"Big Reef, big fish"

Big Reef, big fish

by Bob Gwizdz

SHELTER BAY – Lake Superior wasn’t exactly angry; when she’s angry she can sink a super tanker.  But, she certainly wasn’t a very hospitable hostess.

Between the Cedar Point-sized swells, the 20-knot cross winds and whatever current was ripping below, Captain Dave Kimar struggled to keep the boat going in a semi-consistent direction.  But even when the conditions are tough, the fishing can be awesome at the Big Reef, an upswelling in the big lake 28 miles from Kimar’s Resort.

It didn’t take long to prove it.  Within minutes of setting a couple of lines, Gena Kramer was fast into a lake trout.  And not just any lake trout; it was a 15-pound class lake trout. 

“Fishing offshore is getting more popular because of the number of fish and the chance of catching a big fish,” Kimar said.  I haven’t hardly had an offshore trip this year when we didn’t get a 15 to 20 pounder – or even bigger than 20.”

Every year he catches fish in the 30-pound range, Kimar said.  “The Big Reef has produced a lot of fish between 25 and 40 pounds,” he said. 

Big fish.  That is why Kimar made the long run through hostile seas.  “Actually we’re kind of lucky to be able to fish today,” Kimar said as we trolled spoons in 80 to 130 feet of water.  “It’s a marginal day.”

Marginal for an acrobat.  Kimar’s veteran sea legs were the only limbs capable of handing the roller coaster ride.  The rest of us were bouncing around like a bunch of head bangers in a mosh pit. 

Kimar had hoped to concentrate on the peninsula-like projection off the roughly 50-square mile reef in about 130 feet of water.  Part of the time we were suddenly out over 400 feet and part of the time we were up in 70.

“Usually, we’re not in that shallow water as much but the wind’s pushed us in there,” Kimar said.  “We’re kind of going here Mother Nature puts us today.”

Still, she puts us over fish.  Although we only fished four lines – “If we put out more than four lines we’d be pushing our luck,” Kimar said – the lines on both downrigger rods become entangled with the cables as we bobbed around like a cork in the ocean. 

The other two rods were pump rods, pool cue-like poles with large simple reels that resemble downrigger cable spools.  The reels held 1,500 feet of 30-pund test, single-strand wire.

The idea of the pump rod is to let the spoon find the bottom – it takes 500 to 600 feet of wire to get to the bottom Kimar said – then to pump it up and down, ticking across the bottom.  Except we couldn’t pump it because none of us could stand up.  In fact, we mostly had to sit while fighting the fish. 

Still, the pump rod produced.  A big fish hit and Joe Erickson, a 78-year old retiree from Kalamazoo who was up next, declined to fight his way to the back of the boat, passing the turn to me.  I sat down and fought the fish on wire. 

For the day, we boated nine lakers and probably missed that many more.

Kimar, 53, is spending an increasing amount of his time going to offshore reefs.  It’s the big-lake equivalent of a wilderness fishing trip – going to Big Reef takes you over more than 1,000 feet (depth) of water to get there.