Although this space is called “Hooks & Bullets” and your rotating cast of four authors tries to provide solid outdoor information to educate and help you become betters hunters or anglers, we hope you’ve also seen the just-as-frequent articles aimed at helping you become appreciators of the outdoor experience in general.
Being able to appreciate the complete outdoor experience means you’ll always find something enjoyable on your ventures outside, even if the game bag or stringer remain empty, or your tag goes unpunched.
For me, a lifelong birder who checked off a lifelist in a bird book for many years, it’s the “what else will we see?” question that makes up a significant part of the day’s goals. And by “else,” I mean the nongame critters that join us on our forays outdoors. Here are a handful of memorable experiences.
Fishing brings out the best of these possibilities for we’re generally either moving and covering more ground; or we’re sitting without a care in the world and watching life go by while waiting for a bobber to dip. And with the warmer weather, other critters are typically more active, too.
Like otters and snapping turtles. On a trip to Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Upper Peninsula years ago — Sylvania itself offering a smorgasbord of wildlife viewing opportunities in addition to catching fish — a canoe trip with the boys on one of the big lakes led both to heart melting and heart attack moments.
On the heart melting side, various barks and chatters revealed an otter swimming ahead and scampering down along the shore with us. We’d stop, and the otter would stop, imploring us to keep going. At first, we thought maybe Timmy was stuck in a well, but glancing back behind us, I pointed out to the boys two sets of otter pup eyes watching us from the shadows. Protective mama otter was leading us away.
The heart attack came from a large underwater boulder we calmly approached until a shout of, “That’s a snapping turtle!” broke the Sylvania stillness. I thought for a second I heard the sound of screeching tires as we suddenly back-paddled. I guess I pictured it leaping into the boat like a horror flick.
If snapping turtles occupy the bottom rung of Jake’s Most Liked Wildlife, spiders are maybe, on a good day, only a marginal step up. But I have a soft spot for daddy long legs. Not so Mark, who found one on his knee while we fished in the middle of Mom and Dad’s lake. A shriek later, my fly rod he was holding arced through the arc and splashed in the water. We still laugh about that one.
Sneaking down to one’s favorite fishing spot is always equal parts exciting and anxiety-inducing. Exciting that you’re going fishing, but you really hope no one is in “your” spot. Imagine my surprise when I approached my best remote, out-of-the-way, no-one-else-knows-about-this salmon fishing spot only to find that I’d been beater there. By a bald eagle, standing on a shallow strip of the river and dining away on a dead salmon.
Fishing alongside eagles always makes me feel small, in a way. Be they at eye level, like that one while salmon fishing, or perched on a shoreline tree checking out the same fishing hole I’m casting a worm or fly into. Their wildness is majestic and humbling; they just carry that aura of being the true expert fishermen.
But they’re not above mistakes, either. On a different Sylvania trip, we watched one dive down, snag a fish, and soar skyward only to be divebombed and harassed by an osprey who wanted to steal rather than hunt, causing the eagle to drop the fish back into the water from a dizzying height. Meanwhile, a haunting cry of a loon seemed to be laughing at their antics. Maybe he actually ended up with the fish.
That’s another humbling outdoor experience — basking in the call of a loon. But the adrenaline kicks in when they try to join you while fishing. Like, literally.
Recently, Chris and I explored a calm bass and bluegill lake during a warm evening. It’s not a secret lake — but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you the name; I am a fisherman after all — and we were surprised to see a loon there. As we cruised along the shore and fooled little bass with a yellow, rubber-legged fly concoction, that spine-chilling call echoed through the lake, making us smile. We turned around, and there was Mr. Loon, paddling over to see if we’d found a good spot.
I didn’t think anything of it until I saw it dart under the canoe and nab a fish on the bottom 10 feet below. Now that’s something I’d never seen before!
Apparently, the loon thought we were good luck. He ventured off on his own for a bit, but a half hour later, he waked back toward us while we laughed and tussled with some decent bluegill.
Then a whole bunch of things happened at once in a cluster of chaos that left Chris and I asking, “What just happened?”
In a matter of probably 30 seconds, I made a cast and felt a chunk. Looking up, I saw that the top half of my bamboo flyrod had come loose and cast off into the water. The cast must not have been that bad, for as I tried to carefully pull the line in by hand and bring the rod tip closer so I could grab it, it gave enough action to the fly to entice a bluegill to strike. Of course, it hooked itself. Of course.
So there I sat with half a bamboo rod in my lap, the other half in my hand as I pulled it from the water, and a fish on the other end of the line zipping all around. That’s when Mr. Loon decided, “Hey, that was nice of you two knuckleheads to have done half the work for me; I’ll just help myself.”
The loon darted under the boat again and started chasing the bluegill on the end of my line while Chris fumbled with the paddle and the bamboo rod tip and his cell phone and I snatched the net to try to grab, well, something – not sure what I would’ve done with a loon in the net — to end this clown car chase.
We boated the fish, the loon rose about 10 feet away behind us with an, “Are you gonna eat that?” look, and the bluegill begged us to put him in the bucket and dump him out elsewhere.
So much more abounds out there other than the game and fish we’re chasing, so keep your eyes open. Who knows what might join you along the way.