Fishing the Ides of March

Something from the tackle box:

       I praise you, Lord God, with all my heart.  You are glorious and majestic, dressed in royal robes and surrounded by light.  You spread out the sky like a tent, and you built your home over the mighty ocean.  The clouds are your chariot with the wind as its wings.  The winds are your messengers, and flames of fire are your servants.  You built the foundations for the earth, and it will never be shaken.  (Psalm 104:1-5 CEV)

March 15, 2016       

       Today is the Ides of March, and it feels to me like Michigan is on the cusp of an early spring, or if not an early spring, a real nice harbinger of the spring to come.  Winter was not all that hard this year, which I have mixed feelings about.  I really don’t like slogging about in the snow and cold as part of everyday life, so an easy winter is good in that respect, but I had also planned to pick up the ice fishing again this year, something I used to love as a young man but haven’t done much of in the last thirty years or more.  I even asked for (and got!) a new ice auger for Christmas.     

       Alas, my schedule and the weather conspired to only let me out on an iced over Jordan Lake for two mornings through January and February.  By March the ice was gone!  My new auger only drilled about half a dozen holes total and, alas again, I drilled them in bad spots.  Not even a nibble to encourage the cold out of my freezing fingers on those two outings.

       Well, enough of that!  Today was a glorious early spring day, and we’ve felt it coming on for the past two weeks around here.  My fishing buddy, Wayne Swiler has been reminding me that the specks and perch are the first fish to come into the shallows to spawn just as soon as the ice is off the surface.  This is a fact that I’ve known for many years, but it always takes someone reminding me of it to get me motivated to get out on the shoreline with a spinning rod and catch nothing this early in the season! 

       As many times as I’ve fished my favorite spots within the first two weeks of the ice disappearing I’ve yet to catch the promised bountiful harvest of perch and crappies that everyone talks about.  I’ve never seen anyone else do it either, despite all the glowing assurances of success that you hear.  I always figured that I was better off to head out on a day trip to the Tippy Dam on the Manistee River and fish for steelhead at first thaw.  After all, if I’m going to get skunked, I might as well get skunked fishing for a fish that a man can brag about!

the pier at the public beach on Jordan Lake

       Anyway, as my car is in the shop, daytrips are out of the question right now.  So I decided to walk the four blocks from the parsonage I live in to the public beach and docks next to Buddy’s Bar and Grill on Jordan Lake, and see if maybe, this year, I could catch an early perch.  And so off I went.

       What a glorious day to go fishing in the middle of March in Michigan! The sky was more clear than clouds.  “There’s enough blue up there to sew a pair of Dutchman’s britches,” as my Grandma used to say.  And each time the Sun snuck out from behind a cotton ball into that blue and hit you, why, it felt better than lifting warm brown raisin bread out of the toaster. 

this feels so good!

       I sat down on the edge of the village pier and rigged up a small jig and grub to hang a couple of feet below a bobber on line spinning off the reel of one of my favorite rods, a lightweight noodle nine feet long.  It was glorious!  It felt so good to throw that rig out there and watch it splash into the water thirty yards away for the first time in months.

       There was a bit of a breeze, but no sharp edge to it, even when the Sun was behind a cloud.  As I watched my bobber dance on the wind churned ripples of the water my heart sang in praise to the Creator who brought me to such a wonderful place on such a beautiful day.  Fish or no fish, this was good!  I had the place all to myself for some time, giving my heart its chance to sing its psalms of thanksgiving and praise without interruption for a good half an hour, which it did.  My soul was at much at peace with the world, and with the One who made the world, as it had been since my last day of open-water fishing back in November.

       Soon enough, however, the glory of this beautiful day brought others out to this public space that I had claimed as sacred spot. 

local teens goofing off

       The first were a group of six teenagers who had come out to goof around on the floating public docks that were still stacked on the beach for the winter.  They were laughing and showing off for each other.  They were all wearing short-sleeves and eating ice-cream cones! – How wonderfully warm fifty-five degrees can feel when you’ve been wearing a heavy coat each time you’ve stepped outside for the last three months.  Still, I was glad that I had a hooded sweatshirt and a windbreaker on.  Fast approaching sixty feels different than fast approaching sixteen, I guess.  Anyway, they soon moved off to what I am sure was a more entertaining venue from their point of view.  Probably to buy Mountain Dews to wash their ice-creams down with.  I didn’t mind. 

three young fishermen approach

       But being left alone again didn’t last for long.  On the sun-sparkled lake I saw three young men making their way towards me in a rowboat.  More teens I surmised from the course language and laughter that carried to shore from a craft still well out in the lake.  As they drew closer I could see they had fishing rods with them.  Apparently I was not the only idle fisherman lured out by tales of catching specks by the bucket full at this time of the year. 

       As they dropped anchor and started fishing just thirty yards or so from my spot on the pier, I felt some gratification in knowing that my opinion on good fishing spots on this lake was considered by others in our community as being of such great value.  Yet I could have wished that they hadn’t parked quite so close to bobber.  Oh well, I am forgiving of bad fishing etiquette in the young.  Surely their dads will teach them better manners before the lake is awash with boats and anglers this summer. 

only a young man would stand up in a ten foot dingy

       To be honest, it was very pleasant for me to be able eavesdrop on their juvenile joshing and banter.  Twice they hailed passing friends on shore with an invitation to swim on out and join them in the boat.  A rude but laughing reply was returned in both cases.  Friends can get away with talking like that to one another, especially when they are still kids.  Finally, having no more luck than I was having, they rowed on down the shoreline to try the shallow waters near the veteran’s chapel, another spot everyone in town knows to be one of my favorites. 

       Another half hour of fishing by myself, and my bones began to feel the chill, despite the intermittent sunshine and my reasonable clothing.  So I reeled in my line, cleaned my hook, and started my walk back home with a smile on my face.  As I crossed the parking lot of Buddy’s I thought to myself, ‘the old soothsayer who told Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March,” sure couldn’t have had today in mind.’ 

Something to take home in your creel:

       On my walk home I cut through the village park on the path that leads right to the front yard of the parsonage that I live in, just across the street from the northwest corner of the park.  The playground, just off to my left on this path, was full of kids from toddlers to teens, along with a few grownups watching the youngest ones.  A group of pre-teens who had commandeered the merry-go-round called out as I passed, “Hey fisherman!  Did you catch any fish?!”

     “No, I did not!” I replied in mock disgust,  - “But I sure did have a good time trying!” 

       And it was true!