Operation A-hab, Day 5: The Chippewa River

So it's another warm one today; 90 degrees and humid. Supposed to be this way for the next few days, at least. Not sure exactly how this affects northern pike, though I'm starting to think not in a good way. I've never focused my fishing on a specific species as I have this year; it's opened up a whole new set of considerations, turned this into a learning process, which I hope will make me a more productive fisherman. But nothing happened this afternoon; not so much as a nibble. I did notice my lures are getting fouled with weeds more often...a sign that summer is reaching a blooming boil.

Now might be as good a time as any to recognize the body of water I've spent so much time on this summer looking for Big Missy: the Chippewa River.

It begins as two separate forks in the north, not far from where I grew up, and flows 189 miles to the Mississippi River. Meeting up with a couple of rivers along the way, notably the Jump, the Red Cedar, the Eau Claire and the Eau Galle, it marks the northern boundary of the astonishingly beautiful Driftless Area of west-central and southwestern Wisconsin. Seriously, as an aside, the Driftless Area is worth more than a few Sunday drives. These are hills and valleys that actually do sing in all four seasons, especially late summer and fall. It's kind of what a reader of Tolkien might picture The Shire looking like.

THE CHIPPEWA RIVER - Starts as two separate forks in northern Wisconsin and makes its way 189 miles southwest to the Mississippi.  Photo courtesy: Wikipedia and Kmusser.

The Chippewa is an under fit stream; that is, a relatively small flow in a larger canyon that was carved by run-off of a much greater volume at the end of the last Ice Age. This disparate ratio between the river and the valley it runs through is quite evident from various spots in the City of Eau Claire.

The Chippewa has a strong history in the logging industry, but lately it's a recreational paradise for much of its length. It can flood and cause damage too. Many spots in Eau Claire are located within a 100-year flood plain, which means that a major flood has a chance of happening in any given year. Every spring, the Chippewa rises up and floods the park where I take walks, and the spot where I've been fishing this summer is pretty much underwater for at least several days as all the runoff makes its way south. But in the last several years, there have been a couple major floods. One, after a string of rainy days, had businesses in downtown Eau Claire sandbagging. The floodwaters rose to within about 30 feet of my own place of business.

Nevertheless, I love living in close proximity to a river. I grew up on a lake, not a river. When I moved here five years ago I was used to water only flowing toward me, in the form of waves. Water flowing past me, watching as it moves from one spot to another, is a novelty that has not worn off. A few years ago, I lost a bobber while fishing. I watched it float off to the west, and realized that, conceivably at least, it would eventually reach the Gulf of Mexico. There really isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about that as I'm casting out.

Especially when the fishing's slow.

 

NOT IDEAL - A little research has revealed that this hot weather isn't so hot for pike fishing. Northerns, at least the big ones, like Big Missy, tend to stress under these conditions.