Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Sailing on the Denis Sullivan Don't ask me what I did all last week.  Nothing exciting, anyway, until Saturday again, when Roger Williams and I went for a sunset cruise on the Denis Sullivan, Wisconsin's flag ship.  The Sullivan had sailed up to Port Washington for the weekend, where the crew conducted deck tours on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday evening, the Sullivan took some 50 passengers out for a two-hour cruise. The wind had been blowing strong all afternoon, the ship's crew told us, but just about 5:00, it calmed down.  The Sullivan motored out past the breakwall, where passengers and crew hoisted the sails.  Although we went through the motions, the captain never turned off the ship's engines.  We motored out a mile or two, turned around, and motored back to port, sails set as if there was enough wind to make a difference. The Dennis Sullivan was built by volunteers.  She is named for a famous Great Lakes captain and crewed by a staff of professionals and volunteers.  Her captain the day we sailed was Tiffany Krihwan, who hails from Jamestown, NY. Check out the links above for more details on the Dennis Sullivan.  It's a fascinating story, but I don't have time to go into it here. Later... 3:38:13 PM    comment []

Moby Pike and the riverdance smallmouths As Dave Barry would say, that would make a great name for a garage band. Actually, I have written this post twice. The first time was last week. The second time is today, Sept. 14. You're getting the second, abridged, version because I tried to save the first version on my desktop without posting it. When you do that, the software saves your home page template, but you lose what you wrote. Maybe I'll remember next time and not waste an hour like that again. Anyway, back on Sat., Sept. 4, Geoff Grainger and I joined Cheryl Nenn to "collect" some smallmouths and rock bass on the Milwaukee River (No, I'm not going to tell you exactly where!) for a nationwide mercury contamination study. Geoff volunteers with the DNR to survey smallmouth populations, measuring and taking scale samples from some of the fish he catches. Cheryl is the Riverkeeper for the Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, a non-profit organization on whose board I serve. Geoff and I had mixed feelings about killing smallmouths, but we agreed to do so just this once for the sake of science. As we caught a fish to collect, Cheryl bagged it, put it in a cooler on ice and noted the location and other pertinent data. The fish were later shipped in dry ice to a lab in North Carolina (where I hope they're still talking to us after that drubbing the Packers gave the Panthers last night). We fished two stretches of river from 11:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Geoff caught two 15-inch smallies around noon in a deep run behind some boulders, and we both caught a handful of smaller bass in the middle of the day. After a lunch break, we hit a second stretch, a long, deep bend hole shored up by riprap. Geoff added two small rock bass to the tally, and we both caught a bunch of bass ranging up to 13 inches on crankbaits and plastics. I had just released a 13-inch smallie, when I heard a commotion a couple yards downstream. I turned in time to see a monster pike chasing the bass, which it caught when the bass dashed into shallow water. That sure got my attention! A little later, I caught a 10-inch rock bass, which we added to the cooler. Then, as the sun slid toward the treetops, I caught a pair of 15-inch smallies in rapid succession on Gulp minnows. The first bass swallowed the Gulp as readily as if it were a nightcrawler. Geoff added another bass to the cooler, leaving us only two rock bass to fill out our quota. (The lab needed five of each from our watershed.) But do you think we could catch them? Heck no. For the last hour, one smallmouth after another hammered everything we threw at them, then put on an aerial show that was exciting to watch. Another pike tried to grab an 11-inch smallie I was fighting. This pike was smaller than the first (maybe 34 inches or so), but it banged against my legs as it chased the bass. For a second, I thought its teeth might puncture my waders. The first pike was pushing 40 inches. In the Milwaukee River!! We finally quit, leaving Cheryl two rock bass short. I hope by now she has caught the rock bass she needs, or else we might have to go out again this fall. If we do, I might bring a muskie rod along. Anyone know where I can get a foot-long bait that looks like a smallmouth? Later... 2:42:19 PM    comment []