglers tucked behind the back side of the building. They were standing behind the building to break the wind. I ask them if they were doing any good. Neither had caught anything. It wasn’t long and they decided to give it up.
Then I met Freddy from Lima, Ohio who had just awakened from a nap. He came over to the dock and asked if we were doing any good. The other fisherman said he had caught a couple and I had caught none to speak of. He said, "Well, I am going to head back down to the falls."
Hmmm falls? "Where’s that at?" I asked.
"Just down around the bend," he replied. "I am going to put my waders back on and head back down there!"
"What are you using to fish with?" I ask.
He said gulp minnows and power bait.
“I have waders too.”
"Well put them on and go down there with me," he said, "I’ll show you how to fish it.”
"Cool!" I replied, and quickly had my waders on waiting. Freddy said smiling “You’ll have to give me a minute I just woke up. “
I grabbed the shiners and night crawlers I had bought and ask if he thought those would work? He said it might, go ahead and bring them. "You can try it."
When we got down there his two friends were up on the upper ledge of the falls. The falls are man-made and located on the backside of a restaurant called Margaretville. It was truly captivating to watch the trout trying to jump the wall to get up stream. I was standing in the water at the edge of the falls and every now and then l could see the trout swim right in front of me.
The ledge where the other two guys were standing was barely big enough for two, and they quickly told Freddy he couldn’t come up there. They were counting their fish out loud yelling at Freddy each time they caught a fish. "Hey Freddy, number eight!" Most of the fish were averaging 12-14 inches. I wanted to tell them they had a time limit, and they needed to rotate out and let us take our shot at it for a while. I didn’t do that, but the thought crossed my mind. Soon after one of the restaurant workers came out and told the guys they couldn’t fish up on the ledge they had to move down below.
Freddy had given me one of his gulp minnows to try and I had gotten a few bites. I caught a small fish called a Gobi. After trying the gulp minnow for a while I switched to a live night crawler. What I call “Old faithful”. When all else fails use a night crawler. Wham! I caught a huge 20 inch rainbow trout. It swallowed the night crawler whole! An old friend had once told me that a trout wouldn’t hit a worm all balled up on the hook, so I did my best as to string the worm without balling it up. I got a couple more small hits and caught another Gobi. I kept fishing with the night crawlers until there wasn’t any left. I had only bought one dozen and used half of them fishing on the dock.
I switched to the shiner minnows and right away Bam! A 21 inch Brown t
rout. I was so excited I was shaking. Two of my all time personal bests caught on the same day. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Bam! Freddy caught another nice Rainbow almost simultaneously! He offered to give it to me and said,"You’re allowed two; you can have this one if you want it?" I said yes until they told me I would have to put one of mine back. Then I decided that I wanted to keep the Brown that I had caught. How cool was that! I had limited out with two nice trout and had a blast trying someplace new. Thanks to Jesus Christ who watches over me. I was able to get out and enjoy a special kind of peace so incredibly rewarding. I gave the rest of the minnows to the guys and headed home on cloud nine.
Delana S. Oaks
