And we were not disappointed. No buyer's remorse (er, renter's...) here. The cabin was just the way we left it - gorgeous inside (full remodel in '09), seemingly no detail overlooked for those who aren't looking for too much 'rough' in their roughing it, but sporting all the sun-drenched woods-n-water splendor we could handle outside. For the price, it's really an astonishing slice of heaven, with loads of privacy. There is just one neighbor to the right, separated by a stand of trees, and nothing on the left for about 1000 feet. The property is largely concealed from the lake as well (creepers boating with binoculars need not apply), and on the other side of the water, nothing but woods. The lookout tower visible peaking over the top of the tree line in the distance suggests that's all government land over there, not likely to be developed any time soon.
Lower Clam Lake was also just as we left it, just as it's been for 10,000 years: 214 acres, 30 feet deep, nestled in these north woods, and evoking - for me - mysterious memories of childhood. I grew up forty-five minutes north of here, and the area around this lake harbors visual cues (a specific point of land; a unique bend of beach; power lines traversing the water) that lead me to believe - without being entirely sure - I came here once or twice as a kid - either to camp, or visiting a friend's family cabin.
Also seemingly right where we left it, still tied to a birch sapling stump halfway up the embankment, the plastic 'Aquatoy' pedal boat that against all odds garnered my fancy last summer, a cheesy vessel I found compellingly maneuverable when it came to fishing the shallows...when the wind wasn't blowing me a hundred yards down shore, that is.
Coming to unspoiled, primordial places like this, places that still bear a strong connection to the natural world (even with the modern accouterments I wouldn't want to live without), when you come matters a lot. Last year we came in early August, this time in June, and there were definitely some differences in the experience.
Being June, it wasn't blistering hot yet, and these are the longest days of the year, which means we enjoyed days that started early and ended late. It was a magical phenomenon, those hours of protracted sunlight and the high, pointed arc the sun took through the sky - rising northeast, setting northwest. There is nothing more gorgeous than light draped in the sky at ten at night, on a lake like this, in woods like these.
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| SUMMER NIGHTS - In June 2015, the light lingers in the sky over Lower Clam Lake long after the sun has set. This picture was shot at 9:57 p.m. The last remnants of daylight stayed visible for almost another hour. And bonus: Jupiter and Venus were carrying out their conjunction in the western sky. Later, after it turned dark and the two celestial bodies sank down toward the tree line, their light was reflected on the smooth, calm surface of the lake. |
But being June, and being cooler and more comfortable than the dog days to come, also meant the weather was sketchier. For the most part we enjoyed ideal conditions, but it did rain all of the first night, and into the second day, and most mornings I was out fishing in a sweatshirt for the first couple hours.
June also meant there were a lot more bugs; a lot more. It seemed we arrived on the heels of a major hatch, which created a continuous buzz (no pun intended) of activity around the cabin; there were dragonflies and water striders galore, moths, mayflies and butterflies, and plenty of fireflies (both green and amber colored, which I'd never seen before) all busily tending to the details and dramas of their short lives, and all pleasant enough to have around.
What weren't so pleasant were the biting black flies, ticks and mosquitoes. Ticks can generally be avoided with an ounce of prevention and common sense, but those flies are a fricking nightmare this time of year; they are relentless in their pursuit of a place to land, and painful if given a chance to tag you. And I may be used to them (they are the Wisconsin state bird, after all...), but all the rain we've gotten over the last couple of months has ensured a bumper crop of mosquitoes, and they were thirsty little suckers on Lower Clam Lake, attacking in numbers that no amount of campfire smoke, citronella or deet seemed to deter.
The worst part of the bug hatch was how it killed the fishing. Although there may be another reason for what amounted to quiet angling on this trip. Truth is, I can't really say the fishing was quiet; I can't say I saw no action at all. I saw some serious action, in fact. Fishing right from the dock, I had three strikes on my line over the course of three days - each one courtesy of a large, powerful musky - but for reasons that still frustrate, shock and shame me a little, I just couldn't close the deal on any of them...and as much I'd like to, I can't blame it on the bugs.
The first happened on our very first night. It was a gray and quiet evening when we arrived, prematurely dark for all the dense cloud cover. I'd avoided unpacking long enough to run down to the lake and throw a line in before the downpour looming on the horizon made its way to us, and to my excitement, it didn't take long for something to happen. I almost didn't realize anything had happened. It wasn't a violent smash of the lure, just that tell-tale tug you wait and watch for, could have been a little crappie for as much of an impact as it made at first, but once I'd set the hook, I found myself fighting a three foot musky.
He kept throwing himself out of the water, trying to throw the lure. Most fish freak out, but the bigger and more powerful they are, the more of an adrenalin kick it is trying to marshal them. This was a big boy. Not a monster, not now...but one day, maybe...?
I managed to get him up to the dock, even had my fingers positioned under his gills to lift him out of the water, but at the last minute, he thrashed, wriggled free of my grasp, and splashed back into the water. The heavily taxed line snapped and he was gone, my lure still in his mouth.
I cried out in frustration, but my heart was also racing with excitement and anticipation at that time. If this was how things were going to go, if strikes like this continued, it was going to be a great four days.
As it turned out, strikes like that did continue....but the four days weren't quite as great as they should have been.
The next afternoon it happened again - a much more violent strike that roiled the water, but this time, the fish knew something was up right away. Just below the surface, I watched him go into a kind of death roll with the lure in his mouth, but a moment later he let go and disappeared before I could set the hook. The entire thing happened in under three seconds. He was not as big as the first musky, probably in the 30-34 inch range, but still a powerful fish, whose fight I'd have enjoyed taking on.
My heart was racing again, only now with as much frustration as excitement. That was chance number 2 that I'd allowed to slip from my grasp. It didn't help that all I'd caught up to that point (and all I WOULD catch, as it turned out...) was a few measly perch.
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| A FISH IS A FISH...IS A FISH...*SIGH*...I GUESS I'LL NAME HIM SQUISHY - A new bug hatch and lunkers lurking around made other types of fishing tough going on Lower Clam Lake. This little perch, and another of his buddies, was all I was able to land. |
Now my heart was racing mostly with frustration. I'd had two muskies on the line, two (fairly) big ones, and I'd biffed it, twice.
Then, Day 3, it happened again.
Again!
Out of the forest of vegetation visible beneath the surface of the water just a few feet off the dock, another big musky hit my lure, and this time took it for a thrill ride. This one was smaller than the other two, probably in the 26 - 30 inch range, but he was a musky. I wanted to catch a musky. Big or small (and still recognizing the northern pike as my first love), the musky is the fish of legend and lore in these parts, a kind of rite of passage for anglers. In fact, a world record musky (67.5 lbs, 60.25 inches*) is on display in a bar in Hayward, Wisconsin, not half an hour from Clam Lake (and where this very week they were celebrating MuskyFest). I wanted to go home and tell people about it, share pictures, post pictures here...and I was given a third chance to make it happen, to keep from having nothing but fish tales.
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| DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE - It was right in that little forest of vegetation, illuminated by the sun rising behind me on the Day 2, that two of the musky strikes happened. |
This time, I was mentally prepared, at least. I had pretty much abandoned all other fishing and focused my attention on what I knew was lurking in the shallows around the dock, and I strategized: I didn't overreact when the strike came, I just loosened the drag a bit and responded to his frantic zigzagging and spinning himself out of the water (which happened three times) by trying to keep the line taut, keep control of the situation. My job, at least at first, was to keep him from escaping and just let him tire himself out.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do when the animal's power and fight is causing your rod to bend into a horseshoe. When he found his way under the dock and hunkered down, I had a problem on my hands: how to get him out of there without snapping the line or the rod.
I pulled in some line, and this got him shooting out from under the dock without too much effort. He flung himself out of the water a fourth time in protest, then tried to take refuge under the Aquatoy. For whatever reason, he didn't like that situation, so he shot back under the dock almost immediately, and in the process managed to wrap the line around one of the poles.
Holding onto the rod with one hand, teetering precariously on my haunches at the very edge of the dock, I reached out and rocked the Aquatoy back and forth, hoping to create a wake that would nudge him back around the pole. After several attempts, and against all expectations, this worked. He circled around, unraveling the line, and shot off, and wouldn't you know? Snap went the line, just like that: #3 - third fish in as many days - gone. Lure in mouth.
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| SO CLOSE, AND YET SO FAR - The mighty muskellunge of the northwoods now haunts my dreams. |
Nearly all of this trifecta of failure was my fault. I came to Clam Lake completely unprepared: a little medium action rod with open bail reel, 10 pound mono line and little lures for relatively little fish. It's ironic, actually: you walk into any bait shop, and the largest of the musky lures are the size of surf boards, but all three of these bad boys hit lures designed for other species - the first two on a cheap spinnerbait with a single Colorado blade, the third on a 1/2 ounce bass jig. The lesson: don't overthink it. Just cast out. You never know.
The musky tends to be the apex predator in any environment, which I theorize might explain why, in this little inlet, there didn't seem to be any other fish. I suspect if there are musky of that size (and potentially larger) lurking in those waters, claiming territory, as musky do, they've eaten or chased away all the other fish.
Don't overthink it, yes, but you do have to know your adversary. After that third fiasco, I drove into town (the town of Clam Lake), and bought testier line, some more leaders, and some large spoons, and a frickin' net (not bringing one was my biggest mistake...). My heart was still racing, but now anger had joined the party. I feared I had missed out on three - count 'em, three - golden opportunities, and would not be granted a fourth.
And I was right.
I fished all the rest of that night, and was up at 6 a.m. the next morning, on a mission. No luck. I worked different lures and different presentations, concentrating on the patch of vegetation where two of the strikes had happened. I fished spoons, top water frogs, went back to the spinnerbaits that had worked, the few jigs I had left. No luck. 'Check out' arrived promptly at 10 a.m. on Day 4 and we reluctantly left this beautiful hideaway.
No luck. No glory.
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| LAST CHANCE - On a morning so quiet I could hear the factory sounds of my own brain at work, I made one last vigilant push to catch a musky on Lower Clam Lake. No luck. No musky. No glory. |
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't frustrated when we left, to the point of being a little pissed off. Part of this is a childishness I've dealt with my whole life. I'm crazy competitive (not in a good way), and a sore loser...and the pettier the thing is that I've lost at, the bitchier I become. I avoid board games and card games, if I can. Anything where I'm largely at the mercy of dumb luck. Successful fishing takes patience, knowledge and skill for sure, but at the end of the day, it's largely a matter of luck. You either cast out and hit where the fish are, or you don't...and those 50/50 odds have always tormented me a little.
And yet, as I pulled onto the highway that morning, I did have the self-awareness at least to be philosophical. I realized: what am I bitching about? No, I didn't land a musky, but I got to spend three days with nothing to do but try, in just about the only kind of place I'd ever want to be in the summertime. And anyone who is living correctly knows there's a built-in glory to be found in even a short time spent as close to nature as possible.
On a lake like this, in woods like these...
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* Cal Johnson tells the story of his record musky, landed in 1949: Click HERE...
* Being too petty and competitive can lead to controversy like THIS...
Wow...maybe I'm okay almost catching smaller muskies. ;-)
