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I’ll continue last week’s story right where I left off. My father and I woke up early and headed off for the Mitten Lake to pay a visit to Al Hanser. We were hoping that Hanser would allow us to use one of his boats for the day. When we had met him the previous evening, he made no commitment to that proposition.
My father knocked and Hanser answered the door. My dad tried to gingerly ask if Hanser had remembered us from the previous evening. Hanser looked a tad under the weather, to be frank. His making the rounds of a number of Lac du Flambeau taverns may have contributed to his condition.
“Aren’t you here to buy some of my wife’s famous homemade lye soap?” he said.
“Of course we are, Al," my father said. "I’d like about $10 worth.”
He handed over a 10-spot and Hanser walked into the house and returned with a brown paper shopping back full of the soap. From six feet away, my eyes began to water. Homemade lye soap is incredibly pungent and unbelievably strong. Used for washing, it can cause damage to your skin. If used for laundry, too much of it can burn holes in fabric.
“Thanks for the soap, Al. So, what about doing some fishing?” my dad asked.
Hanser’s eyes went back and forth from me to my father and back again, sizing us up carefully. He grunted a couple of times before nodding.
“OK," he said. "That’ll be another $10. You have to be off the lake by two o’clock. You are allowed to take home 10 bluegills or sunfish and six crappies.”
Now those limits were strictly numbers that Hanser made up. The official Wisconsin regulations were much more generous. It was said that Hanser gave out different limit numbers to different people every day depending on his mood.
“If I see you trying to catch bass over there along that shoreline," he said. "I’ll get in my boat and come and get you. That’s where my bass go to spawn. I’ll throw you off the lake as fast as I can. Do you understand me?”
This character really was scaring the heck out of me. Please remember that I was merely a pre-teenaged boy. I had never run into people like this guy before.
He was 10 times crabbier than the old men in my neighborhood who would keep your ball if it accidentally flew into their yards. I think I spent the rest of the day on the water with one eye always looking to see if Hanser was in a boat heading toward us.
Well, we hit the water in one of Hanser’s two leaky rowboats. There was no motor and my dad had to row. My job was to use an old coffee can to bail seeping water from the bottom of the boat every now and then.
We got to what appeared to be a good spot and baited up with redworms. Sunfish and bluegill began to hit our offerings immediately.
The action was fast and furious. The fish came totally non-stop. Mitten Lake was every bit as tremendous as I had been hearing for years.
If our lines didn’t have a bluegill on the hook, there would be a sunfish or a crappie or a perch every once in a while. I am not kidding, my friends, these panfish were the largest that I had ever seen, let alone caught.
You know how people often describe big gills as being “the size of pie plates?” Well, I always find that to be an exaggeration. Honestly, these gills and sunfish were the size of salad plates, at least. We were catching fish that weighed over a pound apiece.
We didn’t make it to our 2 p.m. deadline. We ran out of bait at 1. Our ample supply of crawlers, redworms and waxworms was depleted due to the constant action from Mitten’s giant, voracious panfish.
We headed in and pulled up at Hanser’s house and unloaded our gear and the limit of fish that Hanser had specified for us. My dad thanked him and I did too.
"That was the best fishing day I have ever had in my life!” I told him.
Hanser looked at me and said, “I’m glad, son. I bet your father would like to buy a little more of my wife’s famous homemade lye soap, wouldn’t he?”
We drove home and only made one stop. That was at a dump to drop off two bags full of Mrs. Hanser’s famous homemade lye soap.
I hope that all of you have a story or two about fishing with your father or fishing with your son. My dad passed away when I was 17 and I still miss our time on the water together. Happy Father’s day to all!
Fishing Report
Northern Illinois – Dave Kranz from Dave's Bait, Tackle and Taxidermy in Crystal Lake reports: "The Fox Chain O' Lakes has warmed up into the 70's and the fish have gone into summer pattern mode. Look for bait and the fish will be very close by. The current breaks should be good places to look for walleye and white bass. A jig and minnow combo will work well. Largemouth bass can be caught in the slop with a SPRO frog make sure to use a heavy rod and 50-pound Power Pro line to get them out of the weeds. Catfish will hit nightcrawlers, stinkbait or cut bait.
The McHenry, Algonquin and Carpentersville Dams have all been good for cat fishermen lately. Nightcrawlers, stinkbait or cut bait will work for channel cats but use a whole bluegill or a 4- to 6-inch sucker for the big flatheads.
Vulcan Lakes at the Three Oaks Recreation area in Crystal Lake has been good for bass and they are being caught in 10 to 30 feet of water on a Defender football jig or drop shotting a Robo-Worm. Yamamoto Senkos will also work in the shallows in the early morning. This is a catch and release area and no minnows are allowed.
The Hollows Conservation Area run by the McHenry County Conservation District has Lake Atwood there and bluegills and catfish are fairly easy to catch on a waxworm or a nightcrawler. No minnows are allowed there.
Call 815-455-2040 for an update on any of these reported areas. “
Fox Chain report – Chris Taurisano of T-Bone Guide Service (www.tboneguideservice.com - 630-330-9090) sends word, "Things are heating up as far as muskies are concerned. Some crazy patterns are developing. Bigger baits seem to be doing very well. Walleyes are very dependent on weather and wind. Some days are great and some days are very tough. We often have to travel around and cover a lot of water to find fish. A mix of casting, jigging and trolling is needed on most days. Nightcrawlers are definitely the best bet for walleyes. Flicker Shads are great for trolling. If we find the right bait then we find the fish. Hopefully, everyone is doing well. Stay safe and enjoy the water!"
Lake Michigan – The Lake Michigan Fishing Report is provided by Captain Bob Rossa of Migrator Charters - 815-338-8093. "Fishing for the most part has been very good this past week on Lake Michigan. Chunky Cohoes have made up most of the catch, with a few king salmon, lake trout, and steelhead making up the rest. Thirty-five to one hundred feet of water is where the fish are being caught. The best bait is still 00 orange dodgers with small Coho flies tied behind them. Moonshine's Night Crawler spoon has been very good for the kings when fished deeper in the water column. This year's Free Fishing Days in Illinois is coming up from 6/17 to 6/20. For those four days, anglers are not required to have an Illinois Fishing License, so take advantage of it by fishing Lake Michigan in Illinois. Shore fishing has remained slow, with the occasional steelhead being caught."
Geneva and Delavan – Drop shot rigs seem to be the best bass method for Geneva. Motor oil, watermelon and pumpkinseed are the hot colors. The best locations are outside edges of deep weeds in about 12 to 15-feet and also on humps coming up out of deep water. The smallies seem to be running about 3 to 5-feet deeper than the largemouths. Walleyes are on the flats for trollers in the middle of the night. Muskie fishermen are trolling bigger baits trying to figure out where these new monsters are hanging out. Delevan is slower than normal because the algae is in full bloom and the water is very green. Try for walleyes after dinner by pulling minnow or crawler rigs along the edges of the weeds in 12 to 15-feet of water.
The IDNR, along with partnering fishery management agencies around Lake Michigan, announced plans for a 62-percent lake-wide reduction in Chinook (king) salmon stocking beginning in 2017. The proposed 2017 stocking reduction comes four years after managers implemented a 50 percent lake-wide reduction in Chinook salmon stocking in 2013.
The IDNR will hold an informational public meeting to discuss the Chinook stocking reduction and salmon and trout management in Lake Michigan. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on June 23 at the CMS Suburban North Regional Office Facility, 9511 W. Harrison Street in Des Plaines. Attendees are asked to please use the south parking lot and enter through the building’s south doors.
Bluegills as bait
To clear up a little confusion, here are the rules for using bluegills as bait. Bluegills used as bait must be caught in the same water that they will be used as bait. The bluegills used as bait must be counted in the total number of fish that applies to the limit counts for bluegill. Cut up bluegills can only be used on bodies of water where there is no size limit for bluegills. I hope that helps.