I have just about had it with winter. This is the weather equivalent to waterboarding for me. There is no dosage of vitamin D that will help me right now.
The winter is usually tempered for me by the open water fishing going on in the inner-harbor. But this year it has been lukewarm mediocre at best since New Year’s Eve. There have been a few Browns and Rainbows caught here and there, but the most consistent species has probably been the Walleye this year. There has been a lack of shad in the areas open to the public and that has always been the key to having a decent winter Brown Trout bite. In the past twenty five years it has been a feast or famine fishery sometimes catching 10 fish per winter and at times having 100 fish winters.
It has been dependent on a variety of weather situations over the years. Big thaws or winter rain events will screw it up by moving the bait and making the rivers brown and muddy for weeks or better. I don’t care how good the bite had been, a big rain or melt will shut it down and change everything. A warm winter will never allow this inner harbor fishery to set up either. A warm harbor means there is no urgency for these fish to look for warm water.
Unfortunately, some of the best years have been when the winter was cold and dry. The situation that this fishery faces right now is the dwindling use of Valley Power Plant which discharges warm water into the area and provides the open water that we have all winter. I have been told that this plant now primarily provides steam for the downtown businesses that still use steam. So the water isn’t as warm at times and it also doesn’t affect as much area as it did years ago. There were years when the confluence area near the Shoe Polish factory or the area near Canal and 13th street never froze. In the past few years, it consistently freezes.
Well, I can just hope that we are back out in the harbor in the next two to three weeks.
The attached photo is a nice 21 inch walleye taken by Tom Frohna last weekend. As much as I joke about the ambiance of the inner harbor, the diesel train horns, sirens, weird smells, security people with tazers, escaped live stock, panhandlers, three legged dogs, goose poop, and this general background noise that makes you feel like you are in the mechanical room of a large building…. It serves a purpose. It keeps many of us sane for a couple months. Let’s face it, we’d be braggin’ up a 21 inch walleye if we caught it on any lake in northern WI, so it’s a pretty special fishery to be able to catch it in downtown Milwaukee.
Two Legends Pass on:
This past couple weeks has been tough on the fishing world losing two legends. The first was Captain Mel Berman, a Florida radio show host, and legendary angler. He also has one of the best websites on Florida fishing that there is. For those of you from the Midwest not familiar with him, in Florida, mentioning the name “Captain Mel” is like mentioning Al Lindner up here.
The other was Jack Burns, legendary musky fisherman, educator, and advocate for catch and release musky fishing. Jack was the editor of Esox Angler magazine.
Both of these guys were true professionals and will leave a huge void in the angling community.
Till next time, tight lines and smooth drags………
