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By Scott “Coach” Stankowski
CWS Senior Outdoors Writer

August 29, 2012

Stevens Point–Being a charter captain is not one of the ‘to do’ jobs in the world. Plenty of us weekend dashers who enjoy fishing in our own rigs would love to ditch our regular jobs at first glance and steer the helm of a great lakes fishing rig. Spend a few days in choppy, hard-to-catch-fish water day after day and you will soon begin to think otherwise.

I had a chance to talk with Keith Heberlein of Will E Bee Charters of Two Rivers recently to find out a little bit about fishing and the career. Keith runs approximately eighty charters a year. That is completely dependent upon the weather, however. Even if Keith is comfortable with himself heading out into the lake, it completely depends upon his clients as to whether or not he will head out into the lake. No one wants to fish if they are seasick and the lake has an easy tendency to do that to those without sea legs. So Captain Keith has to make a quick assessment with new clients at 4:30 in the morning the determine if they are capable of handling the weather.

In a perfect world this would not be a problem, sure there are the days when the lake is calm and the fish are biting, but you certainly better enjoy those days as they are far and few between.

The week I spent on the lake the weather was all over the place, providing two directions of waves, swells from the south and chop from the east. This caused the boat to be tossed around while trolling, I would consider it similar to being in a washing machine. The GPS sensor bounced between 1.8 and 3.6 mph on a consistently inconsistent basis. The problem then is that it transcribes into what your baits are doing down below. Salmon and trout typically like a steady constant speed while hitting. A trick into adjusting for this is to lengthen your leads behind the ball according to Heberlein.

If the wind wasn’t enough to contend with, the warm water was also causing the fishing to be down. Water temps ran into the 70s not only in 200ft plus of water but nearly down to the bottom as well. Finding cold water is key, and if you do not have a temperature probe on your boat with the downriggers you will be looking for a needle in a haystack. The water was so warm that the local beach was full of bikinis all day long.

I asked Keith if he was worried about the Great Lakes fishery, with all the news about how fragile it is. From exotic invaders, to water clarity, to asian carp to a lower abundance of baitfish mainly alewives. In response the DNR will be stocking significantly fewer fish this next spring. Keith was very optimistic.

“This lake is huge, and we have no idea what is going on out there, especially out in the deep.”

We got into talking about that specifically and how if you travel out seventeen or so miles you will hit a reef that comes up to three hundred feet of water or so. When gas prices were lower and chartering a boat was more economical, Keith would take trips out there on good days. He has never not come back from there with a load of fish.

“As you start getting into 400 feet plus of water you start picking up a few fish here and there and as you get closer the fishing really turns on.”

The problem is finding the right day to do it weather wise. With gas prices the way they are no, it is not really an option to head out there. Especially the way the fishing has been in close to shore.

If you are looking to charter a captain for a trip out onto the big pond do not hesitate to give Captain Keith a call at Will E Bee charters 902-682-5003 or check out his website at http://williebeecharters.com/index.htm. He is located out of seagull marina, about the friendliest port on the lake where owner Scott will hook you up with the latest fishing information.

As for me, the info we got at the marina and the luck of having one halfway calm morning with my dad, made our trip certainly worth while as we brought in over 60 pounds of fish in just one of our 5 trips.

Until next time,

Shoot straight