August 28 2007, Horseshoe Lake in Shaker Park, Pittsburgh
The historical marker says that this lake was created in 1852 when the Shakers built a dam across Doan Brook to create a woolen mill. Today this five-acre horseshoe-shaped lake and its park are surrounded by zillion-dollar homes – the types of homes with about 30 windows facing the street, with serpentine drives, and with lawns and grounds so well manicured that they look effortless. Their residents stroll occasionally by me as I fish here. I’m the only angler.
“Catching any amur?” a 60-ish man asks. “Amur?” I respond. “Yes, they stocked them in here – should be big enough now,” he explains, and then walks on. Amur indeed. Obviously not an angler.
“Are you fishing for trout?” a 40-something woman and her companion ask. “No, bass,” I respond. Trout in this shallow, warm-water, public park pond? Other non-anglers.
This is a beautiful pond – quite fishy looking – but I see no evidence that others fish here: no discarded fishing line, no lure packages, no worm containers. The pond is sprinkled with shoreline weeds, lily pads, shade trees, and duckweed. Its water is dark, tannic. I tie on a Senko and toss it along this dam over which the main pathway traverses. Strollers continue walking by.
The dam is located on the bend of the horseshoe. The horseshoe’s arms stretch left and right in the distance with apparently no shoreline paths providing access. A kingfisher chatters and dives and flaps across the left arm of the horseshoe. Ten minutes later a different kingfisher does the same on the right arm. Then the left-arm kingfisher again.
My Senko swims into bassy water, but no bites. I switch to a Rat-L-Trap and throw it alongside far pads, through patches of floating duckweed, and out into the calm center of this pond. Nothing.
You can’t help but notice how well-appointed these strollers are. This park’s clientele wears casually smart clothing – plenty of khaki and plenty of perfectly relaxed and blended hair styles. It’s an hour before sunset, and this is an after-work or pre-dinner communion with nature.
I switch to a Pop-R then a buzzfrog, but no bass respond to these topwater offerings. Then I go to the certain strike-getter: a four-inch finesse worm. It does indeed get bitten on the first cast, but only gentle pecks from what are presumably tiny bluegill. No bass bites.
The dam – now carpeted with grass and wildflowers and this path from which I fish – is constructed of granite blocks, and from between some of their cracks grow eager greenery. The Shakers built it to last, and today’s pond is a postcard. A Great Blue Heron – the only one I see here – squawks and flaps lazily across the pond and alights in the top of a 60-foot tree. Far across the pond I now see a blue- and white-shirted couple stand and fold their blanket and stroll into the woods.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Chagrin River, Cleveland
August 26 2007, Chagrin River, Cleveland
Just a couple of days ago on the shores of Lake Erie an angler told me that he loves fishing for steelhead in the Chagrin River. Now I’m wading in it – but the wrong time of year for steelhead. What surprises me is the size of this river: only a couple of casts across, and mostly calf-deep with the deepest pools perhaps four or five feet deep. The river is green-clear with three or four feet of visibility, and its bottom is mostly rocky and pebbly – not muddy.
This is a perfect-weather Sunday afternoon, and my car claimed the final spot in the Chagrin River Park’s lot, but the other park-goers are here for picnics and dog-walking and jogging and just enjoying the out-of-doors – not fishing. I can see at least a mile of river up- and downstream, and there are no other anglers. Before I waded in I looked down on the river from an upstream footbridge and saw clear, shallow water with no fish: no smallmouths, no little bluegill, no carp, not even any minnows. It made me wonder what’s in here; I’m of course brand new to this water and my knowledge is nil.
To get to my wade-in spot I walked a path bordered by a meadow of wildflowers: purple Hortons, blue daisies, pale lavender morning glories, tiny smartweed, mini-fried-egg asters, purple violets, yellow cornflowers. My heart quickened as I came upon the river and waded in among its seemingly virgin vista.
I see them immediately: schools of two-inch minnows, pale green ghosts in groups of tens and twenties and more. I have no idea what kinds of predator fish are in this river, but they have plenty to snack on. I start with a four-inch finesse worm on a sixteenth-ounce jighead and begin my downstream wade. (River waders always have this dilemma: up- or downstream? I choose downstream because the park’s footbridge and the underbridge waders and sand-players are upstream.)
This surely does look like smallmouth water. It even smells like smallmouth water – like Nashville’s Harpeth River from my teenage years with live crawfish. And, like the Harpeth, this stretch of the Chagrin is surrounded by homes and roads and civilization – all unseen from my midstream wade. But I do see clues: there lodged on a midstream gravel bar is an old bicycle frame, and not three feet from it is a golf ball. And the river’s bottom and shoreline – throughout the mile or two that I will wade today - are littered with red bricks and concrete building blocks and pieces of river glass and river porcelain.
I work my finesse worm along a swift shoreline run that’s a bit deeper than where I stand in the middle. On the third cast I get hung in an overhanging branch, but then the rod throbs and I realize that it’s a fish. I reel in a beautiful little smallmouth – perhaps ten inches - strong and healthy and green. So this is a smallmouth river!
A bit further downstream I work the finesse worm through the downstream current of a deeper little pool: cast cross-current and then slack-line the worm as it tumbles downstream across the bottom, waiting and watching for a twitch in the line. The twitch happens and I set the hook and reel in another ten-incher. Then another. Fifteen minutes and I already have three smallmouths; this is going to be a glorious outing.
I look downstream and see endless opportunities: pools and runs and shoreline shadows. River waders are always anticipating what’s next. I slosh through a long stretch of ankle-deep river on the way to the next hole.
I see a mussel shell the size of my palm – bright pearly white. Then another. Near it is a piece of river porcelain with a drawing of an Asian woman. River porcelain and river glass are simply broken and discarded pieces that have had their edges rubbed finger-smooth by the river’s tumblings. Janet and I have collected river glass from the James River; the prizes are the pieces that have numbers or letters or other markings. River porcelain is not common in the James, but it is here in the Chagrin, and before my wade is complete I will have pocketed a dozen pieces of smooth porcelain, all with patterns and pictures.
My worm goes fishless for a half-hour so I switch to a Panther Martin minnow, first the small size, then the larger – with no bites on either. Then back to the worm.
I come to a stretch of river that is floored with the slickest stuff I’ve ever stepped on. It’s bare, smooth rock of some sort, without any growth of slick algae, and it’s even slick on the soles of my special sandals that have a track record of mostly perfect grip. I don’t want to fall in. I don’t mind getting wet or hurt, but I don’t want to drown another cell phone on a fishing outing. (This would be number four.)
Somehow I get across the slickness and arrive at a long deep pool that’s bordered with fallen logs and overhanging trees. Perfect water for all sorts of fish. But my worm, then a Senko, then two different crankbaits, all go fishless and biteless.
The shorelines here and along the rest of the river are lined with three-storey trees, lush weeds and underbrush, and rushes and watergrasses. I remember wading similar stretches of the Harpeth with Ramsey Woods who always caught four-pound smallmouths while I caught one-pounders. I always threw a little Mepps which caught lots of small fish; Ramsey patiently threw a big Rapala. So I now switch to the big boy: the huge Lucky Craft Pointer that has worked so well for me on largemouths.
I throw the Pointer upstream and cross-stream and downstream through several deep pools and across knee-deep currents. It receives no interest. It casts a long way and while retrieving it I scan the pebbled bottom for porcelain. I am reminded of the Ohoopee – the long-ago south Georgia sand river in which I waded and from which I collected shards of Indian pottery. Mostly on dry sandbars, the spoonsize pieces were flat and curved and showed parallel rows of ridges. I would find some during every wade.
The fish don’t bite. Those three I caught early on are the only ones I will catch today, but they propel my hope for more than an hour downstream and then back up. River waders are always perplexed about turning around and heading back. There is always one more good spot to try. There is always one more good pool in the distance. There is always one more fish that jumps just out of casting range.
On the way back as I collect more porcelain, I round a bend and look up and see two anglers: bank-sitting, bucket-toting, line-watching, nasty-word- spewing, aluminum-can-drinking types.
“Catchin’ any?” I hail them as I approach. (My only route upstream is by them and their bucket.)
“Just one small one,” says one of them – surprisingly nicely.
“Any advice for smallmouths?” I ask. “This is my first time on this river.”
“They’re under the rocks,” is the reply.
I don’t dawdle or ask for photographs or interviews, but as I wade purposefully by I do learn that they’re using live crawfish and have had no luck except for the small one that they released.
I round the next bend and the next one before I get to within site of my starting point. Before exiting the river I find and collect a huge, Bible-size piece of river glass: a couple of inches thick, rectangular, with smooth-melted edges and swirls of mesmerizing surface patterns. Back at the hotel I wash and scrub and dry it and begin to see images within the surface patterns – not manufactured images, but images stemming from that same portion of the mind that sees things in clouds. In yesterday’s newspaper I read that some fellow had sold on e-Bay a Madonna-imaged thing that he had found. Back home in a few days I will ask Janet to help me look at my piece of river glass; we will continue to look and look and look.
Just a couple of days ago on the shores of Lake Erie an angler told me that he loves fishing for steelhead in the Chagrin River. Now I’m wading in it – but the wrong time of year for steelhead. What surprises me is the size of this river: only a couple of casts across, and mostly calf-deep with the deepest pools perhaps four or five feet deep. The river is green-clear with three or four feet of visibility, and its bottom is mostly rocky and pebbly – not muddy.
This is a perfect-weather Sunday afternoon, and my car claimed the final spot in the Chagrin River Park’s lot, but the other park-goers are here for picnics and dog-walking and jogging and just enjoying the out-of-doors – not fishing. I can see at least a mile of river up- and downstream, and there are no other anglers. Before I waded in I looked down on the river from an upstream footbridge and saw clear, shallow water with no fish: no smallmouths, no little bluegill, no carp, not even any minnows. It made me wonder what’s in here; I’m of course brand new to this water and my knowledge is nil.
To get to my wade-in spot I walked a path bordered by a meadow of wildflowers: purple Hortons, blue daisies, pale lavender morning glories, tiny smartweed, mini-fried-egg asters, purple violets, yellow cornflowers. My heart quickened as I came upon the river and waded in among its seemingly virgin vista.
I see them immediately: schools of two-inch minnows, pale green ghosts in groups of tens and twenties and more. I have no idea what kinds of predator fish are in this river, but they have plenty to snack on. I start with a four-inch finesse worm on a sixteenth-ounce jighead and begin my downstream wade. (River waders always have this dilemma: up- or downstream? I choose downstream because the park’s footbridge and the underbridge waders and sand-players are upstream.)
This surely does look like smallmouth water. It even smells like smallmouth water – like Nashville’s Harpeth River from my teenage years with live crawfish. And, like the Harpeth, this stretch of the Chagrin is surrounded by homes and roads and civilization – all unseen from my midstream wade. But I do see clues: there lodged on a midstream gravel bar is an old bicycle frame, and not three feet from it is a golf ball. And the river’s bottom and shoreline – throughout the mile or two that I will wade today - are littered with red bricks and concrete building blocks and pieces of river glass and river porcelain.
I work my finesse worm along a swift shoreline run that’s a bit deeper than where I stand in the middle. On the third cast I get hung in an overhanging branch, but then the rod throbs and I realize that it’s a fish. I reel in a beautiful little smallmouth – perhaps ten inches - strong and healthy and green. So this is a smallmouth river!
A bit further downstream I work the finesse worm through the downstream current of a deeper little pool: cast cross-current and then slack-line the worm as it tumbles downstream across the bottom, waiting and watching for a twitch in the line. The twitch happens and I set the hook and reel in another ten-incher. Then another. Fifteen minutes and I already have three smallmouths; this is going to be a glorious outing.
I look downstream and see endless opportunities: pools and runs and shoreline shadows. River waders are always anticipating what’s next. I slosh through a long stretch of ankle-deep river on the way to the next hole.
I see a mussel shell the size of my palm – bright pearly white. Then another. Near it is a piece of river porcelain with a drawing of an Asian woman. River porcelain and river glass are simply broken and discarded pieces that have had their edges rubbed finger-smooth by the river’s tumblings. Janet and I have collected river glass from the James River; the prizes are the pieces that have numbers or letters or other markings. River porcelain is not common in the James, but it is here in the Chagrin, and before my wade is complete I will have pocketed a dozen pieces of smooth porcelain, all with patterns and pictures.
My worm goes fishless for a half-hour so I switch to a Panther Martin minnow, first the small size, then the larger – with no bites on either. Then back to the worm.
I come to a stretch of river that is floored with the slickest stuff I’ve ever stepped on. It’s bare, smooth rock of some sort, without any growth of slick algae, and it’s even slick on the soles of my special sandals that have a track record of mostly perfect grip. I don’t want to fall in. I don’t mind getting wet or hurt, but I don’t want to drown another cell phone on a fishing outing. (This would be number four.)
Somehow I get across the slickness and arrive at a long deep pool that’s bordered with fallen logs and overhanging trees. Perfect water for all sorts of fish. But my worm, then a Senko, then two different crankbaits, all go fishless and biteless.
The shorelines here and along the rest of the river are lined with three-storey trees, lush weeds and underbrush, and rushes and watergrasses. I remember wading similar stretches of the Harpeth with Ramsey Woods who always caught four-pound smallmouths while I caught one-pounders. I always threw a little Mepps which caught lots of small fish; Ramsey patiently threw a big Rapala. So I now switch to the big boy: the huge Lucky Craft Pointer that has worked so well for me on largemouths.
I throw the Pointer upstream and cross-stream and downstream through several deep pools and across knee-deep currents. It receives no interest. It casts a long way and while retrieving it I scan the pebbled bottom for porcelain. I am reminded of the Ohoopee – the long-ago south Georgia sand river in which I waded and from which I collected shards of Indian pottery. Mostly on dry sandbars, the spoonsize pieces were flat and curved and showed parallel rows of ridges. I would find some during every wade.
The fish don’t bite. Those three I caught early on are the only ones I will catch today, but they propel my hope for more than an hour downstream and then back up. River waders are always perplexed about turning around and heading back. There is always one more good spot to try. There is always one more good pool in the distance. There is always one more fish that jumps just out of casting range.
On the way back as I collect more porcelain, I round a bend and look up and see two anglers: bank-sitting, bucket-toting, line-watching, nasty-word- spewing, aluminum-can-drinking types.
“Catchin’ any?” I hail them as I approach. (My only route upstream is by them and their bucket.)
“Just one small one,” says one of them – surprisingly nicely.
“Any advice for smallmouths?” I ask. “This is my first time on this river.”
“They’re under the rocks,” is the reply.
I don’t dawdle or ask for photographs or interviews, but as I wade purposefully by I do learn that they’re using live crawfish and have had no luck except for the small one that they released.
I round the next bend and the next one before I get to within site of my starting point. Before exiting the river I find and collect a huge, Bible-size piece of river glass: a couple of inches thick, rectangular, with smooth-melted edges and swirls of mesmerizing surface patterns. Back at the hotel I wash and scrub and dry it and begin to see images within the surface patterns – not manufactured images, but images stemming from that same portion of the mind that sees things in clouds. In yesterday’s newspaper I read that some fellow had sold on e-Bay a Madonna-imaged thing that he had found. Back home in a few days I will ask Janet to help me look at my piece of river glass; we will continue to look and look and look.
Photo: John Bryan holding Chagrin River smallmouth
Business Park Pond, Berea, Ohio
August 22 2007, Business Park Pond, Berea, Ohio
Business park ponds present a set of tricky wickets, and I now guide the reader – and myself – through them as I encounter this one on my travels.
Fundamental rule: when you do find a good-fishing business park pond, don’t broadcast the information. The best way to get a bunch of No Fishing signs planted is to attract a lot of anglers who litter the grounds with used fishing line, empty worm containers, and drink cans. Thus today’s pond remains anonymous.
I am in Berea for just a portion of a day, but I can’t resist driving into a business park to investigate the wooded, weeded, area out back. Sometimes such woods and weeds are there to camouflage retention ponds, borrow pits, and other bodies of water associated with the business park’s construction and operation.
Today I am not disappointed. There is a beautiful little two-acre pond, and there is even a spot that provides fishable access. I park and walk the 20 feet to the pond’s edge.
(A note about parking: for these sorts of ponds there is almost always nearby parking. Of course you never want to park in a Reserved or No Parking spot.)
Next I look for fences and No Fishing, No Trespassing, and No Entry signs – nothing. So I gather my rod and lure vest from the trunk, tie on a finesse worm, and go quickly to the access area. The pond is muddy-brown with only a few inches of visibility. I look for minnows and bluegill along the shoreline in front of me, but I see none. I look across the smooth pond’s surface for splashes of baitfish and larger fish, but nothing. And I look for fish-eating birds - herons, cormorants, ospreys – and I see none.
From a lot of experience I do know that some of these ponds have no fish. Their water may not be healthy, they may have been chemically treated, they may have been recently drained dry, who knows? But I always arrive with positive expectation.
The pond is lined with extremely thick bushes and trees and shrubs, and I throw the worm parallel to the bank in both directions, hoping to lure a bass that’s hiding among the overhangs. My standing area includes little purple-clustered wildflowers on which bumblebees alight. Behind me is the business park, adjacent is a hotel, and across the main road is a restaurant. Cars hum a background chorus.
I work the finesse worm along the shoreline in both directions with no results. Then I fan-cast it out into the main pond, inching it along the bottom to feel for structure. A dozen casts later – that’s usually the point when I switch lures – I change to a chrome Rat-L-Trap so I can cast even further, reel even faster, and cover even more water. With limited time on an unknown body of water you want to cover a lot of water with a lot of lures in a hurry.
I still have seen no sign of minnows or fish, and I begin to suspect that this is a dead pond. Fifty feet to my left I see a four-inch white pipe sticking out from the steep bank and dripping some sort of liquid into the pond. At the drip area is a small flotsam of foam. I scour the ground around me and see no angling trash: no hook packages, no pieces of discarded line, no bobbers. And still not even one fishy splash or swirl. I am on the borderline of giving up on this fishless pond.
Then I see it! On the ground, hidden by greenery: a discarded plastic bait package. Yum Dingers, Junebug color! This is a good find. Only serious bass anglers use Yum Dingers, and only
knowledgeable bass anglers use them in the Junebug color.
So with fresh hope, nervous hands, and quickening heart I quickly tie on a Senko (similar to a Dinger) in green pumpkin (only color I have) and toss it to a shoreline bush. Bingo! A 12-inch bass. And during my remaining 45 minutes I catch six more – the largest almost two pounds.
Now there are at least two bass anglers who know about this pond’s bass. But had the other angler not discarded the lure package I would have likely departed thinking the pond was fishless.
There are all sorts of office park ponds and shopping center ponds and housing complex ponds. The ones you want to look for are the ones that are hidden within seemingly unattended woods and bushes. Usually you’ll have to snake your way through briars and vines and thick stuff. But more times than not there are fish waiting for you. People ask me how the fish get there. I don’t know.
Business park ponds present a set of tricky wickets, and I now guide the reader – and myself – through them as I encounter this one on my travels.
Fundamental rule: when you do find a good-fishing business park pond, don’t broadcast the information. The best way to get a bunch of No Fishing signs planted is to attract a lot of anglers who litter the grounds with used fishing line, empty worm containers, and drink cans. Thus today’s pond remains anonymous.
I am in Berea for just a portion of a day, but I can’t resist driving into a business park to investigate the wooded, weeded, area out back. Sometimes such woods and weeds are there to camouflage retention ponds, borrow pits, and other bodies of water associated with the business park’s construction and operation.
Today I am not disappointed. There is a beautiful little two-acre pond, and there is even a spot that provides fishable access. I park and walk the 20 feet to the pond’s edge.
(A note about parking: for these sorts of ponds there is almost always nearby parking. Of course you never want to park in a Reserved or No Parking spot.)
Next I look for fences and No Fishing, No Trespassing, and No Entry signs – nothing. So I gather my rod and lure vest from the trunk, tie on a finesse worm, and go quickly to the access area. The pond is muddy-brown with only a few inches of visibility. I look for minnows and bluegill along the shoreline in front of me, but I see none. I look across the smooth pond’s surface for splashes of baitfish and larger fish, but nothing. And I look for fish-eating birds - herons, cormorants, ospreys – and I see none.
From a lot of experience I do know that some of these ponds have no fish. Their water may not be healthy, they may have been chemically treated, they may have been recently drained dry, who knows? But I always arrive with positive expectation.
The pond is lined with extremely thick bushes and trees and shrubs, and I throw the worm parallel to the bank in both directions, hoping to lure a bass that’s hiding among the overhangs. My standing area includes little purple-clustered wildflowers on which bumblebees alight. Behind me is the business park, adjacent is a hotel, and across the main road is a restaurant. Cars hum a background chorus.
I work the finesse worm along the shoreline in both directions with no results. Then I fan-cast it out into the main pond, inching it along the bottom to feel for structure. A dozen casts later – that’s usually the point when I switch lures – I change to a chrome Rat-L-Trap so I can cast even further, reel even faster, and cover even more water. With limited time on an unknown body of water you want to cover a lot of water with a lot of lures in a hurry.
I still have seen no sign of minnows or fish, and I begin to suspect that this is a dead pond. Fifty feet to my left I see a four-inch white pipe sticking out from the steep bank and dripping some sort of liquid into the pond. At the drip area is a small flotsam of foam. I scour the ground around me and see no angling trash: no hook packages, no pieces of discarded line, no bobbers. And still not even one fishy splash or swirl. I am on the borderline of giving up on this fishless pond.
Then I see it! On the ground, hidden by greenery: a discarded plastic bait package. Yum Dingers, Junebug color! This is a good find. Only serious bass anglers use Yum Dingers, and only
knowledgeable bass anglers use them in the Junebug color.So with fresh hope, nervous hands, and quickening heart I quickly tie on a Senko (similar to a Dinger) in green pumpkin (only color I have) and toss it to a shoreline bush. Bingo! A 12-inch bass. And during my remaining 45 minutes I catch six more – the largest almost two pounds.
Now there are at least two bass anglers who know about this pond’s bass. But had the other angler not discarded the lure package I would have likely departed thinking the pond was fishless.
There are all sorts of office park ponds and shopping center ponds and housing complex ponds. The ones you want to look for are the ones that are hidden within seemingly unattended woods and bushes. Usually you’ll have to snake your way through briars and vines and thick stuff. But more times than not there are fish waiting for you. People ask me how the fish get there. I don’t know.
Eleanor B. Garfield Park, Greater Cleveland
August 25 2007, Eleanor B. Garfield Park, Greater Cleveland
This is a community park with picnic facilities, playgrounds, soccer and baseball fields, and a two-acre pond. I simply saw the sign on the road and turned in to take a look. The park is active with games and picnickers. When I arrive there is only one angler. I walk up to him and ask if he’s done any good. “A couple of catfish and some bluegill.” Then I identify myself and ask if I can photograph and interview him. “No, I don’t think I’m interested.” Then as I walk back to my car to get my fishing rod, he reels in his rod, gets into his car, and leaves.
I immediately see a big fish swirl. Then another. During my first few minutes here I will mistake some shoreline swirls for bass, and then I will learn that they are carp. They are all carp. Dozens of carp, hundreds of carp – maybe thousands. They’re everywhere, all at least two or three pounds, some much larger. They are out in the middle and they are right up against the bank in water so shallow that an inch of their back sticks out of the water.
I will fish the pond hard for 90 minutes, walk the entire path around it, throw several types of lures, but will never see a bass or get a bass bite. Finally, at the pond’s headwaters where the little clear stream (Newell Creek – a tributary of the Chagrin River) enters I will catch a four-inch warmouth on a four-inch finesse worm. But that’s it.
There are some lines and bobbers in trees, so I know that others fish here. But the carp are so numerous that they’re bound to crowd everything else out. On one flat I count more than 50 carp so shallow that I can see them.
The grounds and woods surrounding the pond are pretty, and it’s a nice nature-walk around it. There are purple and yellow wildflowers as tall as my chest, Queen Anne’s Lace, lavender dandelions, little yellow snapdragons, blue daisies. There are bright blue dragonflies and pumpkin-rust dragonflies. And there are mallards and Canada geese everywhere.
I did ask that one angler if there are bass in the pond, and he said yes. But he was live-worm fishing for non-bass.
There are bushes with blue berries, bushes with red berries, and oaks with acorns as big as walnuts. And crabapple trees: one with deep red fruit that falls when I shake the branches. I eat a couple – tartly delicious. And there are deer prints on the muddy sections of the shore.
The signature landmark of this pond is an old nearly-dead willow trunk with the girth of a rhinoceros and gnarly bark that mimics that da Vinci drawing of an old man. The tree stands on the back side of the pond where the path leads through and under thick woods.
I eventually give up on the fish and my casts become hopeless efforts. I listen to the loudspeaker for the baseball game. Runners on second and third and batter up. I peer through the woods and see the field. The pitcher is tall and lanky and the batter is short and scrawny. Two outs. It’s up to the batter to try to extend the inning. First pitch: SQUEEZE PLAY! He bunts as the runner from third sprints home! The dusty slide. . and . . . he’s . . . foul ball! The bunt rolled foul just as the runner slid into home. Second pitch: a stinger to short! The shortstop makes the long throw to first, in the dirt, gets away, and one runner scores! The other runner gets caught in a rundown and gets tagged out. One run in, but the inning’s over.
Far more exciting than my fish-catching abilities.
As I leave and walk across a little meadow to my car I see a huge squirrel. I’ve seen big fox squirrels back in Tennessee, but this thing is really big. And he’s sort of ambling on all fours like a bear. He has caramel brown fur and one of the longest tails – also caramel – that I’ve ever seen. He stops and looks at me. He’s between me and my car. I continue towards him. He doesn’t move. Finally at six feet I stop. His eyes are riveted onto mine. A stare-down showdown between me and a squirrel. I am a bit concerned. But my stare outduels his, and he scampers up a nearby tree.
This is a community park with picnic facilities, playgrounds, soccer and baseball fields, and a two-acre pond. I simply saw the sign on the road and turned in to take a look. The park is active with games and picnickers. When I arrive there is only one angler. I walk up to him and ask if he’s done any good. “A couple of catfish and some bluegill.” Then I identify myself and ask if I can photograph and interview him. “No, I don’t think I’m interested.” Then as I walk back to my car to get my fishing rod, he reels in his rod, gets into his car, and leaves.
I immediately see a big fish swirl. Then another. During my first few minutes here I will mistake some shoreline swirls for bass, and then I will learn that they are carp. They are all carp. Dozens of carp, hundreds of carp – maybe thousands. They’re everywhere, all at least two or three pounds, some much larger. They are out in the middle and they are right up against the bank in water so shallow that an inch of their back sticks out of the water.
I will fish the pond hard for 90 minutes, walk the entire path around it, throw several types of lures, but will never see a bass or get a bass bite. Finally, at the pond’s headwaters where the little clear stream (Newell Creek – a tributary of the Chagrin River) enters I will catch a four-inch warmouth on a four-inch finesse worm. But that’s it.
There are some lines and bobbers in trees, so I know that others fish here. But the carp are so numerous that they’re bound to crowd everything else out. On one flat I count more than 50 carp so shallow that I can see them.
The grounds and woods surrounding the pond are pretty, and it’s a nice nature-walk around it. There are purple and yellow wildflowers as tall as my chest, Queen Anne’s Lace, lavender dandelions, little yellow snapdragons, blue daisies. There are bright blue dragonflies and pumpkin-rust dragonflies. And there are mallards and Canada geese everywhere.
I did ask that one angler if there are bass in the pond, and he said yes. But he was live-worm fishing for non-bass.
There are bushes with blue berries, bushes with red berries, and oaks with acorns as big as walnuts. And crabapple trees: one with deep red fruit that falls when I shake the branches. I eat a couple – tartly delicious. And there are deer prints on the muddy sections of the shore.
The signature landmark of this pond is an old nearly-dead willow trunk with the girth of a rhinoceros and gnarly bark that mimics that da Vinci drawing of an old man. The tree stands on the back side of the pond where the path leads through and under thick woods.
I eventually give up on the fish and my casts become hopeless efforts. I listen to the loudspeaker for the baseball game. Runners on second and third and batter up. I peer through the woods and see the field. The pitcher is tall and lanky and the batter is short and scrawny. Two outs. It’s up to the batter to try to extend the inning. First pitch: SQUEEZE PLAY! He bunts as the runner from third sprints home! The dusty slide. . and . . . he’s . . . foul ball! The bunt rolled foul just as the runner slid into home. Second pitch: a stinger to short! The shortstop makes the long throw to first, in the dirt, gets away, and one runner scores! The other runner gets caught in a rundown and gets tagged out. One run in, but the inning’s over.
Far more exciting than my fish-catching abilities.
As I leave and walk across a little meadow to my car I see a huge squirrel. I’ve seen big fox squirrels back in Tennessee, but this thing is really big. And he’s sort of ambling on all fours like a bear. He has caramel brown fur and one of the longest tails – also caramel – that I’ve ever seen. He stops and looks at me. He’s between me and my car. I continue towards him. He doesn’t move. Finally at six feet I stop. His eyes are riveted onto mine. A stare-down showdown between me and a squirrel. I am a bit concerned. But my stare outduels his, and he scampers up a nearby tree.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Shawnee State Park Lake
August 29 2007, Shawnee State Park Lake, southern Pennsylvania
Well, this is odd.
Here I am standing on the roadside wooded shoreline of a 450-acre lake in a 4,000-acre state park and there is absolutely no noise. No caws of big crows, no chirpings of little birds, no crickets, no locusts, no rustling of leaves, no cars passing by, no boats, not even the wind in the willows. Nothing. I tilt my head and observe this silence; how is it possible?
But wait, there’s more.
I walk over to the boat rental building – unused rowboats and canoes and paddleboats on the lawn in front – and the building is locked and vacant. Boldly posted on the front window are the days and hours of operation, and it is supposed to be open today, Wednesday. But nobody is home.
Discarded on the ground is what looks like a large, open, plastic yogurt container half full of a brown mess. With my toe I tilt the container and read: “Catfish Charlie’s Shad Dip – Catfish Bait.” This “shad dip” has been here roasting and basting in today’s hot sun, but there is no stink. I lean over and sniff carefully to confirm the absence of odor. Confirmed.
There’s still more.
I look out across this huge lake that stretches its arms in several directions and see only a flat surface – no splashes of fish, no dimplings of minnows, no wet-winged flutterings of swifts, no swirlings of turtles, not even a ripple of a bubble.
This lake and I are surrounded by 360 degrees of forests and hills, and I realize that the treetops and hilltops are invisible; a hot haze has erased and smeared them into the washed-out paleness of a blue-bleached sky.
Once again I listen: a hollow and soundless nothing.
And I don’t know it yet, but I will catch no fish, get no bites.
The dock area has No Fishing signs, and the two nearby road bridges that cross arms of the lake have No Fishing From Bridge signs, so I walk a few hundred yards along the shorelines to cast my bass lures.
The water has a pale brown hue and two feet of visibility – perfect for a Senko. But cast after cast after cast into shoreline shadows, under fallen trees, and alongside submerged weeds produce nothing.
My path is bordered by a meadow that sprouts purple dandelions and stunted Queen Anne’s Lace. Sycamores and firs are tall along the shore. A dozen muffin-size mushrooms grow in a row near my path. An empty nightcrawler container is littered among them. And I see a lone striped chipmunk scamper silently, then stand alert on his hind legs, then scamper again and disappear.
I switch to a chrome Rat-L-Trap and with it search lots of water out far, in close, and beneath one of the bridges. From atop the bridge undulates a 40-foot strand of glistening fishing line which is anchored in the vicinity of the No Fishing From Bridge sign.
I can see hundreds of acres of lake and thousands of yards of shoreline and there are zero anglers on this good-weather August day.
Then, finally, I see a fishing boat in the water; actually it is tethered to the shore up ahead. I arrive to find it fully equipped with electric motor, depthfinder, baited fishing rods, and no angler. Where is the boat’s owner? I stand and cast for 15 minutes waiting for an appearance that doesn’t happen.
Perhaps an hour later, after throwing fishless bass lures into lots of great spots, I give up on the bass and decide to fish for whatever will bite. I hate to go fishless on this fishiest-looking of lakes. I tie on my never-fail rig: two 32nd-ounce jigs a foot apart – one in pink/white and the other chartreuse/white. I will toss and swim them in tandem among the bridge’s shadows, alongside its pilings, and tempt crappie and bluegill and perhaps a bass or two.
But cast after cast after cast are ignored.
Finally I give totally up. This is such a beautiful lake and a beautiful park, but I have arrived at a time when the stars are obviously in peculiar alignment. (Janet later tells me it must have had something to do with the eclipse.) I have never before experienced this total absence of all stirrings.
A lake is a terrible thing to waste.
Photo: John Bryan at Shawnee State Park Lake
Well, this is odd.
Here I am standing on the roadside wooded shoreline of a 450-acre lake in a 4,000-acre state park and there is absolutely no noise. No caws of big crows, no chirpings of little birds, no crickets, no locusts, no rustling of leaves, no cars passing by, no boats, not even the wind in the willows. Nothing. I tilt my head and observe this silence; how is it possible?
But wait, there’s more.
I walk over to the boat rental building – unused rowboats and canoes and paddleboats on the lawn in front – and the building is locked and vacant. Boldly posted on the front window are the days and hours of operation, and it is supposed to be open today, Wednesday. But nobody is home.
Discarded on the ground is what looks like a large, open, plastic yogurt container half full of a brown mess. With my toe I tilt the container and read: “Catfish Charlie’s Shad Dip – Catfish Bait.” This “shad dip” has been here roasting and basting in today’s hot sun, but there is no stink. I lean over and sniff carefully to confirm the absence of odor. Confirmed.
There’s still more.
I look out across this huge lake that stretches its arms in several directions and see only a flat surface – no splashes of fish, no dimplings of minnows, no wet-winged flutterings of swifts, no swirlings of turtles, not even a ripple of a bubble.
This lake and I are surrounded by 360 degrees of forests and hills, and I realize that the treetops and hilltops are invisible; a hot haze has erased and smeared them into the washed-out paleness of a blue-bleached sky.
Once again I listen: a hollow and soundless nothing.
And I don’t know it yet, but I will catch no fish, get no bites.
The dock area has No Fishing signs, and the two nearby road bridges that cross arms of the lake have No Fishing From Bridge signs, so I walk a few hundred yards along the shorelines to cast my bass lures.
The water has a pale brown hue and two feet of visibility – perfect for a Senko. But cast after cast after cast into shoreline shadows, under fallen trees, and alongside submerged weeds produce nothing.
My path is bordered by a meadow that sprouts purple dandelions and stunted Queen Anne’s Lace. Sycamores and firs are tall along the shore. A dozen muffin-size mushrooms grow in a row near my path. An empty nightcrawler container is littered among them. And I see a lone striped chipmunk scamper silently, then stand alert on his hind legs, then scamper again and disappear.
I switch to a chrome Rat-L-Trap and with it search lots of water out far, in close, and beneath one of the bridges. From atop the bridge undulates a 40-foot strand of glistening fishing line which is anchored in the vicinity of the No Fishing From Bridge sign.
I can see hundreds of acres of lake and thousands of yards of shoreline and there are zero anglers on this good-weather August day.
Then, finally, I see a fishing boat in the water; actually it is tethered to the shore up ahead. I arrive to find it fully equipped with electric motor, depthfinder, baited fishing rods, and no angler. Where is the boat’s owner? I stand and cast for 15 minutes waiting for an appearance that doesn’t happen.
Perhaps an hour later, after throwing fishless bass lures into lots of great spots, I give up on the bass and decide to fish for whatever will bite. I hate to go fishless on this fishiest-looking of lakes. I tie on my never-fail rig: two 32nd-ounce jigs a foot apart – one in pink/white and the other chartreuse/white. I will toss and swim them in tandem among the bridge’s shadows, alongside its pilings, and tempt crappie and bluegill and perhaps a bass or two.
But cast after cast after cast are ignored.
Finally I give totally up. This is such a beautiful lake and a beautiful park, but I have arrived at a time when the stars are obviously in peculiar alignment. (Janet later tells me it must have had something to do with the eclipse.) I have never before experienced this total absence of all stirrings.
A lake is a terrible thing to waste.
Photo: John Bryan at Shawnee State Park Lake
North Park Lake, Pittsburgh
August 28 2007, North Park Lake, Pittsburgh
Mike Ciccone rarely fishes – only once, without a fish, at this lake; and another time, with small fish, in Maine – but he does tend the boats for this 80-acre, 70-year-old WPA park constructed as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
I am the only angler here today – a Monday during work hours – and the little rowboat I’ve been assigned glides wonderfully across the lake’s mirror surface. This is an obviously well-used park, and throughout my outing I see a continual sprinkling of bikers and joggers and walkers on the paths and streets that surround the lake.
Mike’s water interest is kayaks. His father doesn’t fish, but in 1999 he took Mike ocean-kayaking in Alaska – a turning-point adventure – and Mike’s been a kayaker ever since. He owns his own boat and is a member of a kayak club.
Although I see no other anglers on the lake, there are two kayakers – bright yellow boats with red life vests and seesawing paddles.
This is a bobby pin lake – two arms that meet at a bend at the dam and overflow area. The arm that holds the boathouse – a grand and gothic stone structure with a big clock at the top (with the wrong time) – is filled with weeds and lily pads into which I toss my first lure of the day: a green Senko. Around the dock I see bluegills, drawn to my presence by their casual curiosity. But no bass. And no bites on the Senko.
Chirpings from above grab my attention and I watch as three swifts bicker and flutter and chase in vertical play. And beauty from lake level also gets my attention; the pads are aflower: bright white blooming onions center-splashed with yellow.
Along one shoreline I see a fallen tree that looks so perfect for bass that I put down my rod and speak into my note-taking recorder: “I am documenting this in advance: I will catch my first bass from this tree.” Of course all of us bass anglers do this: identify perfect spots from which we guarantee that we will catch a bass. In this case it works. On the first cast a three-pounder grabs the Senko, and I reel him in and release him. Although I will catch several more bass in this lake, this will be the largest.
Mike says that on weekdays only one or two anglers will rent boats, but on weekends maybe a dozen or so. He adds that many more anglers fish from the easily accessible shorelines. He doesn’t know what anyone catches; he never sees them bringing in their fish.
A bit further along this shoreline I catch two more bass – both ten-inchers on the Senko. I see an abandoned water bottle standing on the middle of a green picnic table. And among the waterside rushes is a huge flower, its four petals reaching widely and facing skyward like a lavender satellite dish.
Mike also likes to hike and climb; he’s summated two 14,000-foot peaks. On the first one his hands became swollen, a result of high altitude edema. No problems on the second one. Once when climbing Lookout Mountain – an 8,000-foot peak outside Golden, Colorado, he lost the trail and got lost in the woods in the dark. He knew there were steep drops, and he also knew there was a tower at the top of the peak. So in the darkness he grabbed hold of tree after tree as he worked his way back to the top and then followed a different trail back down. He walked 13 extra miles to get back.
There is one frightening thing here on this lake: the overflow. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s a hundred-foot semicircle that’s difficult to recognize until you get close and realize that a foot of water is continually rushing over it and then cascading a hundred feet below. Back at the boathouse I had been told, “Stay away from the overflow,” along with instructions about the life vest and when to return the boat. I’ve been on lots of little lakes with overflows and none of them is ever dangerous. But this one is. Fortunately I recognize it in plenty of time to avoid getting sucked over.
Along the dam area is steeper, deeper water, and on the third cast I catch my second largest bass of the day: a very fat two-pounder, again on the Senko. A road with lots of traffic traverses the dam, and not twenty feet above me a tow truck attends to a broken car. The driver wears khakis and a crimson-striped golf shirt. With his left hand he talks on his cell phone while he enunciates with his right.
Mike also does mapping, including ten trail maps in a year for Backpacker Magazine. He explains
that GPS mappings of trails are needed, and he walks them with his GPS and tape recorder, noting things like crossing bike paths, nearness to roads, etc. Then his version is reduced to a dozen or so essential details. His biggest trail will be the 34-mile Rachel Carson Trail which runs partly through this park. Twice he has done one-day hikes of that trail. He says that many trails are so badly marked that it takes two or three hikes to get the correct trail description.
A lone cormorant drifts in midlake. He doesn’t dive. This open area near the dam is exposed to a slight breeze, and the lake’s avocado-green surface has turned from mirror to frosted glass. I’m now on the shady side of the lake, but no bites. I learned long ago that if a lake has a sunny side and a shady side, you can catch more bass on the sunny side. Just toss your lures into the little shady spots; they concentrate the bass.
There is a stone passageway beneath the road and it leads to a shallow slough filled with pads. Paddling beneath it I read the graffiti: “Scott loves Nicole” in blue, and “Lisa + Tim D.” in pink. The slough is perfect for a frog, so I tie on a Stanley Ribbit buzzfrog and on the fifth cast catch a one-pounder that exploded like a ten-pounder. But he was obviously a decoy bass, because another half hour with the frog produces nothing.
This slough is filled with those little two-inch dragonflies that alight on the pads and stickups: the bright blue-tailed ones and the equally numerous pumpkin-rust variety.
A Great Blue Heron flies just above the water’s surface, huge neck reaching forward towards the mudbar where he lands.
When I return the boat I have caught nine bass – all but one on the Senko. I also tried a Rat-L-Trap without any hits. The Senko got hundreds of hits from the bluegill and tiny bass that line the deeper shorelines.
As Mike tends to my boat he tells me that his favorite thing about his work here is talking to folks about the kayaks – giving advice and tips and suggestions. And his least favorite thing is chaining the rowboats at night. He has to run an awkward chain through them and sometimes the locks get stuck.
Next to the boathouse is a giant and very goofy catfish – a sculpted and painted piece of some sort of stone – and I persuade Mike to stand next to it for a photograph with his kayak gear. The lake stretches in the distance as the sun sinks behind us in the Pennsylvania woods.
Mike Ciccone rarely fishes – only once, without a fish, at this lake; and another time, with small fish, in Maine – but he does tend the boats for this 80-acre, 70-year-old WPA park constructed as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
I am the only angler here today – a Monday during work hours – and the little rowboat I’ve been assigned glides wonderfully across the lake’s mirror surface. This is an obviously well-used park, and throughout my outing I see a continual sprinkling of bikers and joggers and walkers on the paths and streets that surround the lake.
Mike’s water interest is kayaks. His father doesn’t fish, but in 1999 he took Mike ocean-kayaking in Alaska – a turning-point adventure – and Mike’s been a kayaker ever since. He owns his own boat and is a member of a kayak club.
Although I see no other anglers on the lake, there are two kayakers – bright yellow boats with red life vests and seesawing paddles.
This is a bobby pin lake – two arms that meet at a bend at the dam and overflow area. The arm that holds the boathouse – a grand and gothic stone structure with a big clock at the top (with the wrong time) – is filled with weeds and lily pads into which I toss my first lure of the day: a green Senko. Around the dock I see bluegills, drawn to my presence by their casual curiosity. But no bass. And no bites on the Senko.
Chirpings from above grab my attention and I watch as three swifts bicker and flutter and chase in vertical play. And beauty from lake level also gets my attention; the pads are aflower: bright white blooming onions center-splashed with yellow.
Along one shoreline I see a fallen tree that looks so perfect for bass that I put down my rod and speak into my note-taking recorder: “I am documenting this in advance: I will catch my first bass from this tree.” Of course all of us bass anglers do this: identify perfect spots from which we guarantee that we will catch a bass. In this case it works. On the first cast a three-pounder grabs the Senko, and I reel him in and release him. Although I will catch several more bass in this lake, this will be the largest.
Mike says that on weekdays only one or two anglers will rent boats, but on weekends maybe a dozen or so. He adds that many more anglers fish from the easily accessible shorelines. He doesn’t know what anyone catches; he never sees them bringing in their fish.
A bit further along this shoreline I catch two more bass – both ten-inchers on the Senko. I see an abandoned water bottle standing on the middle of a green picnic table. And among the waterside rushes is a huge flower, its four petals reaching widely and facing skyward like a lavender satellite dish.
Mike also likes to hike and climb; he’s summated two 14,000-foot peaks. On the first one his hands became swollen, a result of high altitude edema. No problems on the second one. Once when climbing Lookout Mountain – an 8,000-foot peak outside Golden, Colorado, he lost the trail and got lost in the woods in the dark. He knew there were steep drops, and he also knew there was a tower at the top of the peak. So in the darkness he grabbed hold of tree after tree as he worked his way back to the top and then followed a different trail back down. He walked 13 extra miles to get back.
There is one frightening thing here on this lake: the overflow. I’ve never seen one like it. It’s a hundred-foot semicircle that’s difficult to recognize until you get close and realize that a foot of water is continually rushing over it and then cascading a hundred feet below. Back at the boathouse I had been told, “Stay away from the overflow,” along with instructions about the life vest and when to return the boat. I’ve been on lots of little lakes with overflows and none of them is ever dangerous. But this one is. Fortunately I recognize it in plenty of time to avoid getting sucked over.
Along the dam area is steeper, deeper water, and on the third cast I catch my second largest bass of the day: a very fat two-pounder, again on the Senko. A road with lots of traffic traverses the dam, and not twenty feet above me a tow truck attends to a broken car. The driver wears khakis and a crimson-striped golf shirt. With his left hand he talks on his cell phone while he enunciates with his right.
Mike also does mapping, including ten trail maps in a year for Backpacker Magazine. He explains
that GPS mappings of trails are needed, and he walks them with his GPS and tape recorder, noting things like crossing bike paths, nearness to roads, etc. Then his version is reduced to a dozen or so essential details. His biggest trail will be the 34-mile Rachel Carson Trail which runs partly through this park. Twice he has done one-day hikes of that trail. He says that many trails are so badly marked that it takes two or three hikes to get the correct trail description.A lone cormorant drifts in midlake. He doesn’t dive. This open area near the dam is exposed to a slight breeze, and the lake’s avocado-green surface has turned from mirror to frosted glass. I’m now on the shady side of the lake, but no bites. I learned long ago that if a lake has a sunny side and a shady side, you can catch more bass on the sunny side. Just toss your lures into the little shady spots; they concentrate the bass.
There is a stone passageway beneath the road and it leads to a shallow slough filled with pads. Paddling beneath it I read the graffiti: “Scott loves Nicole” in blue, and “Lisa + Tim D.” in pink. The slough is perfect for a frog, so I tie on a Stanley Ribbit buzzfrog and on the fifth cast catch a one-pounder that exploded like a ten-pounder. But he was obviously a decoy bass, because another half hour with the frog produces nothing.
This slough is filled with those little two-inch dragonflies that alight on the pads and stickups: the bright blue-tailed ones and the equally numerous pumpkin-rust variety.
A Great Blue Heron flies just above the water’s surface, huge neck reaching forward towards the mudbar where he lands.
When I return the boat I have caught nine bass – all but one on the Senko. I also tried a Rat-L-Trap without any hits. The Senko got hundreds of hits from the bluegill and tiny bass that line the deeper shorelines.
As Mike tends to my boat he tells me that his favorite thing about his work here is talking to folks about the kayaks – giving advice and tips and suggestions. And his least favorite thing is chaining the rowboats at night. He has to run an awkward chain through them and sometimes the locks get stuck.
Next to the boathouse is a giant and very goofy catfish – a sculpted and painted piece of some sort of stone – and I persuade Mike to stand next to it for a photograph with his kayak gear. The lake stretches in the distance as the sun sinks behind us in the Pennsylvania woods.
Photo: Mike Ciccone at North Park
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
