The Mallalieu Lake Chronicles

By Mike Yurk

THE MALLALIEU LAKE CHRONICLES is the story of a year in fishing. It follows the author from the cold days of winter when we dream of fishing to the magic of spring and the opening of the fishing season to the lazy days of summer and the glorious times of autumn. We travel to Panama for peacock bass, to Canada for walleyes and northern pike and to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. We fish the Porcupine Mountains in Upper Michigan for smallmouth bass, for musky in northern Wisconsin and waters close to the writers home in western Wisconsin. But it is more than just catching fish. We listen to the haunting cry of the loons, the wind through the pines, smell the smoke of campfires and bacon frying in the morning, drink bourbon out of a coffee cup and eat fresh fish fillets cooked on a camp stove. And it is about people. There are fishing buddies and memories; the authors remembers his grandfather who taught him to fish, his father a Marine Corps World War II veteran and trout fisherman, old friends from childhood and new fishing pals. It is about companionship and adventure and travel as much as it is about fishing. It is about the wonder of nature and laughter among friends and taking a young boy fishing and watching a bald eagle cavort in the skies. It is what fishing and fishermen are all about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467847612

Mike Yurk

Mike Yurk has been writing about the outdoors for over half a century., He has written for several newspapers and published over a thousand magazine articles in regional and national publications. This is his tenth book with AuthorHouse. After a twenty year career with the United States Army, taking him around Europe and the Middle East as well the Unites States, he returned to his home state of Wisconsin. He lives there with his angler wife Becky, and is working on his next book.

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Contents

Introduction

CHAPTER 1:

January and February

CHAPTER TWO:

March and April

CHAPTER THREE:

May

CHAPTER FOUR:

June

CHAPTER FIVE:

July

CHAPTER SIX:

August

CHAPTER SEVEN:

September

CHAPTER EIGHT:

October

CHAPTER NINE:

November and December

Dedicated to:

Scott Clark

Doug Hurd

Bill Job

Gareth Nick Nicholson

Steve Prescott

Dennis Virden

Arnold Walther

Your friendship has been a treasure.

And with love to the

Bass Queen

Introduction

Lake Mallalieu is a 270 acre lake that divides North Hudson from the City of Hudson, which is where I call home. It is named after a bishop of the Methodist Church who lived in New Orleans. It seems strange to me why a lake in Wisconsin would be named after a bishop in New Orleans, but that is the case. Lake Mallalieu was originally called the Willow River Pond, and was made by damming the mouth of the Willow River as it dumps in the St. Croix River.

No one seems to know exactly when the first dam was built that made Lake Mallalieu. The dam was needed to power the saw mills at the mouth of the river that cut up the millions of white pines that floated down the Willow River. Although no record exists that can establish the exact date of the dam, by 1850 the dam had been built and the saw mills were in operation, trying to keep pace with a new country’s demand for lumber.

In the late 1800s there was a movement to change the name of the lake. At first, it was proposed to name Willow River Pond, Lake Irving, after Dr. Irving Wiltrout, who was a mayor of Hudson. But the mayor declined the honor and instead, in a letter to the Hudson Star and Times, the local newspaper, declared that he was naming the lake after Reverend William F. Mallalieu, the Methodist Bishop who lived in New Orleans.

There did not seem to be any local protest to naming the lake after a bishop in New Orleans and there is, as well, no indication that the Reverend Mallalieu even ever saw the lake named after him.

But the lake is now known as Lake Mallalieu and it was the first lake I fished when I moved to Hudson after retiring from the Army. On that first fishing trip I caught a three pound smallmouth bass on a blistering, hot summer afternoon. From that time on, I have regularly fished Lake Mallalieu. It is no more than a ten minute drive from my home, and because it is so close, plus having good bass fishing, it has become one of my favorites.

I suppose I could have named my fishing journal after any number of lakes that I fish often, but it was Lake Mallalieu where I caught my first bass after moving to Hudson, so it seems only fitting to call this journal the Lake Mallalieu Chronicles. As I am writing this, I look outside and I see brown grass that just a little while ago had snow on it. Fishing season is a month away and I can’t wait to once again…fish Lake Mallalieu.

CHAPTER 1:

January and February

January 1 (BFS) – The Lake is covered with ice. It is between bowl games as Kurt and I walk out on the lake from where the boat landing is now piled high with snow. We are only about ten feet out on the lake, and I tell Kurt that we are now standing over 12 feet of water. I point out to Kurt the places that I fish, and I look longingly at them, wishing for the winter to go away and fishing season to start. I show him the dock where I lost a big bass last spring, and the point that I took my last bass from Lake Mallalieu in the fall, just before the first ice coated the water. I show him where the Willow River runs through the lake. I miss fishing season now that we were locked into winter, and as I stand on the ice that covers the lake, it seems like a long time before I will be back on this water in the boat. Finally, I tear myself away and walk through the snow drifts back to the car. I look once more across the lake. Five more months until fishing season opens.

January2 (BFS) – One of the surest signs that winter will not last forever, and fishing season will return, is when fishing catalogs start arriving in the mail. I got my first catalog of the new year today. I know there is now hope. I get a cup of coffee and sit at the dining room table and page through it, looking for new lures, that I just must have for the spring, and new goodies, that I just can’t live without. I am a little surprised! There is nothing that catches my eye for now. Maybe it is just too early yet. The Bass Queen comes down from the bedroom where she was watching the soaps. Ooh, a new catalog, she says, as she disappears back upstairs with it. She loves all catalogs.

January 3 (BFS) – The second catalog came today. I push my work aside and get another cup of coffee and sit at the dining room table, licking my finger to make it easier to flip the pages. I am shocked! There are some rod and combinations that cost more than the first boat and motor I owned. But I do find some lures that I do need to get, and I turn over the page corner so I can quickly find it when I want to order. It reminds me of when I was a boy, sitting up in my bedroom, listening to the winter wind howl around the corner of the house, with the light on, and paging through fishing catalogs. I would put little X’s by all the things I wanted. I knew that my grass cutting jobs would let me afford only a few of the things I was X-ing. But one could always wish. That was why they are called wish books. Today I can get anything I want from the wish books, and I realize how lucky I have been. But I won’t buy a rod and reel combination that costs more than my first boat.

January 5 (BFS) – My brother-in-law Tim called this afternoon. He got his first fishing catalog too, and he is starting to get the fishing fever. We have two inches of fresh snow on the ground, and I need to blow out the driveway, but for right now I forget about the snow, and the driveway, and the cold, while Tim and I talk fishing. We talk about our annual trip to Canada in June. We talk about where we will fish, and the lures we will need. We talk about new colors on new lures, and about eating walleye fillets fresh caught from the water. We talk about the equipment we will take with us, and we discuss the merits of new gear that we might consider taking this year. For the time that we talk, it takes me back to the slap of water against the sides of the boat, gentle breezes through the tall pine trees, and the electrifying slam of a fish against a light spinning rod. Tim finally says goodbye. The driveway is still waiting for me.

January 12 (BFS) – It is half time and our team is winning. Tim and I sit at the bar in his family room, at his home in Random Lake, and we are talking fishing as we wait for the game to resume. We talk about new fishing regulations for our trip to Canada and equipment that we each are going to take, and lures that we will need. The game starts again, but for much of the next quarter we still talk about fishing. Outside, Random Lake is covered in ice, and snow is drifting across Tim’s backyard. This is all a mere inconvenience for us. We would like to be on our way to Canada tomorrow, if we could.

January 13 (BFS) – Tim and I sit at the kitchen table, elbows propped up on the table, coffee cups in hand, newspapers spread in front of us, and we are looking at a new ultra light reel. We talk about how smooth the reel is, and what a deal we got on them. Tim talks about taking one to Canada this summer, and I talk about using them with Rapalas for bass. Fishing season can’t come soon enough.

January 18 (BFS) – Tonight for dinner I take out the last package of walleye fillets from Canada. I heat vegetable oil, and shake the fillets in a breading mix of mine, and drop them in the hot oil. They sputter and spatter and turn golden brown. Although this is our kitchen; I am not there. I am standing in a cabin in Canada. The wind gently blowing through the trees, waves washing up on the rocky shore. The hiss of lanterns and the bubble of hot oil, with walleye fillets floating in it. How long will winter last?

January 26 (BFS) – It is Super Bowl Sunday. It is late afternoon and we can’t wait for the game to start. Tim and I sit in his kitchen, and are watching the pre-game show. Outside snow is falling. While Tim is cutting cheese and sausage for snacks, we are talking. For once we are talking about something else than just fishing. We are discussing the upcoming game. Earlier in the day, before we got so close to kick off, we had talked about Canada. We decided that I would bring the extra grub bodies, and he would bring the extra jig heads. I would bring eight pound line, and he would bring the ten pound. We talked about bass fishing, and how we can’t wait for winter to be over with. We decided that once the Super Bowl is over with, we would love to get back out on the water. Kick off is getting closer.

Later January 26 (BFS) – Our team wins! There is great merriment. We go outside and shoot off fireworks. Football season is over with. Now let’s go fishing!

January 31 (BFS) – Five trout are floating in the sink. They are the last fish from last year. I had taken them out of the freezer earlier, and dry them on paper toweling, dropping them in a bag of flour. I mix a martini, and check the heavy iron frying pan. The butter has melted. I pull out the fish from the bag of flour and drop them into the pan, sputtering in the butter. Once the fish are done, I take them out and put them on a plate, and stick them in the oven until the rest of the dinner is done. I have always believed that fish should be made and eaten simply to enjoy them best. Tonight, we are having a baked potato, a lettuce salad, and the trout, with beer in a frosted glass from the freezer. There is something about beer and fish. It just seems to go together. Some may think that wine is better for trout, but I have always been partial to beer with all fish and seafood. I once was in the Bahamas, eating conch. I had no idea what conch was at the time, but if it came from water, it seemed only right to have beer with it.

February 2 (BFS) – The hunt is on. I call Tim. I have found Shad Raps at an unbelievably low price. Shad Raps, along with Rapalas, are our favorite lures, and because we fish them so much we need a lot of them throughout the season. Some we lose to rocks and trees, some we lose to fish, and some just fall apart on us. We go through a lot of lures. We usually take at least a dozen to Canada, and they don’t count towards the rest of the season. My favorite color is silver, followed by the perch color. The store had only two silver Shad Raps, and I buy both of them. They have about eight of the perch colored ones, and I will go back later to get five or six of them. I tell Tim the store where I found them. He is most impressed and tells me that there is the same store only two blocks from where he works. He will stop in tomorrow on the way home. The hunt will be on from now until the ice covers the lakes again. Getting the right lure is one of the most critical parts of fishing.

February 3 (BFS) – There are three distinct parts to the year. There is that time from the beginning of the calendar year, until the general fishing season begins. That time is called Before Fishing Season (BFS). With opening day comes the fishing season. There are opportunities to fish before opening day, and after freeze up, but I don’t recognize that as being real fishing. In football terms, those fishing trips could be considered pre-season exhibition. I don’t ice fish anymore. Years ago, when young and energetic, I liked to ice fish. But I have no enthusiasm for it anymore. It seems to me if you can’t cast a lure, it isn’t fishing! In the spring, once the ice finally melts, there is some early season fishing primarily for species such as crappie, but is still isn’t real fishing. One is tempted, perhaps, to use Minnesota seasons as the parameters to determine the milestones in the years fishing season. This is easy to do, in that I live on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border and fish every now and then in Minnesota. But I resist such temptations. Living in Wisconsin, it seems only right to use the Wisconsin opener. Besides, Minnesota has a strange way of opening their fishing season. They open their trout season in mid-April, and then the majority of the other fish become legal some time in May. Wisconsin keeps is simple. They open the game fish season on the first Saturday in May. I like that. It seems so simple and clean, and uncomplicated. It seems like the easiest method of organizing ones fishing year.

February 7 (BFS) – Why freeze when you can sunburn? Every winter I ask myself this question, and in the last four winters I answer this dilemma by going south for a brief period of time. I have left the below freezing temperatures, and two feet of snow on my front lawn for a short sojourn to Panama. We are standing on the street of a little town, Arenosa, and looking out at the rippling blue water of Gatun Lake. We are many miles form the snow drifts in my front lawn. Elys is negotiating in Spanish with a man about a boat. She turns to Ted and me and tells us that the man has a boat and two hundred minnows for $60. We nod our heads that we have a deal. Two men race off to bring the boat to the dock. Ted and I pull out fishing rods from the trunk of the car and start rigging them. Although we are a thousand of miles from home, the ritual of getting the equipment ready to go fishing makes everything seem very normal. The Bass Queen, Elys, Ted and I, get into the pontoon boat, and the guide pushes us off from the dock and starts cutting the boat through choppy water. We pull up next to a sunken tree, and we drop our lines down. The Bass Queen catches the first fish. It is a bright colored peacock bass. We move often, catching a few fish in each spot. We eventually tie up next to a tall sunken tree, I drop the minnow baited hook down into the clear water. I bounce it several times off the bottom, and then feel a strike. I set the hook, and this time nothing moves except that I can feel the thumping of a fish against the spinning rod. Slowly, I am able to move the fish towards the surface, but it never comes easily. Once it reaches the surface it runs, pulling against the drag and splashes on the surface. It is the first big fish of the day, and the Bass Queen pulls out her line to give me more room at the back of the boat. We are hot, sweaty, sunburned, thirsty, and smelling of fish. We have nineteen peacock bass in the cooler, and had thrown back at least that many again. We are all feeling very satisfied and tired. We might be several thousand miles from Mallalieu, but the joy of a good day of fishing is the same.

February 9 (BFS) – This could be done in any number of places; the cabin in Canada, the kitchen at our house in Hudson, a campfire in the Boundary Waters, or numerous other campsites or cabins, but this is in Elys’ parent’s kitchen in a town near Los Santos in the interior of Panama. Ted and I stand in the kitchen, beer in hand, waiting for the oil to heat up. Earlier we had gone to a local market and found crackers, and then crushed them, unthawed fish, turned on the stove, and poured cooking oil into a pot. I have this feeling that I should be able to look outside and see the pine trees of the north. Instead, I see banana and coconut trees. I feel very exotic. Ted and I have divided the task. We are the fish cooks. He will bread the fish and bring beer. I will fry. I check the oil, it is ready to go. The first batch of fillets is slipped into the oil, bringing the pot to boil. The Bass Queen comes in to check on us. Elys’ mother stays in the other room. I think that she feels that two men in the kitchen could be a disturbing sight. Ted and I drink beer, talk about fish and fishing, and fry fish, placing the cooked fillets on a plate with paper toweling to soak up the excess grease. I have this feeling that I should be standing in the kitchen of the cabin in Canada. The other members of Elys’ family come in to look at us. We probably are an amusing phenomenon. They come in to look at us, not quite believing their eyes at seeing two men cooking and then leave with a freshly cooked fish fillets on a piece of paper toweling. Ted gets more beer and we split a fillet. It is good. The peacock bass may not look like any bass I caught before, but it tastes as good as the finest walleyes or perch I have ever eaten. Finally, we are done. Elys comes into the kitchen to make fried bananas. It is their equivalent of the French fries; and then we all sit down. We dip fillets into tarter sauce, cover the fried bananas in ketchup, and wash it all down with cold, local beer. It is a good fish fry. No different, in many ways, than the hundreds I have had before. It makes me realize the commonalty of fishing that transcends the confines of different people and cultures.

February 12 (BFS) – Becky and I have been married three years today. She is the Bass Queen. Before we got married, she couldn’t spell fish. But now she can discuss line weight, lures and colors, wind direction, and the most productive fishing spots, and techniques, on any lake with the best fisherman. She has her lucky fishing hat, her favorite rods, and her preferred lures. She isn’t concerned about getting dirty or sweaty. She catches her share of fish every year, but doesn’t mind it when she gets skunked. She likes to be tanned during the summer, so every day on the water for her is another chance to work on her tan, regardless if the fish are biting. She has a fresh and unspoiled enthusiasm for fishing. She is a good fishing buddy, and I feel lucky that she shares my boat.

February 18 (BFS) – I call Jerel tonight, and get his answering machine. An hour later he calls me back. Jerel owns Albany River Outfitters. I ask him when he will be in for the Minneapolis Sportsman Show, and he tells me he won’t be able to make it this year because it is too early in March. I will miss him when I go to the show. We talk a little about our trip to Canada in June; who will be coming on the trip, and we talk about possible new regulations for the coming season in Ontario. He mentions something about bringing live bait across the border, and I tell him that I don’t know why anyone would want live bait, as well as the walleyes hit just on jigs with grub bodies. We talk about water conditions, and he tells me we should expect high water again this year. We verify the dates in June, and I tell him that we are looking forward to the trip; it is our big fishing adventure. As I talk to him and hear his voice, it takes me back to Canada. I can hear the wind in the pines and the gentle wash of waves against the rocky shore. I see bright blue water and deep green banks, and an endless heaven sparkling with stars. I can smell the freshness of the air, and wood smoke in the cabin. I can’t wait to get back.

February 22 (BFS) – Two years ago Norman died. Norman was the Bass Queen’s father and my father-in-law. I am sitting in church for a memorial mass for Norman, where he had also been the church deacon. As I listen to the service, I remember back to the last time Norman and I fished together. It was the summer after I and the Bass Queen got married, and a week after I retired from the Army. We went to Door County, and had a cozy condo for the week on Green Bay. Across the lawn from our condo was a cement dock. The Bass Queen and her mother would go shopping every afternoon, leaving Norman and I alone. I would make us ham sandwiches and a drink. Years ago a doctor had told Norman, after one of his operations, that he was only supposed to drink blended whiskey. He definitely was not supposed to have any gin. On the first day after our wives had left, I offered to make him a manhattan as I was fixing lunch. I want a martini, he told me. His voice was raspy, after having lost one of his vocal cords years before to cancer. Norman, you know you aren’t supposed to have any gin, I said. Norman looked back at me and said, "Goddamn it Mike, I’m