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I was definitely overdue. This does not necessarily mean anything in terms of catching fish, but I was definitely overdue. On my last trip, I had been blown off. And while being blown off can sometimes be a good thing, that time it hadn't been.
My dad picked me up in Oakville at 5:30 a.m. [sheesh] on Wednesday morning December 3rd. I managed to crawl from bed to the passenger seat of his van, and remembered to pack my boots this time. Last time I enjoyed sitting in the rain in running shoes with my socks in plastic bags. I awoke at the Tim's in Picton, where the gene pool is a bit, er, uh, "shallow".....? At any rate even the simplest can usually make the coffee right - they go to Tim's Training School in Oakville, you know - and by good fortune yesterday morning proved to be no exception. What a stroke of luck.
Picton Harbour was frozen shut, with the outline of a boat's ice-breaking activities of the night before leading to the ramp. We continued out to Glenora Marine to pick up our boat where buddy had been working on the motor. The temperature had warmed from 18F up to about 26F, and with the sun shining it wasn't too terribly cold.
Since we had packed away the boat in the rain last time, we found the carpeted compartment doors and their locks to be frozen shut. A bit of WD-40 managed to get one of them working, but a more persuasive method was required for the other. Sticking the brass key into the lock and trying to turn it only convinced me it wouldn't move.
"Where's those pliers?" asked my dad with some impatience. Grabbing the channel locks and spraying WD-40 into the lock, my dad applied pliers to brass key, and son of a gun, if it didn't turn.
"What was so hard about that?" he asked, looking down at the brass key which had a near ninety-degree twist in it. Oh.
Borrowing an old Scottish climbers' winter climbing trick [no, not wearing socks on verglassed rock so the wool adheres to the iced surface] I borrowed a propane blowtorch from buddy inside, and after melting the ice in the lock [and some of the surrounding carpet for good measure] it looked ready to try again.
My dad stuck the twisted key into the lock and vigorously worked it with the pliers. It moved - the key - and then proceeded to break. As I pried open the compartment hatch with a screwdriver and bent the latch all to ratshit, I remarked, "like, you're not making a great display of mechanical aptitude this morning......"
[Heh heh - I said "ratshit", and it didn't get edited. No dirty word filter, eh? Ooooooh! Let's try some other ones. Watch this, guys: "kn-ckers" Hey! What the....? How about this one instead: "kn-ckers" Dang, that one didn't work, either. Oh well, back to the story]
The launch ramp at the marina proved a bit easier to use this year, what with the water levels being higher, and no one-foot-high wall of ice to stymie us. The motor started beautifully and miraculously stayed running. I didn't even need to use the ol' "rev the engine to 2000 rpm and shove it into gear before it stalls" trick. Heading towards the ferry with a 20 kph tailwind straight out of the west, I was amazed to discover our boat's top speed was 35 mph, not the 26 mph of so of days past. Imaginez ca...
In brilliant pre-noon sunshine we started trolling deep divers just south of the ferry within a couple hundred yards of the Picton-side shore, and in no time nailed the first fish off the side planer using my dad's Killer Lure that he had caught his 15 lb 3 ouncer on a few years ago - the #9 silver Shad Rap, easily recognized by the teeth marks. "Another Zabrok No Handed Fish," declared my dad.
We were marking all sorts of fish along the south shore, especially in the 62' depth of so. Although we had minnows, we figured we'd troll first and see how we'd do. There were few places where the fish were stacked deeply enough you'd be tempted to jig, anyway. In short order, a fish whacked my deep diving clown Husky Jerk on 14 lb Fireline just as I was letting it out. Fish on! Fortunately I had the presence of mind to "thumb the spool" or most likely I would have been looking at some Professional Overrun of dire proportion.
We started up again, and moments later the other rod up front started bouncing in its rod holder, and my dad pulled in another beaut. "Who needs to hold the rod?" he said. This we nailed on a deep diving fire tiger Husky Jerk - the smaller size, actually, with only two trebles.
The downrigger wasn't really working for us, even though we had lures running through scads of fish in the 30 to 40 foot range, so we eventually pulled it in, after snapping off the line a couple times in the cold. Perhaps respooling the downrigger reel more frequently than every four years might be an idea, though our cause was aided by the fact that both times the busted line [with lure attached] remained in the downrigger's squeezy-release-thingy. Which is another way of saying that if you're going to be a wanker, you might as well be a lucky one. [There is probably a technical name for the aforementioned device, however I will henceforth refer to it as the "squeezy-release-thingy for the downrigger"]
By and by, we began to notice that the clown Husky Jerk was outfishing the firetiger Husky Jerk, despite the lures being nearly identical, like, except for the colour, eh? Most likely this was due to the fact that we caught four unanswered fish on the clown. "Listen mate," I said, "I'm sure that fire tiger one is getting hits, but you're just not feeling them because the rod's in the holder. Some of those hits on the Fireline have been just gentle taps, like the classic 'night bite' which I never would have felt, let alone hooked, had I not had the rod in my hand."
"Pshaw," scoffed my dad. "I don't need to hold the rod in my hand to catch fish."
"Geeeez, gimme the other rod. You hold the clown one, then. I bet I can catch 'em on this fire tiger one - BANG! - I say, "fish on"..."
Suddenly we began catching more fish on the deep diving fire tiger, most likely because I had casted the deep diving clown off into the distance while the Fireline had been frozen to the reel guides. Great stuff, Fireline - its inelasticity makes for great sensitivity, but just make sure you like, de-ice the guides before you wind up and cast, eh? Man, what I would have given for another dark-coloured deep diving Husky Jerk. Couldn't find another one of the damn things anywhere.
For the remainder of the day, the conversation went along the following lines.
"Hey, are we still fourteen for sixteen?"
"I can't remember. No, wait a minute, we were fourteen for sixteen before we just nailed that last one. I think we're fifteen for seventeen now, aren't we? BANG! Holy frig, what a hit! Just about tore the rod outa my hands! This'll be sixteen for eighteen. Uh, I think..."
"Don't be counting it til you get it into the boat."
"We don't have to get it into the boat to count it. Neil wouldn't."
"What the heck is that other boat doing out there, anyway? He's trolling so fast."
"Must be musky fishing."
"Ho hum, another twelve pounder. Just another normal December day at Quinte, eh?"
"Yeah. Want a picture?"
"Nah, we've got plenty like that."
"Yeah, OK." [Toss] Splash!
[Aside: Remember the days when a ten pounder used to be a legit "trophy"? Quinte rocks! What a bitchin' fishery!]
[Heh heh - I did it again. So there. And if my schoolteacher ex-wife is reading this - "nyah nyah nyah"]
"Hey, check it out! We finally caught one small enough to keep."
"Right on! Pour us another coffee, will ya?"
We caught fish from the ferry on down for perhaps half a mile or so, up to the little point where the houses are, but there seemed to be more fish in the area along the shore where the dead timber is, and near where the waterfall from Lake On The Mountain cascades down. 1.0 mph seemed to work the best, though we caught 'em trolling faster, and we caught 'em trolling slower.
As it got dark and just thereafter, the regular clown started producing, and my dad missed a couple on the silver/black/orange Smithwick Rogue. It's not that his hookset wasn't good, it was his "dropping the rod tip back towards the fish without reeling" bit that needs work. The bite was definitely more intense in the daytime, which runs counter to our dozen or so years of Picton day and nighttime fishing experience.
Since we couldn't bear to not try our favourite spots, we motored up towards Picton Harbour, but crunched into the ice line off of Merlands. We gave it another half hour or so in front of the "Christmas lights house", but nothin' was happenin', so we bailed, and were out of the water at 10pm. We trailered the boat home because [ahem] we are going to Belize next week, and won't be back til the 18th. I'll try not to worry about the Bay of Quinte freezing whilst snorkelling on the barrier reef.
Pretty much all the fish were 9 to 12 lbs, with a couple medium-sized ones, and one little "keeper". We ended up with a final count of 20 for 27, including the one that got off at the side of the boat that Neil would have counted, and would have said was at least fifteen pounds, until he got home and back to work, after which it would have grown to at least eighteen.
But I'll tell you the truth - it was just another twelve pounder.
Ho hum.
EPILOGUE: When I arrived back home at 2 a.m. I immediately found a beautiful little gold-and-black-coloured deep diving Husky Jerk sitting on the table right next to the door where I wouldn't forget it.
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Self-unemployed and available for fishin' mid-week most days.
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Watch out for the sharks next week!