April 19th and the ground is still buried under seven inches of white. The ice normally sinks from the local lakes around the 10th and now looks to be at least two weeks away. Call that late, late. Figure the up north lakes at a week or so after. The Boundary Waters lakes I would most likely fish, another week after that. Not that big a deal, it's happened before. Back in '66 the ice came off the lakes my buddy Rod and I were fishing on Memorial Day, went a long way toward explaining our bad luck a week later.
So what does a fisherman expecting at least three trips up north this year do? Oils reels and winds line of course. Yup, they're ready to go even if Mother Nature ain't.
There is an upside. The small, fly-in lakes my son and I are off to in late June should be primed and ready for action. Yeah, hope springs even if spring doesn't. I've got a vision of those Nungesser River widenings and it tells me they fit me about right. All told, no more than eight hundred acres with the biggest at a spit over three. Even the name, Night Hawk Lake, draws me. Wrote an entry a few years back that'll be in Deadman Lake when it comes out titled, 'Small Lakes Fit Me Best'. Yup, where we'll be going could easily be fished by canoe. There's even what appears to be a mile and a half of navigable river that'd take us north into Nungesser Lake proper should we want to flounder on big water. But being a cheap bugger at heart, the extra cost for an additional flight is beyond my idea of affordable.
All the spinners are wired up and done. Eight of them are even double bladed. Don't know if they'll work but we'll find out.
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