June 2, 2022 at 11:13 a.m.
Fish Like a GIRL
A birch tree. My favorite!
Fish Like a GIRL
My late husband, Rod, and I were prefishing for a club tournament up there. We were running an HVAC business at the time, and he was getting calls from one of the plastics plants in Rhinelander about one of their process chillers. Being about the only person north of Green Bay who had experience working on such equipment, he felt obligated to take the calls, even when we were on the water.
"Oh look, a birch tree," I said as his cellphone rang again. "My favorite!"
As he sat talking to the maintenance manager of the plastics plant, I proceeded to land four nice-sized fish, releasing them one after another. All of the fish came as I was casting at that birch tree. I could see in Rod's eyes that he was getting pretty jealous that I was schooling him while he was on the phone.
"What the heck did you find?" he asked as he got off the phone.
"Birch tree," I said, pointing at the shore. I hit a waypoint on my handheld GPS. I would be fishing as a nonboater in the upcoming club tournament, so I would be fishing with one of the other guys in the club. When I found something on the water while we were prefishing, Rod said it was fair game for me to mark the spot. If it was one of his spots, I would not. But he was just letting the boat drift while he took the work call, so it was my spot.
Of course, it was not the birch tree that meant fish were holding in that spot. Let me be clear, no part of the tree was in the water. It was simply a birch tree that was along the shoreline. I had learned to triangulate spots using three points on the shoreline, as Rod taught me early on. Sometimes that can be just as good as hitting a waypoint.
But in this case, just joking around, I picked the birch tree on the shoreline as my one spot, rather than triangulating the spot. It was a joke and, as I said, the birch tree had nothing to do with anything, but there just happened to be a ditch that led straight out from the shoreline where the birch tree was. Fish must have been using it as a freeway of sorts to get to the shallow feeding flat nearer the shore. And I must have hit it just at the right time.
I wound up taking second place and having big bass for that tournament. Rod took first, boating a limit of fish in the first half hour of the tournament, from his spot, which was not too far away.
I fished that tournament with my friend Jim Kerchefski. To this day we always talk about the fishing by a birch tree. When anyone asks where we caught our fish - by the birch tree. It was a great day on the water, despite some equipment issues in his boat, but that story is definitely one for another day.
Fast forward over 10-12 years, and the birch trees are still in play for me.
Chet and I fished a tournament on Mohawksin last weekend, which was the first stop for the Upper Midwest Bass Challenge Series run by Gregg Kizewski from St. Germain. I have one spot I always like to fish, affectionately named "The Money Cast." Much like that birch tree on Big Arbor Vitae (which fell down three years later, making the ditch harder to find), it is one particular cast. It is a shallow ditch that fish use to come up from the first drop to the feeding flat.
I fully believe, if a person could be calm enough to try it, I could put the Talons down at the one exact spot, make the same exact cast all day, and come up with a limit big enough to cash a check. Of course, who has that kind of patience? I know one guy that does who fished in a club I used to be in, but I know I could never do that.
We hit that spot almost right away in the morning. When we got to the exact right angle, I told Chet to throw at the birch tree. The first cast, a fish exploded on his top water bait. He threw back in and we had our first three pound fish of the day.
We came back to that birch tree later. On Lake Mohawksin, as I have told Chet since we started fishing together, my fish go completely silent from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. At 1:05, I caught a short fish after having no action for a considerable amount of time. At 1:06, Chet once again threw back up toward that birch tree at the same angle as in the morning. That brought us our fifth fish and filled out our limit. That was also our second three pounder of the day. We wound up finishing at the upper end of mid pack with 12.27 pounds, but if it was not for that birch tree, we could have done much worse, I tell myself.
No matter where I am fishing, to this day, I will always aim at least one cast at any birch tree I find along the shoreline. If a birch tree happens to have fallen in the water, even better! I will take the time to pick it apart with as many casts as I deem appropriate. Do I always catch fish by birch trees? Of course not, but anglers are a superstitious lot, and I am no different. I am compelled to fish every birch tree I see, even if they are just along the shoreline and have no bearing on what is happening in the water.
I would love to hear the superstitions of other anglers. Shoot me an email with your "must dos" or "must haves." Tight lines, all!
Beckie Gaskill may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
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