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An ‘emergency’ outing on the Wapsipinicon
Wild Side column: The Whopper Plopper did the trick on the first day of autumn
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The tackle box had a hand-lettered sign taped to its top: Break glass in case of emergency.
I put it there, mostly as a joke, more than a year ago before my son Fred and I left for a fishing trip on the Upper Mississippi River. Inside were a dozen lures, a mix of Whopper Ploppers and Berkley’s barely distinguishable knockoff, the Choppo.
They are the fentanyl of fishing lures — addictive and dangerous.
The impact on the senses — seeing, hearing and feeling — when a big fish erupts from the depths to smash it is so pleasurable that you want to repeat it ad infinitum. But their two large, sharp treble hooks are difficult to remove and present a risk of injury to fish and angler. Plus the time lost doing so can often keep you from catching other willing fish.
No emergency arose during last year’s Upper Mississippi trip as we were able to catch enough strapping smallmouth bass to physically tire us on less dangerous tackle.
In recent weeks, however, the fishes’ aversion to my preferred topwater lure — the single-hook Strike King mini-buzz bait — has gradually come to seem like an emergency. So on Monday, the first full day of autumn, I slipped a Whopper Plopper into my tackle box for an outing on the Wapsipinicon, just in case.
On my way upriver I fished rocky banks with the buzzer and had around 20 indifferent touches with no actual connections. I declared an emergency, tied on the plopper and caught a large, angry smallmouth on the first cast, followed by a lengthy succession of similarly enraged bass and northern pike.
I got slimed at least a half dozen times by broad-shouldered northerns, whose powerful, slippery bodies are capable of eel-like writhing and wriggling. The release process entails putting Spock’s Vulcan nerve grip on the back of what would be their neck (if they had one) to minimize the chance they will hoist you on your own petard as you attempt to remove the trebles from their toothy maw.
My return to the pickup — 1,700 mostly wading and sandbar-walking steps — concludes with an uphill climb through gnarly timber, a journey I like to complete with at least some lingering daylight. Most evenings that has not been a problem, as the fish have stopped biting well before nightfall. On Monday evening, however, they wouldn’t quit and neither would I.
At my last river crossing just before dark, I allowed myself one last cast. The plopper had gurgled and burbled no more than 10 feet when it disappeared in a surface disturbance like the flushing of a powerful toilet.
Visions of a special smallmouth soon gave way to the realization that I’d hooked yet another 30-inch northern, whose tedious release would not be accomplished before nightfall.
Reeking of northern slime and glowing with a fresh adrenaline buzz, I panted and stumbled uphill through nearly invisible timber hazards in the dark.
When I got home, my wife wrinkled her nose as I came through the door. I washed my hands three times with one of those heavy duty scrubby sponges, but my supper still smelled and tasted sort of fishy.
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