Girls Before Swine Published 2008 Excerpt
Back on the road on Friday with Rad driving the Caddy, Joe was sure that they had lost any Russian pursuit. They’d waited two days on the hilltop. Randi had made some progress in her recovery and de-toxification, though she was still in very rough shape. She’d passed from painful constipation to excruciating diarrhea. She couldn’t keep any food down except ice cream. She’d become very attached to Marv. She was scared of Joe, Amelia’s father, and considered Rad to be the hated big nurse, resented but in charge. As they drove up the Interstate toward Columbus, Rad was behind the wheel, Joe was riding shotgun, Marv and Randi were in the back, and no one was saying much.
“Don’t speed. We don’t want to be asked any questions.” Joe told this to Rad remembering the fuss that the local news programs had made about the riot at Sweet Cherries. A female reporter had interviewed a patron whose claims had been wild and unbelievable. Hearing about wild Indians, shootings, blood on the walls, fistfights, vanloads of women and girls; the newswoman allowed the doubt in her voice full play. Joe hoped that those in law enforcement had given that witness no credibility either. A spokesman for the club stated that they were closed for remodeling. He said nothing had happened.
Rad glanced over at Joe with a look that said, “Who’s the driver here?” The radio played, the windows were open since everyone was a smoker. Nerves made them smoke more. A beautiful summer sun shone in their faces. The Friday morning traffic had thinned out.
An hour later, Rad said, “Joe there’s a car gaining on us.”
“Punch it. See if they try to keep up.”
The Cadillac picked up speed easily, without vibration. In a few seconds Rad watched the digital readout pass 86 then 90; she leveled it out at 95.
“They speeded right up. They aren’t cops or they’d already have lit us up.” Marv was looking out the back window, slightly cloudy since Otis had installed an acrylic bulletproof layer.
“What do we do now?” Marv looked at Randi as he asked. She lolled her head around and started to shake.
Rad noted that a string of three semis ahead in a convoy. She lifted the mike on the CB radio, changed the channel and said, “Break on 19 is there anybody there for Daddy’s Caddy?”
“Go ahead Caddy, this is Leroy.”
“I’m coming up on a Roadway truck two miles from the weigh station, and I need help.”
“You’ve been smokin’ them tires, Caddy, What’s the trouble?”
“We are being pursued by a car full of Russian gangsters. We stole a kidnapped girl from them and they want her back. We need help to get away.” Rad was passing the Roadway truck and pulling up beside a Yellow Freight.
“Say again, Caddy. Was that Rooshians?”
“Yes, they are behind us, they are well armed, and they want to capture a young girl.”
“I copy, Caddy, anybody out there on nineteen?”
“Lamplighter here, glad to help, Caddy. Pull in between the Roadway and the Yellow. I’ll just move over to the left here.”
Rad tucked in between the two semis. Joe looked at her and smiled. The first truck in the convoy pulled to the left to block that lane and the Cadillac was now in a cocoon, surrounded and safe.
“This is Lamplighter, I’ve got a Volvo blocked for now. That’s an ugly bunch in there.”
“Lamplighter, this is Daddy’s Caddy, I’m going to move into the B lane and pass Big Bear, smoke my tires again, and leave that Swedish meatball behind. Can you boys hold him up awhile?”
“The B lane? What the hell’s the B Lane?”
“The shoulder, the berm. Let me get around there and then you stop them. You boys be careful, they probably have guns.”
“Okay Caddy, you take the B lane, and we’ve got your back. This will be fun. Like a little checker game.”
Rad pulled over to the right as the truck ahead, Big Bear, gave her enough room. She mashed the accelerator and with a cloud of smoke from her tires took off at full throttle.
“Whoo-eee! Look at that girl unwind. Lamplighter move up beside me and let that Volvo move between Leroy and me. When he tries to pass on the right I’ll cut him off and if he tries to go left you cut him off. If he gets aggressive Leroy can give him a love tap. It won’t take long for that Cadillac to outrun him. Those Volvos can’t outrun our American engines. Big Bear out.”
“Roger that Big Bear, Lamplighter out.”
“I’m on board. Leroy out.”
At the speed Rad was traveling, she was out of range of the trucker’s CB radios very quickly.
The next day two state police cruisers were observed at the weigh station examining an abandoned Volvo with no plates. The car looked like an accordion having been folded multiple times from front and back. The vehicle identification number revealed it to be one missing from a dealership in New Jersey.
* * *
“Nine pieces won’t scare anybody, let’s get fifteen.” Joe Gaspe was hungry.
“I’ll only need two or three, so get what you want.” Rad wanted to get back to Pantherville, though she was hungry, too. They’d stopped at the fried chicken takeout restaurant in Dover Corners – the central commercial district for several of the nearby small towns.
Walking back to the Malibu they had to cross route 16. Rad was thinking about Joe and his appetites and how unlike a stereotype of a Native American he was. The opposite of a stoic, he was an enthusiast. He liked everything and plenty of it.
After checking for traffic, he double-timed it across the highway.
“Hey, watch out!” someone yelled from Joe’s right. Rad looked to see a man shaking his fist at a blue short bus that came squealing out of the driveway of Pearl’s restaurant. It took the corner so fast that it was briefly on two wheels. The bus came back to vertical with a rocking motion and the driver poured the gas to her. There was Joe, ahead of Rad; contentedly munching a chicken leg with the same hand he was carrying his take out order. Because of the chicken bucket, he couldn’t see the blue bus, picking up speed, hurtling straight at him.
Rad, having stopped to light a cigarette, and was well behind Joe. She saw the driver hunch his shoulders forward as he barreled down the lane next to the parked Malibu. Thoughts sped through her mind. “Couldn’t Joe hear the roar as the diesel engine wound up toward top speed? Was he smacking and chewing and gulping and mmm-mming too loud to hear?”
“Hey Joe! Look out!” Rad yelled as loud as she could. Joe turned back, with that chicken leg in his mouth endways. He started to wave when the skrreeekk, skreeekk of a red tail hawk caused Joe to look up. The shadow of the hawk’s wingspan, huge over his gaze, the waving and pointing from Rad, and the shouts of other spectators caught his attention. He turned left and saw the vehicle bearing down on him. Now that he’d turned halfway around, his take-out bucket no longer blocked his view. Joe saw his impending doom. He bent his knees while throwing his arms up and back. He did a backwards-leaping Fosbury flop onto the hood of Rad’s car. The bucket of chicken flew into the air and bounced off the blue bus’s grill and rolled up the windshield, as the vehicle whooshed past within an inch of the Malibu, spewing chicken along the road for twenty feet.
“Mister, mister, are you all right?” the man, who had been nearly hit in the driveway of Pearl’s, came running up.
“I’m OK.” Joe was looking at the receding blue back of the short bus.
“Did anybody see the license plate on that bus?”
“It was smeared with mud – not visible,” said another concerned citizen.
“Joe, Joe are you ok?” Rad ran up to him.
“I’m all right but I’m going to remain hungry,” Joe said looking at his fourteen chicken pieces beginning to form grease spots along the pavement
Chapter Two
In the old days, musky rods were somewhere between broomsticks and pool cues, and reels were simple one-to-one-ratio level-winds. Basic musky-fishing equipment has developed as the technology of fishing has developed. The most simple rods and reels today are vastly superior to those original items.
Old stories abound about the big one that got away. Yesterday’s rudimentary equipment made such escape inevitable. The available equipment today ranges from good through outstanding. As in most any purchase, you can spend a fortune, but you don’t have to do so to fish effectively for muskies today.
You’re probably not going to get tired of fishing, so you should buy something better than the cheapest available. By the same token you don’t have to spend the amount required for custom-made rods and reels, either. Perfectly good rods and reels can be had for about $75 each, for a total of about $150 for a complete rig, and the extra money used for line that will need replacement at least once per year and leaders that must be replaced more often.
Trolling and casting can be done with the same gear set, but it is like buying a VCR-TV combination: it will be adequate at both but excellent at neither.
Trolling using superbraid line or wire works best with line-counter reels on long rods of eight- to 10-foot length. Neither trolling rods nor reels need to be top-of-the-line. Fiberglass trolling rods work well and are cheap enough to be replaced every season. You can pay $500 for a rod, but such expense isn't necessary. Graphite or fiberglass will work. There has been some experience with graphite rods breaking in extreme cold.
Casting rods need to be of higher quality and lighter than trolling rods. You will be doing a lot of physical work with them, and they must be lightweight, strong, long, and tough. This requires graphite. Casting rods should be IM-6 graphite or better. You can start with two off-the-shelf rods; one slightly shorter for jerkbaits and topwaters, and a longer 7.5-foot rod for bucktails, spinnerbaits, and crankbaits. Some fellows like the long rod for topwaters so they can keep their leader out of the water where it might otherwise interfere with the lure’s action. In addition, when doing a figure-8 at boatside after every cast, long rods keep you from having to lean so far over the gunwale repeatedly. Believe me, you don't want to be leaning over continually.
Abu Garcia makes serviceable reels for casting that are reasonably priced. The 5500 and 6500 sizes work well. Some anglers find the 7000 series too large; others think anything less is too small. The reel needs to carry a considerable amount of heavy-test line, and a bass casting reel simply isn't big enough. You can go upgrade and spend more on a reel, but I think such money is better spent on the rod.
When spending money on rods and reels, it is useful to take the approach that you're not dealing with a fad that you will outgrow. As an adult, you'll probably fish as long as you are able. Good equipment is worth the price.
Today’s rods are longer and more flexible to accommodate the boatside strike so common in musky fishing. That violent strike, with almost no line out, can be absorbed by the rod tip when you free-spool your reel and use your thumb on the spool for brakes. Some anglers let the drag do the work, while others thumb the spool because of bitter experience with drags failing when they are needed most. Many anglers have several rod and reel combos, and you may eventually have several as well. To start, you can do fine with one shorter, stiffer rod and one longer, lighter rod.
Trolling rods are less critical than casting rods. Fiberglass works well in absorbing the shock of a musky at full speed or a lure getting snagged. A tight drag on a graphite rod will break the rod in some situations encountered in trolling.
Reels today have improved anti-backlash control and high gear ratios for fast retrievals. These features were unheard of in the old days. Only an expert caster could prevent constant backlashes with those reels. Drags also continue to improve each year. Abu-Garcia, Shimano, Avid, and Quantum all make very good musky reels. You will notice the higher, round shape of musky reels for this reason. The space to exert thumb pressure to the side plate of the spool is a valuable feature of the round reels.
When trolling, the use of high capacity line- counter reels is the standard. High capacity is needed more for snags than for fish. When you snag a sunken Oldsmobile at seven miles per hour with four lines out, it takes a while to clear lines and turn around. Line counters facilitate precision-depth fishing. Large cranking handles increase the leverage when fighting muskies. More importantly, they reduce fatigue when constantly reeling in lines to clear them of weeds.
Comin’ around the Corner
Crossing the Waters of Death
They had waited two full days after the big blow, when the lake had risen to 18- to 24-foot or larger waves for a full day. Melvin Loonch and Bob Traynor knew the lake would still be plenty muddy, but that is where the giant fish are. Musky men need big fish for their self-esteem.
So, they went south down the Musky Straits into Canada, with the hope of sneaking behind the breakwaters and catching Girthra or one of her daughters. It’s tricky to pick up how high the waves are crashing as one heads down the straits. The waves on the reefs to the east always show some white. When one glimpses them breaking over the west breakwater, it begins to get worrisome.
Groovy and Goober were cautious as Loonch poked the bow of his 25-foot boat out past the channel buoy’s spot. Those wacky Canadians had pulled their buoys about 5 weeks earlier. He relied on his GPS to confirm that he was approaching the place on the charts that signifies the opening into the lake. Here, the big rollers from two days ago still contained plenty of energy, 5- to 7-footers with long wavelengths of 25 to 30 feet.
A word or two about boats: nobody uses flat-bottom bass boats on the Upper Lake other than during a few days in the summer. The Upper Lake is treacherous and famous for wrecking all kinds of boats since the time when the Europeans began coming to America.
Most of the musky men use semi-vee or deep-vee aluminum boats that they launch behind the breakwaters on a trailer. This obviates the need to come around the corner of the breakwall and expose themselves to the Upper Lake’s fury.
The boat Goober drives is a 25-foot fiberglass sport fisher built for the ocean off Florida. It’s warmer, safer, more stable, and stronger than the usual musky boat, but it’s not easy to trailer. It stays in a slip all season down on the straits. It must brave the waters at the head of the straits to get to where the big fish can be found.
They eased her out into the Lake and once past the channel buoy were able to turn east with the push of the southwest wind mostly behind them. They moved toward the north end of the west breakwater. Having such big waves behind one’s boat is unnerving, even if one has felt it before; it’s as if a giant hand has cradled the back of the boat and is prepared to fling it forward. Looking back, the waves are above your head and look as if they will bury the boat with the next push. Of course, the boat floats, and the wave doesn’t crash over the transom. But it feels better to get behind the breakwaters and receive the protection offered.
That day, Gomer and Goober fished a number of their runs at both ends of the protected area but were unable to coax a bite from the muddy water. As the hours rolled along, they often looked at the breaking waves. The waves had started the day coming over the walls and were still doing so after 6 hours of fishing. The storm was a few days old, the wind was mild and lowering, and the weather channel had indicated the waves would be subsiding. Loonch is an optimist and thought they would have lessened in 6 hours.
He was wrong as they headed for home.
There are two ways to return to the boat slip: through the lock and canal, or around the corner. Around the corner is faster by at least an hour and preferred on most occasions. As Goober piloted the boat out from behind the west breakwater, he met those real waves that had come from the southwest all the way down the length of the Upper Lake. Those 5- to 7-footers of the morning had now become 10- to 12- footers. Their wavelength had shortened, too.
The situation was dangerous; it was approaching the limits of what boat and pilot were capable of doing. From the north end of the west breakwater to the channel head is 77 one-hundredths of a mile, according to the GPS. It is important to get as far as where the channel buoy belongs. A failure to go far enough west has brought numerous boats to grief, on the middle reefs and other rocky spots, over the years. Once one gets around that buoy, the mass of Canada begins to offer some relief from the push, and that giant, invisible hand settles under the transom and propels one forward.
It’s just that three-quarters of a mile that is the problem.
Captain Coop and Goober had been around the corner in worse waves than these, but Coop had been driving. Not only had they had waves breaking over the bow, but they’d even had a few come over the top. A well-designed boat with a good top will shed most of the water instantly from such waves. An open-bow design would fill up and require the pumps to work hard to keep from becoming swamped. Luckily, that was not Gomer and Goober’s problem.
Having watched Coop use engine speed and deft maneuvering to take on worse conditions, Goober was confident that as long as he stayed quartering into the waves and didn’t broach, he could close that distance to get back to the straits. Groovy was not so confidant. He began to panic almost immediately. He was yelling and waving his arms, attempting to give the pilot instructions by verbal and non-verbal means.
Fortunately, Goober was used to ignoring him. Just to make the cheese more binding, the throttle return spring on the engine was heavier than it should have been. This meant that as soon as one backed off a little on the throttle, the engine dropped back almost to idle. When fighting heavy seas, it is important to keep an effective throttle. If not, one loses control of the ability to steer, and before you know it you are running before the waves. Running before the waves would not be an especially big problem on open water, but here it would fetch them up on the middle reefs and wreck the boat. They would be in 50-degree water and unlikely to do well at all.
Around the corner they headed and almost right away were slammed hard between the wave tops. This was a jolt that could loosen the rivets on a battleship, and Groovy began going nuts. Goober righted his course and began going faster along the wave tops, cutting that distance to the channel entry spot. It took a firm grip on the throttle with his right hand and a firm grip on the wheel with his left as he gauged the next couple of waves. You can’t do much about the wave you’re on, but you may be able to react to the next one or two.
Waves of a certain size are not uniform. While they were looking at 10- to 12-footers for the most part, on occasion these waves would almost cancel each other, and a fairly flat spell would appear. This was a chance to accelerate and make some headway. Also, the converse was true: the waves would occasionally nearly double in size.
Waves that are almost as high as the boat is long are a bad thing. This happened again, and they slammed down hard after taking a breaker over the bow. Groovy was now in total panic mode, yelling, waving, and generally being a pain.
Then Goober had an idea. Since the GPS uses a liquid crystal display, it is hard to read it in the sunshine. Moreover, he was occupied with the oncoming waves, the wheel, and the throttle. There was no rain but enough spray to obscure the windshield. He yelled at Groovy to read off the numbers on the GPS.
The readings told of the diminishing distance to the buoy. This kept Traynor busy as well as encouraging both of them that progress was being made. As they made way, Goober turned a little to the south to take on the wave crests and a little to the west in the troughs. Groovy called off the hundredths to go: 65, 57, 52, 45, and on. They had to come within 12 one-hundredths to be able to turn up channel on the straits. If not, they’d be too far east to find the middle of the channel.
They made it without any further trouble or mishap. Heading up the Strait, Goober handed the wheel to Groovy and shook the tension out of both his arms. That invisible hand pushed them toward home. They gained speed and moved from waves to current as their influencing force. They made it around the corner with the knowledge that it could have been a whole lot worse.
A few days later, heading up to hunt muskies again, Goober asked Groovy, “How scared were you the other day?”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“Yeah.”
“About an eleven and a half.”
The day after coming around the corner, Loonch did it by himself. It was challenging, with 5- to 8-footers, but he was confident. It was routine.
The Accidental Musky Published 2004 Excerpt
Chapter 1
Why save Muskies from Injury?
Muskies are at the top of the food chain in the waters they inhabit. As such, they are the fewest in number. Musky fishing twenty years ago was a catch and kill fishery. Fish as small as thirty inches were routinely killed. These were babies. The enlightenment of the fishermen has lead to a catch and release ethic for Muskies in almost all of North America. Graphite reproductions, done from photographs, have eliminated the need for trophy wall mounts to be harvested. The only ones now taken, by the top anglers, are those legitimately having a chance at world or state record fish. If a man needs food for his family, almost any other species is tastier and more abundant.
Antiquity & Scarcity
The naturally reproducing Muskellunge has been in its home waters, the Great lakes system, the Upper Mississippi system, and the Ohio River system, for at least 10 million and perhaps 60 to 100 million years. It is the top predator where it lives and that makes for a low-density population. Scientists believe that it takes five acres to support one Musky in water that can hold between 50 and 200 Pike, between 20 and 60 Walleye and innumerable Bass. Muskies are few in number. They are seriously depleted by Pike as fry but grow like banshees when they get away from the Pike on the spawning grounds.
An experiment was once conducted in a pond. It was seeded with 25,000 Pike fry and 25,000 Musky fry. One month later 402 Pike survived and 1 Muskellunge. Pike are better survivors and are tolerant of much more varied conditions, cold and hot, polluted and murky, silted and low in oxygen. Pike can spawn in pastures adjacent to rivers that are flooded only in the spring.
Survivability
So, how do Muskies make it at all? Over a large area of their range they do not reproduce and are stocked. This is true in Ohio and Kentucky and most places where the game laws don't limit seasonal fishing. In the relatively limited areas where Muskies spawn, the Pike and Muskies have survived together since the last ice age by divvying up the spawning and nursery areas. Essentially, they are not around to eat each other at the critical times. Both Pike and Musky are sight feeders but only the Musky's eye has receptors adapted for feeding at night. A general statement, with notable exceptions, might be; Pike are day feeders and are unwary, aggressive, and easy to catch, while Muskies are night feeders and are sly, and difficult to catch. Are Pike easy to catch because they recruit well and are Musky hard to catch because they recruit poorly? That is a chicken and egg type of dilemma.
Pike Lore
Legends in European going back to the Mannheim Pike tell of Pike 267 years old, 19 feet long, and tipping the scales at 550 pounds. Supposedly, Emperor Frederick II caught and released this fish. This hoax has been added to with tales of swans, mules and anglers being swallowed up. Even a noted expert like Izaak Walton claimed a 170-pound Pike that bit a fisherman with its “dreadful jaws.” A fish that inspires such fear and trepidation must have some meaning beyond just reputation.
Pike in Scotland and Scandinavia and Russia do grow prodigiously with angler caught fish documented at 60 pounds and rumors of netted fish to 90 pounds. European culture, with its favoring of the noble classes, has always glorified the trout and salmon as the noble, beautiful, fish of choice. The Pike, that looks at that noble salmon as a couch potato looks at a pepperoni pizza, comes in for scorn and fear. Though looked at as a rough fish for hundreds of years the Pike survives.
Pike in North America do not reach the sizes that their European and Asian brethren do. Trophy Pike waters in Manitoba, despite catch and release regulations, rarely produce fish over 40 pounds.
Musky Lore
The Muskellunge is a North American phenomenon and has a much smaller natural range than the Northern Pike. It can't spawn or even survive in water too warm or too cold. The Canadian Shield and the Great Lakes contiguous areas are all there is, though, it has been introduced into a much wider area.
The oral traditions of the Native American Tribes around the Great Lakes speak of the Muskellunge with awe and dread. While supplying a large meal when captured, they also must have wreaked havoc on fish traps and scared off the smaller species at least temporarily.
When Europeans began referring to the Musky in the 17th century it was the Jesuit diaries that transcribed the folk tradition of the Native Americans. From these early references tales still exist of, “The Monster of the Manitowish, Old Abe, and Jingle Bells.” Some fellows in the Niagara region refer to the she Musky of myth as Girthra.
Do Muskies eat game fish?
The answer to this question is, a little bit. Muskies and Pike both prefer long cylindrical fish. Those shaped like hammer handles are favored. Perch, suckers, redhorse, shiners, dace darters, Cisco, gizzard shad, are typical fare. Cannibalism is common in both species. Yellow perch are game fish and they are the most common Musky prey, but they tend to occur in vast numbers. Suckers rank second in numbers in the Musky diet. Walleyes, while eaten, are uncommon. Bass, bluegill, crappie and rock bass, with their fatter bodies and spiny dorsal fins, are not sought out. Ducklings, Mice, Muskrats, Mules, and Anglers are rare meals indeed. A starving Musky may try to eat anything. I know a fellow who, when pursued for several days by the Viet Cong, ate a tarantula in one bite. He has not eaten one since.
Catch and Release
In the last twenty years catch and release has caught on with guides and accomplished Musky Hunters. How much does it protect the fishery? There is some delayed mortality with released fish so; the jury is still out on this. It is certain if the fish is harvested she will die.
It is said as many as 30 to 40 percent of the old fish die after release. While the bigger fish are in most danger of death from poor handling, the catch and release ethic is definitely a positive development. That one you put back may be a record fish a few years from now.