My Longest Fishing Day - July 13th, 2000

We were planning to head up to Strawberry Lake on a Thursday night. Aric would meet us up there rather than come all the way to town. Something happened at the last minute and Aric was going to be delayed until Friday evening. Scott and I were ready to go on Thursday night, so we decided to go up to his rental on Lake James Thursday evening and do some night fishing. His boat was in the shop, so we’d figured that we’d fish from the pier that evening then pick up his boat in the morning, fish Lake James until late afternoon then hit the road for Strawberry to meet up with Aric. And so, on that Thursday evening began my longest fishing day. Scott picked me up at my house around 8:00pm and we stopped at Meijer’s for last minute supplies. We got James somewhere around 9:30 and headed down the long flight of stairs down to the dock. It was a great evening. I recall that we were a day or two away from the full moon. We were rigged with topwater lures, Jitterbugs and Skitter Pops. We had fished for about 3 hours and saw an amazing moon rise but weren’t getting any fish. We were at the point of surrender and were making plans to call it a night when I decided to ditch the topwater and try a Shad Rap. I figured that maybe something a couple of feet below the surface with some vibration might be in order. I scored a Largemouth Bass on the first cast. The weariness fell away from me, and I began to pull bass out pretty quickly. As I was removing the hooks from one, he shook off and fell smack down hard on the dock with a loud thump. He laid there still for a few seconds then regained “consciousness”. Reading back, it doesn’t sound humorous at all, but there on that night, it was very funny.

Well Scott stood and watched in disbelief for about four or five bass then went back to the cottage to see if he had any similar lures. The only thing he found was a black, rattling crankbait that had the Pittsburgh Steelers logo on it. I think his mother got it for him from QVC and up until this night, he thought of it as a joke or novelty lure and never actually used it. He was a believer after a cast or two when he began to catch bass on the Steelers lure. We stood there on the pier until about 4:30 having a blast.

I woke up on Friday morning around 7:00am [Yes, just about two and a half hours later.] I had just bought my first pair of polarized sunglasses and was anxious to check out the water with them. I took my spinning rod and Shad Rap down to the pier and began to cast. If you are on the water and don’t have polarized glasses, get some. The polarizing effect allows you to screen out the glare on the surface and see into the water well. I was surprised about how well I could see fish and things in the water. I was casting and watching the action of my lure, not really trying too hard to catch anything. On one of the retrieves, I was watching the lure wobble along. It was passing over a clump of vegetation when a I this bass pop out of the weeds, inhale my lure and turn to head back to the weeds. It was cool to watch.

We picked up Scott’s boat around 8:00 or 8:30 and fished a little in front of the cottage, then went over to Stump point to try our luck there. I was trying out my new bait caster and was getting pretty discouraged as I untangled backlash after backlash. I didn’t know anything about bait casters at the time and I couldn’t figure out how those bird nests were happening. So, I put it away and went back to my spinning stuff. It was Friday and the lake was quickly beginning to populate with weekenders. It is pretty high traffic with speeders, skiers, and jet skis.

We fished until around 1:00pm then decided to head up to the St Joe River in Berrien Springs for some Walleye. It was kind of on the way to Strawberry anyway. So we hopped in the car and two hours later we were standing on the shore just below the dam bouncing nightcrawlers along the rocky river bottom. Scott was using his 9-foot steelhead rod and was doing well, scoring a Walleye here and there. I wasn’t doing as well. We saw some stray dog, try to negotiate the rather strong current. We thought that he might have made a big mistake, but he seemed to manage his way across the river ok. I did manage to pierce a minnow as I drug my line through some weeds. He was hooked just like I would have baited him, so I cast him out and ended up catching my only Walleye with him.

It was after 8:00 pm when we decided to pack up and head for Strawberry. Aric was supposed to getting there around 10:00 or so. He was going to send an e-mail to my pager if anything changed. I hadn’t noticed that I was not in a pager service area. I guess we were farther from Strawberry than we had thought. It ended up taking us until almost midnight before we got there. As we neared Grand Rapid, my pager buzzed with a message that had been stored from earlier that day. It was Aric telling us that he had come up early and was already at the camp and had been since 6:00 or 7:00 that evening.

We finally got there, unloaded the car, grabbed our gear and got on the boat. It was just after midnight by now. We fished until around 9:30 or 10:00 then next morning. Aric’s cousin and his buddy had come up for the weekend as well so we sharing the boat. We saw that they had gotten up so we headed in for some breakfast and a nap. It was a long day that spanned 36 hours and 3 venues separated by one two hour nap and two car rides. Aric’s cousin and his cousin’s friend were nice guys. They weren’t as “hard core” on the fishing as we were. They were there to relax, fish and enjoy the great outdoors through a few Corona’s.

The boat is a moderately sized pontoon. It is spacious for two fishermen but not uncomfortable with three. Five however was out of the question, so we ended up taking shifts. Aric, Scott and I [the old guys] had the boat from around sunset until cousin and friend [the young guys] got up in the morning 8:30 – 10:00 ish. The young guys would go out for about three or maybe four hours at a time. So the olds guys would have a mid day ride as well as the night shift. It was July, the bass were active and the blast was topwaters. One morning Aric tossed what I believe was a Skitterpop or Hula- popper up near the shore and there was an explosive strike. I don’t think he got that one but we were all adrenalized.

Aric had explained how my baitcaster worked and I spent the bulk of our off-boat time on the dock trying to perfect my cast. One evening just after dark, we pulled the boat up near the northwest shore where there is a wall of reeds that stretches about forty yards. I think that Aric was throwing a black buzzbait. I was using a large white jitterbug with black spots all over and one red spot on its belly. I was whizzing it at the reeds with my newly formed baitcasting skills and the was a 20 minute window where Aric and I each caught three or four good largemouths.

It was cool. I’d throw my Jitterbug into the darkness and listen to the “dripple” noise that it makes which would be interrupted by a huge splash and tug. It was a genuine blast. during the day we’d hook up with some bluegill on rare occasion. We also were tempting Perch with minnows on floating head jigs. Scott and I devised a minnow catching project and put our off-boat afternoons to good use collecting minnows.

The bluegill weren’t as plentiful as they were the previous October, and the perch were few but we managed to boat some of each. Even in July, the nights are cold up there and we’d gear up for our nights on the boat with warm clothes and all the tackle we could carry. The idea was to be prepared for anything and not have to come back in until absolutely necessary. Scott’s luck wasn’t as good on this trip, he just didn’t seem to connect. Aric and I caught a good number of fish each, so we ate well. Aric got the Hatfish and we all had a great time.