Reel Drag and The Greatest Lake of all...

After the last trip out for Stripers and the mishaps I had in the Bahamas with my Orvis Mach reels (The drag had miserable start-up and then surged causing more than a few lost bonefish), I boxed them all up and sent them off to Orvis.

Back to the drawing board on my reel inventory.

I did a fair amount of research and discussed reels with more than a couple reel experts. I narrowed it down to two. The Tibor Everglades and the Nautilus NV 8/9. From what I could gather, the Tibors are bomb proof and proven. The Nautilus reels haven't been around as long but they are lighter, less expensive (by about $125) and the spool sizes seemed to be closer to what I was looking for. I called a shop that stocked the Nautilus NV and pulled the trigger. I also picked up a Scientific Anglers 300 Grain Streamer Express Clear Tip line. As a side note the guys at the shop filled my reel with backing and lined the reel for me prior to shipping it. Kudos to John and Will at Chicago Flyfishing Outfitters for setting me up right.

With a trip planned to the North Shore of Lake Superior for the long weekend I was pleased to see the UPS truck on Thursday afternoon.

I have a thing for fishing Lake Superior. I grew up on the Lake and took it for granted as a kid. Since moving away from it's shores in 1996 I have come to appreciate it like no other aqua-graphical feature on earth. It never fails to surprise me that I can stand on the shore, pitching a 4" fly (at most 100',with a tail wind) and connect with a resident. I've had the pleasure of hooking walleye, northern pike, small mouth bass, whitefish, steelhead, coaster brook trout, lake trout, atlantic salmon and pacific salmon from it's shores. Still, the odds are not good... Keep in mind that Lake Superior is an ogliotrophic (google it) lake while you read these facts:

"Not only is Lake Superior the largest of the Great Lakes, it also has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world. It contains almost 3,000 cubic miles of water, an amount that could fill all the other Great Lakes plus three additional Lake Eries. With an average depth approaching 500 feet, Superior also is the coldest and deepest (1,332 feet) of the Great Lakes. The lake stretches approximately 350 miles from west to east, and 160 miles north to south, with a shoreline almost 2,800 miles long" Quoted from http://www.great-lakes.net/lakes/superior.html#overview

What this means is that fishing Lake Superior is to cast your fly into a body of water that is as vast as freshwater lakes get and it doesn't contain many fish...statistically it should result in nothing but a wet line and cold fingertips.

And then...at 7:30 am after casting and retrieving for 2 hours the deceiver stops. The line sizzles through the water and all I can see is a tail fin cutting water for 100 yards. The Nautilus reel sings a smooth, unwavering hymn to the fish gods and I watch the backing unwind twice as fast as the machine at the flyshop put it on. Standing on a rock in Lake Superior absolutely stunned and amazed that despite the odds, it's happened again. Thrilled to have connected and praying to all the gods and saints whose names I regularly use in vain, I put the backing back on the spool followed by 20' of the flyline. The fish is tiring but isn't quite ready for the grill and lemons. It makes a few hard short runs before I'm able to steer it onto a low spot on the rock I'm standing on. (End of fight scene)

Chinook Salmon, or Kings as they are called, can grow to a massive size. Check out the posts on Buster (and Buster and Buster ) if you want to see what a real King looks like. Mine was 27" and weighed a little over 7 lbs. But, it was a hot fish that helped me verify that the reel worked, and that statistically, statistics are no reason not to fish when you get a chance... even if the lake has 3,000 cubic miles of water and almost no fish in it.

Oh, and the little ones are delicious