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
