Death March on Charleston Lake (from the archives)

[akaShag]

A reprint from the archives, first published in 2015.  And still true..........

 

DEATH MARCH ON CHARLESTON LAKE

 

So “out4trout” and I have been chatting about where we might lay a beating on some mid-winter perch.  Both of us are hungry for a fresh feed of perch fillets, and generally we can do exactly that on some lakes we know.  EXCEPT those lakes are under a ton of snow and neither of us owns a snowmobile.  O4t is pretty fit and could walk a mile in snowshoes, but me, not so much.  And plus, when he tried out his snowshoes a couple days ago on a local lake it was worse than wearing no snowshoes at all.  So we had to find a lake with EASY access and not so far to walk to the hot spot.

 

I remembered that a fellow I know had been on Charleston Lake two years ago and just slayed the jumbos.  I also recalled him saying that they were right close to a road.  So I called him up and asked him if he would share that spot with me, which he did.  (Trusting soul, isn’t he!)  So we made plans to meet this morning close to the honey hole and from there find a good spot to park where we would not impede traffic.  As a bonus, 04t’s young lad would be joining us, and he is a strong young man who could possibly be used as a pack mule….

 

Met up this morning and a brisk walk confirmed a decent access point, so we loaded up the sleds and headed out onto the lake.  Now it is worth mentioning here that o4t is six foot thirteen, and his son is taller by a couple inches.  I am a short-ass older man with arthritis in my neck and back, and carrying about twenty pounds that I did not have when I wore a younger man’s clothes.  The snow was about knee-deep, and had no body, so each step your foot would slide out sideways.  And even though those guys were breaking trail, it took two of my steps for every one of theirs, so I was breaking the “half-trail” and pulling my sled.

 

You know, when you look at “Google Earth” and estimate the distances based on their handy little “SCALE” that they provide, you get a fairly good guess as to actual distances on the ground.  HAH!!!!!!!!  The evil folks at Google Earth probably deliberately make their scale appear to be much bigger than it is.  And for example they probably don’t calculate the curvature of the earth, which over distances like this adds many hundreds of yards to the ACTUAL distance to be travelled.  Evil machines and their “FREE” programs, eh?  They are just softening us up for the robocalypse.

 Anyways, MULTIPLE stops later, we got out to a fine-looking drop-off that the Navionics was showing.  Of course, when we actually drilled the holes, the water was somewhat deeper than we had been intending to fish.  We were aiming at 20 but got 24 FOW.  And so we started fishing.  For perch.  With ultralights and micro-sized baits. 

About an hour into this adventure, when my breathing had returned more or less to normal, and my pulse was finally below 100, I saw the young lad fighting a fish.  It was abundantly clear that this was NOT a perch, and sure enough up came a nice lake trout which was returned down the hole immediately.  Not long after that, the scene was repeated but this time a very nice lake trout came topside and straight back down the hole.  I was fishing with a 1/16 oz Ice Worm on 2 lb test and a very light rod and BOOM!  That’s no perch………….and after quite a tussle another laker came up and right back into the water.  Then o4t caught a laker and of course released it, there being no open season on lake trout in Charleston Lake in the winter time.  Clearly we had to move, so we pulled up our lines and loaded the sleds for another trudge through that cursed snow and drilled holes in 18 to 15 FOW.  I had a bump, and missed it, then o4t caught another laker.

 

OK, so now we decided to head REAL shallow and got onto some green cottontail down about 8 feet.  Should be good, right?  NOPE.  Another hour or two, nada, so once again we moved camp, but at least this time we were headed back towards our vehicles.  (Maybe because I suggested that was the direction I was going to go…)  15 to 16 FOW, fish on the flasher, and FINALLY the young lad landed a gigantic perch.  Well, five inches anyways.  By now the wind had picked up considerably and I was convinced that the perch had lockjaw, so we called it a day.

 

Of course, there remained the death march BACK to shore, and our tracks heading out had already been obliterated by blowing wind.  I think I stopped twelve or maybe even fifteen times to catch my breath, but hallelujah finally got back on a plowed road!

 

Five hours, five OOS lakers, one perch, and another tale to tell.  I am looking forward to getting back out there once the snow has melted (or after the ICE has melted this spring!)  The spot has promise for sure, and I suspect it holds perch – we just did not unlock the secret today, or maybe they were just not interested in feeding.

 

And no pictures accompany this little report, given that the lakers went right back down the holes…………

 

Doug

[Out4Trout]

Classic report!!

Was that 7 years ago? Wow time flies!!

[Fisherman]

Reminds me of some of those years on the Meaford slug hunt.

[akaShag]

1 hour ago, Out4Trout said:

Classic report!!

Was that 7 years ago? Wow time flies!!

according to my computer, that was written on 28 Feb 2015.  Yep, time flies when you're having fun!

Doug

[Out4Trout]

28 minutes ago, akaShag said:

according to my computer, that was written on 28 Feb 2015.  Yep, time flies when you're having fun!

Doug

And no wonder my hair is now gray... tick...tock... 

[misfish]

6 hours ago, akaShag said:

I am a short-ass older man with arthritis in my neck and back, and carrying about twenty pounds that I did not have when I wore a younger man’s clothes.  The snow was about knee-deep, and had no body, so each step your foot would slide out sideways.  And even though those guys were breaking trail, it took two of my steps for every one of theirs, so I was breaking the “half-trail” and pulling my sled.

Thats is me to a T as well Doug. Thanks for the story.

[akaShag]

This was what we were after.

[akaShag]

But what we ended up with was this: