Fog at Starve Island May 16th
There was heavy fog hanging over West Harbor from 7:30 until when my 15 yr old son and I left at 9:00, so I drug my feet. It was tough to see the channel and the day marks heading to the lake, but I watched my compass, chart plotter and used my eyes. Boats were coming in at 9:30 and they were left of center in the channel due to the thick fog. As we left West Harbor and headed north toward Mouse Island it was difficult to see and all we heard were an occassional boat horns.
Once we got to Mouse the fog lifted and we saw boats north and west of Green, and some boats between S Bass and Kellys. We headed toward Starve Island to work that area where we would be protected from the wind. We set up in about 28 ft of water a quarter mile SE of Starve trolling west. The fog rolled in again. We were running a west course along S Bass pulling four rods with a Bandits in Gold Black back, Chrome Blue with orange belly, Khaki with orange belly, and a Purple Nerple Reef Runner 800 with no weight set at 45, 50,, 55, and 60 running at 1.6 - 1.9. We only fished 45 min and the second mistake I made began to turn up. I had set my Amish bags too far back and I caught a bag in the prop. By the time we got that bag free, we had drifted into the line of the Miller Ferry running to S Bass from Mouse Isle. Not good. The first mistake I made was coming out in that fog. The sound Ferry and his horn blowing when you cannot see him is chilling. We got the boat going and pulled our lines at this fog at about 11:45 located about 2 Miles south of Green was dense. We decided to head in and maybe try later in the day. My mind began to think of all the airline flights I had been cancelled on going due to fog. I thought of JFK Junior who was killed in a small plane at night because he could not figure our where he was an if he was upside down or right side up. I knew I had to trust my compass and my GPS plotter. I thought of Kobe Bryant and his Chopper that went down in the winter. My issue was, you cannot see anything and it was playing tricks with my mind. I know I was somewhere south of Green, but I could not pinpoint where I was.
I set a SE course to Mouse, but somehow my mind kept saying go South. I knew that was not right, so I continued SE until Mouse Isle popped up on the plotter. We were only traveling about 6.8- 7.3 MPH. THen all of a sudden at about 50 yards out, there was Mouse Isle very close. WE navigated around the east side of Mouse and I felt a lot better. THat is where we really started to hear boat horns going off. Its frightening as you cant tell where the sound is coming from. I inched closer to shore running south from Mouse watching for the West Harbor channel. All of a sudden my son yells, "we were in nets." We were going slow, so we stopped and fortunately only the boat was on the nets, not the prop. WE raised the motor and my son said lets back off these nets which we did. We could not see the east end of the net markers, so we followed the net west toward shore until we found the single flag. THey set those nets 25-30 yards from shore, but there was about 7 feet of water close to shore and we made it around the nets and we headed south again.
All of a sudden there was a northbound boat came over to us and asked us if we were near Lakeside. I said no, we are approaching Gem Beach. I said he needs to go south. He did a u turn and flew off. "I screamed at him There are more nets
right in front of you." I said I will take you back to West Harbor. By this time we came across a third set of nets running south from Mouse with a man and his wife heading north in the nets, looking for West Harbor. Somehow he got out of the nets too and I said "follow up south. "
So even though I made several mistakes of going out in the fog, setting bags too far back on the boat, and getting too close to the Miller Ferry line, managed to help two other boaters get back to the harbor safely.
Oh by the way, we got three 20" walleye by Starve on Bandits on every color except the Reef Runner.
