Fishing can be a bit of a puzzle at times. Sometimes, the pieces line up just right, and you solve the puzzle with little effort. However, sometimes those pieces don’t fit regardless of how hard you try to get them together. Other times still, it takes all day just to match the first few pieces together so you get an idea of what the big picture is. By the time you do finally figure things out, not only is the payoff rewarding, it also comes with a deep-seated feeling like no other…….. you earned it.



In today’s hustle and bustle society, all too often we look past this big picture and get wrapped up in results. We forget what really matters the most is the experience and road we take to get there. This is especially true for those of us that enjoy trips out fishing with a guide or on a chartered trip. The success of a guide or charter service often depends upon the results they are able to produce. In this screwed up world, I believe sensory satisfaction weighs too greatly upon our decision making process. The guides that advertise pictures of huge fish, record catches, and limit days are the ones that get the attention. Little thought is given to the “hidden” factors that should weigh into every decision we make. Nothing was more apparent to me when we got off the water at the end of the day on my recent trip to beautiful lake Michigan with Captain Ralph Steiger. Sure we caught fish, in fact we had one of the most outstanding catches of perch I have ever been witness too. However, it was the hours spent after our perch fishing that made this revelation most apparent to me.

For the first 4.5 to 5 hours of hopping from spot to spot on this massive expanse of an impoundment, we came up empty-handed. Our guide for hire, Capt. Ralph Steiger, worked tirelessly from start to finish. He went above and beyond what any of us would have expected, motoring us in the neighborhood of 50 miles around the shores of East Chicago, Gary, and Chicago looking for a few smallmouth willing to eat our lures. We casted, jigged, and worked our lures til our arms were sore and our backs were aching from the pain of fighting a stiff 20 to 30 mph southwest blow all day long.

All along the way, Capt. Ralph remained calm, collected, positive, an ever encouraging. He even kept reassuring us that our technique and lure presentation was spot on, even to the point of being complimentary! My day began at 3am, and by 4pm we had exhausted the batteries on his 36v 101 lb/ft thrust Minn Kota Fortrex, and had to throw in the towel. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes before this that we finally found a few pieces of the puzzle that fit together just right.



Custom Poorboy Erie Darter Jr.s on custom painted “Dee’s” 1/4 oz VMC jigheads casted up onto windblown harbor rocks is what finally did it for us. This was a departure from our previous 20-some spots as they all were on the protected side and out of the wind. The wealth of knowledge that changed hands this day was amazing. I heard Ralph and Mike talking at great length about the trout fishing to the north, which was an eye opener for me, as I came to realize the true level of expertise of my fellow blogger and Trout Mafia Don, Mikey P. I even taught our skipper a new method for attaching a flourocarbon leader to mono mainline, which I hope he uses as it is considered by many top big game anglers to be the best.



I heard Capt. Ralph say something about our fishing for the day, saying how our results were “not for a lack of effort.” I can tell you that the feeling was mutual, he pulled out all the stops, and I believe we all saw the big picture this day. It will most certainly be a trip we will never forget.