Dave Richey: Fishing in the fog

A solid white wall hung in the air over Lake Michigan as we headed out to fish for salmon.

The fog was thick enough to cut with a dull butter knife, and visibility was limited to 20 feet.

This reminded me of those old horror movies where a wraith or some type of monster would come looming up out of the fog with evil intent. Fog always seemed to figure heavily in such movies, and I didn't know whether the Mummie or The Creature From The Black Lagoon was dead ahead, off our stern or to our port or starboard sides. The bow of our fishing boat was invisible from the stern.

The fog seemed almost alive. Heavy tendrils of white cottony clouds twisted and turned over the water in the soft breeze, coming together to make the murk even thicker, and then it would separate and any sounds were distorted. We were just 10 yards from the dock, and the next boat to launch was invisible. We could hear a faint string of conversation from the other anglers, but making sense of what they were saying was almost impossible.

A compass and GPS was needed to keep our course straight out into the lake. Mike DiLorenzo of Clinton Township had invited me along on this fishing trip with his son Jonny, guide Mark Rinckey of Honor, and Joe Grippe and his son Joey, of Washington Township.

The boys took one look at the dense and damp fog, and did the most sensible thing of all. They headed for the V-bunks in the bow to catch up on their lost sleep. "Call us if we hook a fish," Jonny asked.

The fog followed us out into 80 feet of water, and began to burn off as the sun tried to struggle out from under a heavily overcast sky. DiLorenzo began setting lines, and six lures were down when the first strike came as the boat eased into a fog bank.

A rod tip jerked down from the force of a Chinook salmon slamming into the spoon. I grabbed the rod, and hung on as the king headed the opposite way.

We were in the middle of another massive fog bank, and wet, meaty plops could be heard off our stern as the salmon jumped somewhere behind us and off to one side in the pea-soup fog. I kept the rod tip high, and reeled in line when I could and held fast to the rod when the fish ripped off line against the drag.

Again, the sound of a salmon doing a belly smacker was heard but actual seeing the jump was impossible. The fog clung like a white gauze blanket over us, and it muffled sounds and distorted our sense of time and direction.

A quick glimpse at the GPS showed us where we were in relation to Glen Arbor. Pump and reel, pump and reel, and soon the salmon could be heard splashing about 20 yards off our stern. The boys roused up long enough to come out, cheer me on, and soon the fish was flopping on the surface.

I pulled back on the rod, reeled hard and fast on the way down to prevent giving the fish any slack line, and DiLorenzo soon slipped the net under a 10-pound king salmon.

We snapped a few photos, and another fish struck, and I reached out to get the nearest boy. Jonny stepped up, took the rod, and settled into a dogged fight with another king salmon. The fish jumped two or three times, and the boy pumped and reeled the fish ever closer to the boat.

His father leaned over the stern, dipped the net at just the right moment, and a twin to my fish came aboard. By now we were almost out of the fog, and Jonny shook the kinks out of his wrist and said "Great fun."

He and Joey headed for the V-bunks again, and DiLorenzo began talking about taking his son fishing. He feels driven to take his son as often as possible, and knew that trip would be the boy's last outing before he headed back to school.

"I've always felt that taking my son and two daughters fishing and hunting was a necessary part of raising them properly," he said. "I've always fished and hunted, and believe strongly that parents should spend more quality time together. Time on the water or time in the woods is the best way to do it."

DiLorenzo practices what he preaches in two books he has written in a series of Adventures With Jonny books. "Ice Fishing The Coolest Sport On Earth" is his latest book, and it deals with ice fishing. The first book in the series is called "Let's Go Fishing!"

Another hard cover book in the Adventures With Jonny series will be on hunting. Other topics are planned.

As often happens while fishing, we then hit a lull in the action and the topic turned to fishing lures and the names given each lure to match the color patterns. It was a conversation that didn't last very long.

Some I remember were Monkey Puke? Yup, it's a lure color and about as appetizing as a dog's breakfast, but that color catches fish. Then there were lure colors like Dr. Death, Orange Crush, Wonder Bread and many others.

DiLorenzo began talking about taking kids fishing. It didn't make any difference to him that both boys were sleeping. Jonny had caught a salmon, and he felt it was time for others on the boat to catch a fish while he slept.

"My thought is that if children are not introduced to the outdoors, particularly fishing and hunting, by the time they are 10 years old," he said, "they probably will never take up either sport. That is the main focus of my books. Start 'em young.

"The books are written to introduce both child and his or her parents to fishing. It gradually introduces them to the sport, offers the proper terminology, and much of it is what I've used to educate my three children to fishing. I keep the books simple but never write down to a child. I make it easy for children and parents to get the necessary information needed to jump into fishing with enthusiasm."

"Fish On!" Rinckey hollered, as he grabbed a rod. "It doesn't feel like a very big one. In fact, it feels like a coho salmon."

He's a good judge of what fish feel like because he is a river guide on the Betsie and Platte rivers for salmon and steelhead. He worked the fish closer, determined it was a small coho salmon and then the fish was netted.

We went back through that area, and had two more strikes, and quickly lost the fish. We set the line again, and had two knock-offs. The fish would hit the lure, and be on and off in only a second or two.

We hooked another king, and had it on for a brief spell, and then it too got off. Another coho salmon hit, was quickly landed, and we were back to having more and more short strikes.

"Short-striking fish almost always are coho salmon," DiLorenzo said. "It's time for the coho salmon to be moving into the area, and they are well known for hitting lures and getting off. Soon we'll be using Dodgers and Michigan Laser Squids, Silver Streak spoons and J-Plugs, but right now most of our catch is made up of Chinook salmon. Today is the first day we've caught more than one coho, and that means these tasty fish are arriving in greater numbers."

The fog hung on all morning, and we struggled on in hopes of landing two or three more salmon, but it wasn't meant to be. The thick fog seemed to intensify and grow thicker as we headed for Glen Arbor boat launch.

"Can anybody see land," DiLorenzo asked. No one could, and we headed in using his GPS, and we were traveling at a snail's pace. It was the kind of weather where a boating accident could happen if anyone tried to be in a hurry.

We were within 10 feet of the dock before we saw it. We backed the trailer in, loaded the boat, and apparently beat the other boats to the dock because they were lining up behind us when we drove off.

We caught four salmon, had at least a dozen hits, hooked about eight fish, and we had a good time. It was a great day with the kids, and although Joe and Joey didn't land a fish, they had plans to fish again that evening.

It was one of those days when Mother Nature provides bad weather conditions, but through it all, we caught some salmon and had a wonderful experience. Jonny summed it up well when he said "Dad tells me to bank these memories, and each new day on the water offers a new and different experience."

That Jonny is a pretty smart kid. Many adults never learn to bank their experiences and memories until it's too late, and that is a horrible mistake.

Photos

Dave Richey

Mike and Jonny DiLorenzo of Clinton Township show of their salmon catch. Special to the Record-Eagle