Author’s note: This is the final installment of the blog I started yesterday. It passes along some details about a visit my wife and I recently made to a reservoir that is now drained while repairs are made to the dam that normally holds water back to form the lake there. While it is dry, we have enjoyed exploring it in a way that is normally impossible.
I wish we had more time on today’s trip. I’d create my own fishing hotspot by dragging some logs into a pile along the drop-off where the basin suddenly slopes down into the main river channel. A few of the big rocks laying around would weigh the logs to keep them captive once the water level is allowed to return to normal levels.
This kind of spot quickly becomes attractive habitat for fish since it concentrates some good cover in a small area. Also, it would provide a current break against the constant flow of the river. By anchoring it on the slope that drops into the main channel, I would create a shallow side and a deeper side – about six feet below the surface up on the bank and fifteen feet deep at the base. This offers fish a piece of bottom structure that connects the extremes – something that experience shows they prefer.
Standing at the launch ramp that now leads only to a dry lakebed, I can see that most fishermen would head downstream like sheep following the rest of the flock. That is because the reservoir is wider in that direction and would appear deeper because the dam crosses the entire basin. By appearance, there is simply “more water” downstream, therefore – in most fishermen’s minds – more fish!
For this reason, I would build my underwater “fish condo” in the opposite direction - upstream - where it would likely go undetected by other anglers for several years. The water in this river is dark enough that the structure would not be visible by eye once the lake refills. An electronic fish locator would be necessary to pinpoint the exact location. That would be sure to help keep my spot a secret.
Of course, I would need some help finding it the first few times as well. For that reason, I would place a discreet marker on the shoreline slightly above the high water mark. Maybe I’d use a couple of the old stumps commonly available here. I could place one at the water’s edge and another some yards up on land so they lined up like rifle sights, pointing to the spot. No-one else would suspect their significance.
As for exactly where on the upstream side of the lake I would build this attractor, the choice is relatively simple: I’d choose a place that is currently devoid of cover – a place no natural competition exists. This creates a new opportunity for the local trout, walleyes, bass, pike, or perch to hide from the relentless current. A place where they can rest as they wait for natural water movement to drift a morsel or a minnow past them.
Placing structure on the bottom of reservoirs in this manner is a common practice in southern states where reservoirs with fluctuating water levels allow access when the lakes are drawn down annually. Similar lakes here in northern states seldom see changing levels so this strategy is not well known.
I’m going to talk to my life-long fishing pal Duane about going up later this fall to take on this project. We could trailer our all terrain vehicles to the reservoir to make pulling the logs together an easy chore. The structure we create could be useful year around, since both open water and ice fishing are practiced here. If we take on the project, I’ll let you how it goes in another blog.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you on Monday 11-10.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Showing posts with label Boney Falls Reservoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boney Falls Reservoir. Show all posts
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
MOONSCAPE LAKE - PART ONE
MOONSCAPE – Part one
By: Ray Hansen
The scene was something like you might have seen on the 50’s television show “Death Valley Days”. Maybe that is before your time. Compare it to one of the desolate planets Spock and Captain Kirk visited before Kirk returned to Earth, retired from space exploration, and got a job as a partner in a law firm on Boston Legal (and James Spader took Spock’s place.
Vast open stretches of bare dirt spread out for thousands of yards in all directions. Strangely, it is lined with deep cracks as though it was a desert even though until recently it held millions of gallons of water. Sprinkled here and there are the skeletons of huge trees, whitened and split by exposure to the sun after many years submerged beneath the tannic stained water. Massive stumps squat silently in all directions, their roots spiraling off in a circle like so many octopi sitting on the ocean floor.
The site I’m describing is the reservoir formerly backed up behind the Boney Falls Dam, on the Escanaba River some miles upstream from my home. Now drained of water, it contains just a single thin river channel running through its center like a main artery snaking through a parched skeleton. The water level has been lowered so necessary repairs can be made to the dam that normally holds the river back.
The bottom of the reservoir – now exposed to the sun and wind for the first time in many years – holds traces of its history for those who can read the clues. Wearing high-top rubber boots and poking through the ruins, Kate and I find the remnants of a very old wicker basket style fishing creel. This is a kind of basket with a long shoulder strap that trout anglers once used to keep their catch fresh. Wet moss was placed in the container and fish placed on it. Cooling by evaporation helped keep them from spoiling. Indian tribes in this area also made baskets for various purposes, but theirs were fashioned from intricately woven and intertwined willow branches. The piece of basket we found was made of flat wooden strips. In any case, I’m certain the owner despaired losing it.
Signs of the old logging days lay settled into the drying sediment all around us. Big pine logs with hand-hewn notches near the cut ends spoke of smoky cook shacks dimly lit by oil lanterns. A pine pole with a neat row of branches, each cut cleanly at three inches, whispered that big, black cast iron skillets had been hung there through holes in the handles. A big horseshoe, rusted and thinned by so many seasons under water gave silent witness that three-quarter ton draft horses once stabled here. Look closer and maybe two faint lines would reveal the course of a logging trail etched into the ground by clydesdales, morgans, percherons, and belgiums straining against leather collars. These massively muscled horses pulled drays filled with logs so big two lumberjacks could not encircle them with their arms outstretched.
An old boat wedged between two big pine stumps drew our attention. It’s not ancient, but is a very early aluminum model in a long, narrow “johnboat” style. Vintage 1950’s I’d say. We wonder how it got here? It’s upside down. Does it speak of tragedy? The transom shows no evidence that an old green Johnson Sea Horse outboard motor was ever clamped there, so it must have been used as a rowboat.
Was it tethered to a small dock with an old hemp rope that gave way in a storm? Is there a skeleton in the mud beneath it? Did the wild wind and relentless river current push it against the stumps until it tipped enough to fill with water and slip beneath the surface? Well… at this point it is just the Escanaba River version of the Edmund Fitzgerald that was lost on nearby Lake Superior. The hull has been found but the story of its sinking remains a mystery.
End of part one – come back tomorrow for the conclusion of this blog. Thanks for reading!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
By: Ray Hansen
The scene was something like you might have seen on the 50’s television show “Death Valley Days”. Maybe that is before your time. Compare it to one of the desolate planets Spock and Captain Kirk visited before Kirk returned to Earth, retired from space exploration, and got a job as a partner in a law firm on Boston Legal (and James Spader took Spock’s place.
Vast open stretches of bare dirt spread out for thousands of yards in all directions. Strangely, it is lined with deep cracks as though it was a desert even though until recently it held millions of gallons of water. Sprinkled here and there are the skeletons of huge trees, whitened and split by exposure to the sun after many years submerged beneath the tannic stained water. Massive stumps squat silently in all directions, their roots spiraling off in a circle like so many octopi sitting on the ocean floor.
The site I’m describing is the reservoir formerly backed up behind the Boney Falls Dam, on the Escanaba River some miles upstream from my home. Now drained of water, it contains just a single thin river channel running through its center like a main artery snaking through a parched skeleton. The water level has been lowered so necessary repairs can be made to the dam that normally holds the river back.
The bottom of the reservoir – now exposed to the sun and wind for the first time in many years – holds traces of its history for those who can read the clues. Wearing high-top rubber boots and poking through the ruins, Kate and I find the remnants of a very old wicker basket style fishing creel. This is a kind of basket with a long shoulder strap that trout anglers once used to keep their catch fresh. Wet moss was placed in the container and fish placed on it. Cooling by evaporation helped keep them from spoiling. Indian tribes in this area also made baskets for various purposes, but theirs were fashioned from intricately woven and intertwined willow branches. The piece of basket we found was made of flat wooden strips. In any case, I’m certain the owner despaired losing it.
Signs of the old logging days lay settled into the drying sediment all around us. Big pine logs with hand-hewn notches near the cut ends spoke of smoky cook shacks dimly lit by oil lanterns. A pine pole with a neat row of branches, each cut cleanly at three inches, whispered that big, black cast iron skillets had been hung there through holes in the handles. A big horseshoe, rusted and thinned by so many seasons under water gave silent witness that three-quarter ton draft horses once stabled here. Look closer and maybe two faint lines would reveal the course of a logging trail etched into the ground by clydesdales, morgans, percherons, and belgiums straining against leather collars. These massively muscled horses pulled drays filled with logs so big two lumberjacks could not encircle them with their arms outstretched.
An old boat wedged between two big pine stumps drew our attention. It’s not ancient, but is a very early aluminum model in a long, narrow “johnboat” style. Vintage 1950’s I’d say. We wonder how it got here? It’s upside down. Does it speak of tragedy? The transom shows no evidence that an old green Johnson Sea Horse outboard motor was ever clamped there, so it must have been used as a rowboat.
Was it tethered to a small dock with an old hemp rope that gave way in a storm? Is there a skeleton in the mud beneath it? Did the wild wind and relentless river current push it against the stumps until it tipped enough to fill with water and slip beneath the surface? Well… at this point it is just the Escanaba River version of the Edmund Fitzgerald that was lost on nearby Lake Superior. The hull has been found but the story of its sinking remains a mystery.
End of part one – come back tomorrow for the conclusion of this blog. Thanks for reading!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
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