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What makes a fishing trip great? - Skwala Fishing

What makes a fishing trip great?

Or, why I keep going back to Beaver Island

When anticipating a fishing trip—booking flights, checking forecasts, rigging rods—we usually imagine fish. But what stays with you after the trip ends? If I measured fishing trips in fish caught, I wouldn’t keep going back to Beaver Island. 

Packing for a week on Beaver Island is always a project. I stare into my gear closet, trying to build the perfect kit. Working at an apparel company (as I do) compounds the challenge. I want to test the latest and greatest—find out how it holds up in the elements—but the overworked and underappreciated airline staff limit me to one large duffel. Deciding what stays and what makes the cut creates a strangely intimate moment, one that says more about the trip I’m hoping for than I realize at the time. 

Beaver Island sits in the middle of Lake Michigan—an inland sea that seethes and churns—more ocean than lake. We stay in “town”, tucked deep in a protected harbor. The water may look dead calm at the dock, but that doesn’t mean it’s calm past the point. Four-footers could be rolling across flats while we’re sipping coffee and tying leaders. The harbor lies. Thankfully, the guides don’t. They’ve been here long enough to read the signals we miss. When they say it’s fishable, it’s fishable. When they say it’s a weather day, trust them and get creative

The real trick, though, is temperature. Warm water makes carp happy. It’s non-negotiable if you plan to hunt them in the shallows. And wind—not just air temp—plays a huge role. One storm system can flip an entire section of lake, push the warm layer out, and replace it with cold, fishless water. That’s what makes Beaver Island so maddening . . . and so intriguing. Every year I fly from Bozeman, Montana to a remote speck in the middle of a Great Lake, just hoping that the stars (and the surface temps) align. And when they don’t? I come back next year and roll the dice again. The gamble creates the allure. The rush of coming up aces gets exponentially compounded by each previous flop. 

Every morning on the island starts the same way: breakfast downstairs. It’s part ritual, part recon. We shuffle into the little diner beneath our lodging at 8:00 a.m., watching the steam rise off coffee cups, trying not to make meteorological guesses. And then the guides show up. Kevin or Steve walks through the door and drops the verdict. Some mornings we grab breakfast sandwiches to go and race for the boat. Others, Kevin shrugs and says, “Weather day, boys.” We don’t argue. We still order breakfast sandwiches but take our time, savor that thin coffee. 

This year, we had six days on the books and fished four. Two days, we didn’t step aboard a boat. One day, we left late and hitched a ride with a dive boat big enough to punch through the swells our skiffs couldn’t. We eventually found fishable water, but it took some improvisation. That’s part of it too: making do, figuring it out, earning opportunities. 

Should we measure fishing trips by the number of fish caught? The number of beers sunk? The number of friends crammed together while finding ways to wait out another weather day? Maybe it’s all those things. Maybe it’s none of them. Maybe success demands inventing your own metrics. 

Here’s the truth: flyfishing is tough most of the time. That’s not an anomaly—that’s the sport. I don’t love flyfishing despite the difficulty; I love flyfishing because of it. And in the crucible of that struggle, the stuff that actually matters begins to surface. 

On fishing trips, especially challenging ones, I learn more about my companions in a day that I might in a year of casual acquaintance. And they learn about me, just as I am forced to confront my own expectations. When my better angels emerge, I slow down enough to notice details—birds stalking the shoreline, the way the water can transform from Atlantic intimidating to Caribbean placid over the course of a few hours, the ritual of rising with the sun. 

When everything lines up—wind, weather, fish—it’s magic. When everything doesn’t, it’s still magic, and the best trips somehow hold space for both. 

That’s why I keep going back. Not for the fish (or not entirely for the fish) but for the reminder that chasing them—especially when the odds are stacked against me—is the point. I cast anyway. I show up. I trust the water will warm eventually. If I can keep my head right, I don’t just make peace with the waiting, I appreciate it as part of the trip.

This year’s results? Mixed, like always. We had two days with fish in hand—five carp total, all found in deeper water, tailing and mudding just enough to see but not enough to make it easy. The shallow flats that dreams are made of never warmed. A few random smallmouth and a surprise pike filled in the gaps. It wasn’t a numbers trip, but I’ve stopped measuring these outings that way. 

Now, unpacking my gear back home, I realize what I chose to bring—Sol wet wading gear for warm, sunny flats covered in tailing carp—spoke volumes about the trip I was hoping for. Instead, I spent most of my time zipped into RS Waders and my RS Jacket, pieces I trust to keep me comfortable through wind, rain, and cold. This year, they became the uniform. I packed with optimism. I fished with realism. And what I carried home, more than any fish, was a reaffirmation that the real reward isn’t in what you catch—but in showing up ready for whatever happens.

Beaver Island Kit

Photography courtesy of The Fiberglass Manifesto and Dave Fason photography.

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