May 8
Trumpeter swans on the pond last evening and night. Their honking sounded like they were in the cabin with me, not three hundred yards away. Whoever named them must have had a tin ear if that's what they thought trumpets sounded like. No doubt about it they're honkin' birds. There's only a pair, not the usual flock that passes by in the fall. Maybe they're going to stay and have babies. That would be a treat.
In the growing light before daybreak they began to sound off again. Enough to get me stumbling to the pond in my underwear to check them out. Throw in the cawing of the crows, a twitter here and there, and the drilling of woodpeckers working for their breakfast and it was downright deafening. Can't say for sure if the bird sounds are music to my ears but they tell me all is well in the woods.
Those same bird noises also greet the dawn in the city. But so does the beginning of rush hour and the chorus of a million tires on pavement. I recall coming home from work at four a.m. on Saturday mornings when I was in high school to similar sounds. Maybe life was simpler back in '64.
There seems to be only a pair of swans. I'm hoping it's a mating pair and not a gay couple. Our state legislature is voting on same sex marriage as I write this and it looks like a real possibility. As far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. As far as the swans are concerned I'm pulling for heterosexual and hoping for babies. Might even be cause enough for a spotting scope.
I'm thinking of dropping the wilderness canoeing and fishing subtitle from this blog. Though it was once true and a number of the entries are of those days, it's no longer an accurate description of my topics. To be sure, I still fish from a canoe and nearly all of my fishing is done in near wilderness locations. But it ain't the seat of the pants, no way out, forty miles from the nearest road kind of thing that it once was.
Eventually you catch up with your future. The end of my brief fling with the real boonies had to eventually arrive. And it did. It's just that I was a little slow in admitting it. Years ago I wrote that once in a while a person finds a hole in time to slip into and live an alternate life for a short while. But, it seems a lot of things have to line up just right for that to happen and I'm now permanently short a couple of those things. I'll leave it at that.
So what this has obviously evolved into is an Old Man Gets a Little Time at the Cabin Now and Then and Maybe Goes Fishing blog. Not what I want but it beats the pants off of an Old Man Watches the Golf Channel While Eating Pork Rinds and Dies from Prostate Cancer blog.
These days you can tell you're in the country by the number of dollar stores. None are in the town we call home. They're a self sufficient lot here and lean strongly toward home spun businesses. There's a drug store, flooring store, hardware, grocery, bakery, bowling alley, cafe and restaurant, liquor store, etc. There's even a newspaper. All in a town of nine hundred. Used to be three car dealerships, all of them American of course, but GM closed theirs during the Great Recession.
So when I needed to shop for a brand new, somewhat dated, and way marked down fishing hat I had to drive a ways. Last year I found one but it was marked four dollars. Made me want to step outside and recheck the name of the store. And sure enough, there in small print that I'd taken for bird droppings, with an asterisk up front, read the words "and up - even as high as four dollars." There I was, holding in my hands, the most expensive thing in the store. At the moment it's sitting on the table in front of me next to my fly tying vise.
But, what the hell it was a genuine - I knew it had to be genuine 'cause his name was on the hat in four places - Jeff Foxworthy, Living the Red Neck Life original. On the front is this stick man with a fishing rod who'd caught himself a tire. I suspected it to be an attempt at humor but seeing as how I was in a dollar store and Mr. Foxworthy has no problems making fun of the lower classes, it's just possible the stick man is pretty excited to have caught a free, slightly used but still serviceable, tire.
On top of that, the hat was made in China. Wasn't that long ago we thought of the Chinese as the Red Menace. Now we have to think of them as the Redneck Menace. Times change and I'm not sure if it's for the better.
Mainly I bought the hat 'cause it's sky blue. Don't want to scare off any fish unnecessarily so when they look up, they won't notice me because my head will blend in with the background. That's all well and good but the best part happens when I take it off. My thin white hair will make the fish think it's starting to cloud up, that maybe a front is moving in and they'd better start chowing down before the temperature drops and the bite will be on. May not seem like a real possibility to a normal fisherman but, as you can see, I'm not normal.
I almost gave a thought to fishing off the culvert exiting a small nearby lake that's lost its ice. Across the road from the lake lies a slough with a stream that sporadically meanders through. At the moment northern Minnesota is in flood and the slough is a shallow lake. Prime spawning ground. The water flowing into it through the culvert is roaring. If I was a fish I'd be hanging out to the side of the flow to see what kind of food might be shooting by. Like maybe a weighted streamer thrown by an ancient fiberglass fly rod in the hands of an old fart with time on his hands.
Like I said, almost. All I was lacking was the rod, reel, fly, and fishing license. And there were other things that needed doing that I didn't mind working on.
By the end of the day all was clean and I had an anally retentive smile on my face. Clean is good.
May 9
The toughest day. I had it all packed last night. All that needed to be done was emptying the refrigerator and a final loading of the car. On the drive home the ice was still on all the lakes I passed. Lower and blacker for sure but still on.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Cabin Journal - first two days
May 6
The ice is off Deadman. That's about it. Ice on all the rest, shore to shore. Snow along the roadsides on the shaded embankments. I don't remember snow this late. On the Deadman side of the cabin and shed there are still a foot deep piles where it'd slid off the steel roofs. No leaves, no buds. Looks late March. On the upside there's no mosquitos or wood ticks. By the time it's Spring up here the calendar will say Summer. 'Sposed to rain on Wednesday and that may do the trick. It might be possible to float a boat come Saturday but it'd be wise to wear a life jacket. As to the fishing ... good luck.
On another upside, the boys from down south ain't coming for three weeks and that's enough time for the post-spawn to be in the past. Who knows? Maybe this will be a year to remember for more than the latest ice-out since the glaciers receded.
A walk of the land tells me there's a big buck occasionally wandering our land. Crap the size of a caribou's. Or maybe a six hundred pound bunny. His would be a rack to find. Over the years I've looked for antlers with no luck. Maybe I don't have the eye for it. I mean they're shaped and colored like branches. And the forest floor is nothing but branches. About the time I get my concentration up and into 'seeing the rack', I walk square into an oak. Then I can't see squat till I straighten out my glasses. From then on I'm solidly into 'seeing the tree' mode and couldn't find a buck's rack unless I sat on it.
Nearly seventy above when I drove up in the late afternoon but not so in the cabin. So cold in there I was expecting to find frost on the nail heads. Nothing else to do but build a fire. 'Spose I could have toughed it out but there's nearly three cords of dry wood neatly stacked under the spreading shed eaves. It'll take years to get to it all and by then there'll be more, split, stacked, and dry. Besides, fire is fun and exciting.
Tomorrow the plan is to get started on the necessary cleanup. Put off much longer and the dead flies will be ankle deep. Also lots of windows that needed a serious washing. The cabin's not all that big but there are thirty-five window panes, not including the storms on the main rooms. That's a lot of glass to polish inside and out. Much easier to write about it.
If there's time in the afternoon I'll peel some of the Juneberry poles I've collected as they've died. Cut them to shortened lengths and - what else? - make little trees out of them. It's a sickness.
May 7
Whenever I woke up in the night I heard an owl or two working the woods outside. A little research in the morning told me it was a barred owl, even though I was rooting for a great horned owl. Turns out that owls also eat bats. We've got maybe a half dozen bats living under our steel roof. If the owls ate a few I wouldn't complain.
I suppose I could learn to live with the infernal scritching of the bats, small brown bats by the way, as they work their way out to feed in the evening but there's always the fear that their droppings could eventually cause a problem. Like maybe turn us into vampires. On the other hand bats eat mosquitos and with all the water around this Spring, there'll be no shortage of them. In a perfect world the owls would eat the bats, then take over the mosquito job.
As to the owls, I also read they could be drawn close by simply echoing their whoo - who - who - whooo call. Or maybe wearing a steel lined mouse hat.
Today was a work day. You lock it up in the Fall. Buttoned up tight as possible but somehow the dust settles down, the flies die, and the windows get dirtier. So you go at it just like you would with a car, start at the top and clean your way down. Starting with a couple of makeshift beds up in the addition that had to be stripped and given an old fashioned shaking out.
My thoughts while doing this run to the days when part of spring cleaning was pulling out the wool rugs and going at them with a carpet beater. I'm old enough to remember such things but not old enough to have done it. As to the aging process, I'm no longer on the cutting edge of life but have become a go between who ties generations together. From the one I didn't live but heard stories of to the one which never knew life prior to the internet.
A lot of life at the cabin is old fashioned, a throwback to an age that is gone. The water gets hand pumped, the outhouse is my friend, the wood stove our heat. Entertainment is radio, reading, writing, maybe some lure tying and time on the water is self-propelled. Call it being stuck in the '30s without the Depression. It's a good life. Maybe not as clean or exciting as the 21st Century and maybe it's only a few days at a time, but I'm happy when up there.
Windows get washed inside and out. Furniture moved, corners and underneaths cleaned. Everything gets put back and the center vacuumed. It's not all that much fun till you get into the swing of the work. Work is work be it paddling a canoe or washing the dishes. Get it done, get it done right. Words I heard growing up.
Truth is I'm no perfectionist. The cabin is clean but not sterile. It helps that I'm lazy in a preemptive sense. Shoes come off in the entry. Firewood gets checked for vermin before it's brought in. No sense dragging in any more dirt than necessary. Maybe if I lived here, the cabin would get a top to bottom scrubbing now and then. And if I lived there, I'd sure as hell get it dirtier than I do now and it'd need a top to bottom job now and then.
Downstairs to the sole, real bedroom. Same routine. However, there I hit the first of the original glide-by windows that need to be pulled apart to be fully cleaned. A pain in the ass for sure but guilt drives me on. Thank you Sister Eleanor Marie.
Lunch was late 'cause there was no way in hell I was taking a break till the bedroom was done.
By two I was outside peeling poles and ripping oak for 'little tree' stock with a smile on my face and an eye on my thighs as the draw knife drew near. A trip to the clinic would put a damper on my fine time and in serious trouble with my loved ones. Nothing like getting ten stitches and no sympathy. I tend to be real careful with hand held, sharpened steel.
As to making artsy pine trees out of juneberry, something seems innately wrong. I'd say it's kind of a mock duck thing but don't know what mock duck is. And I have my doubts whether I can successfully work a round object on a band saw. Circle and square problem. I tend to be a right angle kind of guy and the trunk I cut down - dead of course - has more than its share if irregularity. It sure looked straight enough till I took to peeling it. Worse comes to worst, juneberry makes fine kindling.
'Bout the time I got the oak slabs ripped to two by twos I'd run out of gas. Seems that at age sixty-six my tank ain't as big as it once was. Time to head inside and throw together dinner. Then an evening of NPR and reading. Gierach goes nicely up here. Laid back, humor and an occasional insight.
May 7
Whenever I woke up in the night I heard an owl or two working the woods outside. A little research in the morning told me it was a barred owl, even though I was rooting for a great horned owl. Turns out that owls also eat bats. We've got maybe a half dozen bats living under our steel roof. If the owls ate a few I wouldn't complain.
I suppose I could learn to live with the infernal scritching of the bats, small brown bats by the way, as they work their way out to feed in the evening but there's always the fear that their droppings could eventually cause a problem. Like maybe turn us into vampires. On the other hand bats eat mosquitos and with all the water around this Spring, there'll be no shortage of them. In a perfect world the owls would eat the bats, then take over the mosquito job.
As to the owls, I also read they could be drawn close by simply echoing their whoo - who - who - whooo call. Or maybe wearing a steel lined mouse hat.
Today was a work day. You lock it up in the Fall. Buttoned up tight as possible but somehow the dust settles down, the flies die, and the windows get dirtier. So you go at it just like you would with a car, start at the top and clean your way down. Starting with a couple of makeshift beds up in the addition that had to be stripped and given an old fashioned shaking out.
My thoughts while doing this run to the days when part of spring cleaning was pulling out the wool rugs and going at them with a carpet beater. I'm old enough to remember such things but not old enough to have done it. As to the aging process, I'm no longer on the cutting edge of life but have become a go between who ties generations together. From the one I didn't live but heard stories of to the one which never knew life prior to the internet.
A lot of life at the cabin is old fashioned, a throwback to an age that is gone. The water gets hand pumped, the outhouse is my friend, the wood stove our heat. Entertainment is radio, reading, writing, maybe some lure tying and time on the water is self-propelled. Call it being stuck in the '30s without the Depression. It's a good life. Maybe not as clean or exciting as the 21st Century and maybe it's only a few days at a time, but I'm happy when up there.
Windows get washed inside and out. Furniture moved, corners and underneaths cleaned. Everything gets put back and the center vacuumed. It's not all that much fun till you get into the swing of the work. Work is work be it paddling a canoe or washing the dishes. Get it done, get it done right. Words I heard growing up.
Truth is I'm no perfectionist. The cabin is clean but not sterile. It helps that I'm lazy in a preemptive sense. Shoes come off in the entry. Firewood gets checked for vermin before it's brought in. No sense dragging in any more dirt than necessary. Maybe if I lived here, the cabin would get a top to bottom scrubbing now and then. And if I lived there, I'd sure as hell get it dirtier than I do now and it'd need a top to bottom job now and then.
Downstairs to the sole, real bedroom. Same routine. However, there I hit the first of the original glide-by windows that need to be pulled apart to be fully cleaned. A pain in the ass for sure but guilt drives me on. Thank you Sister Eleanor Marie.
Lunch was late 'cause there was no way in hell I was taking a break till the bedroom was done.
By two I was outside peeling poles and ripping oak for 'little tree' stock with a smile on my face and an eye on my thighs as the draw knife drew near. A trip to the clinic would put a damper on my fine time and in serious trouble with my loved ones. Nothing like getting ten stitches and no sympathy. I tend to be real careful with hand held, sharpened steel.
As to making artsy pine trees out of juneberry, something seems innately wrong. I'd say it's kind of a mock duck thing but don't know what mock duck is. And I have my doubts whether I can successfully work a round object on a band saw. Circle and square problem. I tend to be a right angle kind of guy and the trunk I cut down - dead of course - has more than its share if irregularity. It sure looked straight enough till I took to peeling it. Worse comes to worst, juneberry makes fine kindling.
'Bout the time I got the oak slabs ripped to two by twos I'd run out of gas. Seems that at age sixty-six my tank ain't as big as it once was. Time to head inside and throw together dinner. Then an evening of NPR and reading. Gierach goes nicely up here. Laid back, humor and an occasional insight.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Hope Springs
My God, it's finally warming up. Tomorrow's high above sixty followed by a string of seventy degree days. Even up north it looks like winter will finally end in a flash of glory. Of course that means incredible flooding from here to the Mississippi delta but what's a little tragedy now and then so long as it doesn't get in the way of walleye fishing?
And my son Allan sounds like he'll be able to free up a couple of weekends for fishing. With a bit of luck that means four brief fishing forays in the northwoods with people I enjoy spending time with on the water. Time alone is great but sharing it is better.
Tomorrow Lois and I head south to Sioux Falls with a stop on the way to pick up jigs for tying. Nothing brings joy to the terminally (anally?) cheap like turning a couple of dozen half buck items into a couple of dozen buck and a halfers. Then giving them away with a, "Try these. Tell me if they work."
Maybe I could prepare for the trips by writing a walleye fishing song along the lines of something Pooh bear would have made up. After all, he was a bear. Must have eaten more than just honey. But I suppose A.A. Milne didn't want to scare the bejeezus out of little Christopher Robin with stories of his beloved stuffed animal ripping the guts out of a still wriggling fish. But, c'mon, ain't the image of Pooh with a ring of droozling blood and guts around his fuzzy little mouth cute as all get out?
The thought of Pooh as a real bear, preferably a brown bear, has its charm. His little piggy, donkey and rodent friends wouldn't have been around long. Would have ended up as little steaming piles of scat along the paths of The Hundred Acre Woods. Could almost be the grist for an Uncle Emil story.
And my son Allan sounds like he'll be able to free up a couple of weekends for fishing. With a bit of luck that means four brief fishing forays in the northwoods with people I enjoy spending time with on the water. Time alone is great but sharing it is better.
Tomorrow Lois and I head south to Sioux Falls with a stop on the way to pick up jigs for tying. Nothing brings joy to the terminally (anally?) cheap like turning a couple of dozen half buck items into a couple of dozen buck and a halfers. Then giving them away with a, "Try these. Tell me if they work."
Maybe I could prepare for the trips by writing a walleye fishing song along the lines of something Pooh bear would have made up. After all, he was a bear. Must have eaten more than just honey. But I suppose A.A. Milne didn't want to scare the bejeezus out of little Christopher Robin with stories of his beloved stuffed animal ripping the guts out of a still wriggling fish. But, c'mon, ain't the image of Pooh with a ring of droozling blood and guts around his fuzzy little mouth cute as all get out?
The thought of Pooh as a real bear, preferably a brown bear, has its charm. His little piggy, donkey and rodent friends wouldn't have been around long. Would have ended up as little steaming piles of scat along the paths of The Hundred Acre Woods. Could almost be the grist for an Uncle Emil story.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Eternal Winter - in progress
Snowed again last week. Most of the storm missed the cabin area yet something on the order of six or eight inches fluttered to the forest floor. Must have been pretty as all hell. I could almost hear the hand guns being cleaned and loaded as terminal cases of cabin fever spread like wildfire. Three feet of ice on Leech lake and two on the smaller waters I like to fish. Another system is moving through over the next couple of days. (audible sigh of resignation)
On the upside.... more to come later.
On the upside.... more to come later.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Grandchildren
There's four of them. Two here and the same number in South Dakota. Yesterday, we had Matthew and Luke for a few hours. Not as easy as it once was and what once was, wasn't all that easy. Tough as it can be there's always a few treasures gathered each time they're over.
Last night's moments came from Luke. Only seven months old and barely able to cast a Rapala more than a dozen yards. Since he can't crawl, much less walk or carry a canoe pack or change his own diapers, I don't see much use for the kid as a fishing partner for at least a dozen years. That he also likes to be carried constantly by his Grandpa and cries when he's set down also bodes badly for any serious portaging. Guess I'll have to wait a while.
On the upside, he likes to be carried by his Grandpa. And sleep on the old man's belly and chest. Looking at his sleeping head on my shoulder gives me a warm feeling from being able to see that I still have more hair than he does, maybe not in numbers but in total volume. I'll enjoy that while I can.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The Ghost of Trips Past Comes Calling
It happens every year around this time. More so now that there are no big trips in my future. Years past come knocking to kick around what once was and get me plotting out trips that'll never happen anywhere in the real world. I still think a canoe trip to Canada is something I could do. Hell, I'm not dead yet and am a fair percentage of what I once was. Would have been nice had my body been the one to intervene and tell me no. Instead it's merely circumstance. No one to go with.
Even if a trip did come about it probably wouldn't be up to the excursions of the past. The last serious trip in 2009 constantly had me filled with mixed emotions from the get-go. Not that I didn't want to be there, just that I wasn't filled with the spark of earlier years. Ask Allan, he'll tell you the same.
As I get older nothing thrills as it once did. Not that I have a lot of control in the matter. Might be a case of my mind singing to my body, Baby Let Me Follow You Down. Obviously in a different sense than the song from the '60s.
I sorely miss the manic excitement of the days that once lead up to our Canadian departure. The wondering of how it would all go down. The longing for and fear of what the Four Mile Portage would be like, not to mention the canoe crossing of huge Reed Lake. What would the fishing be like on lakes that could only be reached by plane or canoe? And the thrill of doing it the hard way, the way it was done for centuries by people who did such things simply because that's the way life was and had always been. All of that got my blood moving. Still does a little but only in retrospect.
For the moment it's white outside. Not as much snow as predicted for either here or at the cabin. Regardless, ice-out stumbles a couple of days farther into the future. Nothing I can do about that except write. Acceptance of reality seems to have balanced out my long held youthful excitement nicely. I expect that's a good thing. Or at least better than losing the thrill and wallowing in depression.
For the moment there's flashabou to be tied onto some of the jigs I already have. Maybe a few marabou feathers. Don't know if that'll make them any better. The big boys of walleye fishing say it will, especially in the bog stained water we'll be fishing in a few weeks. Also the addition of a little sparkle and color adds a personal touch, not as good as making a lure from scratch but better than straight from the store. So I'll put on a fishing hat, maybe some Mozart, tie a few jigs, and daydream.
Even if a trip did come about it probably wouldn't be up to the excursions of the past. The last serious trip in 2009 constantly had me filled with mixed emotions from the get-go. Not that I didn't want to be there, just that I wasn't filled with the spark of earlier years. Ask Allan, he'll tell you the same.
As I get older nothing thrills as it once did. Not that I have a lot of control in the matter. Might be a case of my mind singing to my body, Baby Let Me Follow You Down. Obviously in a different sense than the song from the '60s.
I sorely miss the manic excitement of the days that once lead up to our Canadian departure. The wondering of how it would all go down. The longing for and fear of what the Four Mile Portage would be like, not to mention the canoe crossing of huge Reed Lake. What would the fishing be like on lakes that could only be reached by plane or canoe? And the thrill of doing it the hard way, the way it was done for centuries by people who did such things simply because that's the way life was and had always been. All of that got my blood moving. Still does a little but only in retrospect.
For the moment it's white outside. Not as much snow as predicted for either here or at the cabin. Regardless, ice-out stumbles a couple of days farther into the future. Nothing I can do about that except write. Acceptance of reality seems to have balanced out my long held youthful excitement nicely. I expect that's a good thing. Or at least better than losing the thrill and wallowing in depression.
For the moment there's flashabou to be tied onto some of the jigs I already have. Maybe a few marabou feathers. Don't know if that'll make them any better. The big boys of walleye fishing say it will, especially in the bog stained water we'll be fishing in a few weeks. Also the addition of a little sparkle and color adds a personal touch, not as good as making a lure from scratch but better than straight from the store. So I'll put on a fishing hat, maybe some Mozart, tie a few jigs, and daydream.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Time to Learn - Again
I've been a Minnesotan all my life. But, contrary to a nationally held opinion of Minnesotans, I don't eat lefsa or lutefisk. Or know all that much about catching walleyes, even though I consider myself a fisherman. That brings up the question, can a Minnesotan call himself a fisherman if he doesn't fish for walleyes?
It's not that I haven't caught them, even hundreds of them. However, all were Canadian walleyes and, in Minnesota, they don't count. Too innocent, too easily fooled, and well, just not American.
I'm willing to accept the idea that Minnesota walleyes have seen it all and in the popular lakes seem to require big boats, big motors, and more electronics that a WWII battleship. So I'm back to leaning on my assets as a fisherman. And those assets aren't found in the tackle shops or boat yards but instead, are about locating walleyes nearly as innocent as the ones north of the border. And that requires research and the willingness to drive through crap on rocky, rutted two tracks to waters that aren't commonly known or fished.
Of course there are those, the locals who've fished them for a couple of generations and wisely kept their mouths shut, who know about those lakes. Since I've been in my up-north neck of the woods for thirty-two years now, I'm almost a local. Probably as close as I'll ever be. And I've found my walleye lake. At least I think I have. For the moment the only walleyes I've seen in said lake are the ones netted by the DNR and listed on a lake chart. Not so much walleyes as they are numbers. Unless the DNR netted the lake clean, they're still there.
As to catching them, first they've got to be found. Okay, I've found a lake with walleyes in it. Next comes the task of locating them under the surface of that lake. Electronics would make that a lot easier but I'm old school (rhymes with old fool). And don't do that.
On the other hand I've got access to the internet. No, I don't take my laptop in the canoe with me. But I do use it as a research tool. It's like talking with old-timers who've been catching pickerel (hoser for walleye) since Roosevelt (Teddie, not that young whipper-snapper Franklin) was in the White House.
Yeah, it's contradictory to use one high-tech tool and badmouth another. But my entire canoe and backwoods wise man schtick is a pretend thing (more closely related to cheap than choice). As is my ability to find obscure, off the beaten track, lakes to fish and even know what's in them. Nothin' like the man riding shotgun ask me with amazement, "How in the hell do you find these lakes?" Like I'm a regular Johnny Appleseed with a fishin' pole. Does my ego good. However, I'll always tell them I use Google Earth as it's much easier seeing what's behind the trees when you're looking down from outer space with a billion dollar telescope.
But, once I'm on the water it's back to the old days for it's what I've retained in my brain that matters. Look at the sky, scope the waves and treetops for wind direction, check out the weeds for type, feel the water (my thermometer broke years ago), and look at the shoreline for hills and swamp. All of them are clues. Having a lake map also helps. Tells you a lot about the bottom but, since it's a crutch, it stays at the cabin.
All of the tools I use are no more than aids that allow me to jump past the first couple of steps usually provided by experience. Maybe half the lakes I fish have been learned through research. The virgins were cases of seeing blue on the map or in passing on a back road and thinking, "Looks like it might hold fish." Then eventually putting the canoe on its surface and a line in the water.
This year's trip will be at the end of May. Under normal circumstances most everything, except muskies, will be done spawning and back on the bite. Bluegills will be found on the beds and will hit anything that passes. It's a great time to fish up here in Minnesota.
However, nothing about this Spring is normal. It'll be the latest ice-out since the Spring of '96. And that one was the latest since 1950. At the moment the walleye lake in question is under a foot and a half of snow. Typically ice-out would be around April 20th. Last year it was the 20th of March. This year it'll probably be early May. Not good.
Back in '96 I distinctly remember walking into a bait shop by the cabin and asking, "What's biting?" The man's answer was simple, "Nothing. Not even crappies." And he was right. It was four days of casting and dredging. The lakes near the Canadian border were still icebound.
This year I don't think it'll be that late. And we're going a week later. Hope springs eternal but the weatherman is calling for cold and snow for the next week. Over the next two days another foot is supposed to fall on our walleye lake.
Whatever the conditions there's no doubt the ice will be gone before the four of us launch the canoes. Then it's up to us to figure out what'll work. Logic says the walleyes will be in the shallows looking for warm water, two to ten feet deep, on sand or small rocks. Possibly in the cabbage if there's any growing. Then the rule of thumb calls for small colorful jigs, eighth or sixteenth ounce, tipped with minnows be they real or Gulp Alive, or possibly leeches. Cast 'em out and drag them along the bottom slowly, very slowly. All the while thinking any small tick or weight might be a fish.
Most of that knowledge came from reading a dozen articles on Spring walleye fishing. Oddly enough Allan and I used the same tactics in Canada. The only difference was in the far north we substituted twister tails for the minnows. Don't know if that would work down here in the southland. Probably not. After all, our walleyes are smarter than theirs.
It's not that I haven't caught them, even hundreds of them. However, all were Canadian walleyes and, in Minnesota, they don't count. Too innocent, too easily fooled, and well, just not American.
I'm willing to accept the idea that Minnesota walleyes have seen it all and in the popular lakes seem to require big boats, big motors, and more electronics that a WWII battleship. So I'm back to leaning on my assets as a fisherman. And those assets aren't found in the tackle shops or boat yards but instead, are about locating walleyes nearly as innocent as the ones north of the border. And that requires research and the willingness to drive through crap on rocky, rutted two tracks to waters that aren't commonly known or fished.
Of course there are those, the locals who've fished them for a couple of generations and wisely kept their mouths shut, who know about those lakes. Since I've been in my up-north neck of the woods for thirty-two years now, I'm almost a local. Probably as close as I'll ever be. And I've found my walleye lake. At least I think I have. For the moment the only walleyes I've seen in said lake are the ones netted by the DNR and listed on a lake chart. Not so much walleyes as they are numbers. Unless the DNR netted the lake clean, they're still there.
As to catching them, first they've got to be found. Okay, I've found a lake with walleyes in it. Next comes the task of locating them under the surface of that lake. Electronics would make that a lot easier but I'm old school (rhymes with old fool). And don't do that.
On the other hand I've got access to the internet. No, I don't take my laptop in the canoe with me. But I do use it as a research tool. It's like talking with old-timers who've been catching pickerel (hoser for walleye) since Roosevelt (Teddie, not that young whipper-snapper Franklin) was in the White House.
Yeah, it's contradictory to use one high-tech tool and badmouth another. But my entire canoe and backwoods wise man schtick is a pretend thing (more closely related to cheap than choice). As is my ability to find obscure, off the beaten track, lakes to fish and even know what's in them. Nothin' like the man riding shotgun ask me with amazement, "How in the hell do you find these lakes?" Like I'm a regular Johnny Appleseed with a fishin' pole. Does my ego good. However, I'll always tell them I use Google Earth as it's much easier seeing what's behind the trees when you're looking down from outer space with a billion dollar telescope.
But, once I'm on the water it's back to the old days for it's what I've retained in my brain that matters. Look at the sky, scope the waves and treetops for wind direction, check out the weeds for type, feel the water (my thermometer broke years ago), and look at the shoreline for hills and swamp. All of them are clues. Having a lake map also helps. Tells you a lot about the bottom but, since it's a crutch, it stays at the cabin.
All of the tools I use are no more than aids that allow me to jump past the first couple of steps usually provided by experience. Maybe half the lakes I fish have been learned through research. The virgins were cases of seeing blue on the map or in passing on a back road and thinking, "Looks like it might hold fish." Then eventually putting the canoe on its surface and a line in the water.
This year's trip will be at the end of May. Under normal circumstances most everything, except muskies, will be done spawning and back on the bite. Bluegills will be found on the beds and will hit anything that passes. It's a great time to fish up here in Minnesota.
However, nothing about this Spring is normal. It'll be the latest ice-out since the Spring of '96. And that one was the latest since 1950. At the moment the walleye lake in question is under a foot and a half of snow. Typically ice-out would be around April 20th. Last year it was the 20th of March. This year it'll probably be early May. Not good.
Back in '96 I distinctly remember walking into a bait shop by the cabin and asking, "What's biting?" The man's answer was simple, "Nothing. Not even crappies." And he was right. It was four days of casting and dredging. The lakes near the Canadian border were still icebound.
This year I don't think it'll be that late. And we're going a week later. Hope springs eternal but the weatherman is calling for cold and snow for the next week. Over the next two days another foot is supposed to fall on our walleye lake.
Whatever the conditions there's no doubt the ice will be gone before the four of us launch the canoes. Then it's up to us to figure out what'll work. Logic says the walleyes will be in the shallows looking for warm water, two to ten feet deep, on sand or small rocks. Possibly in the cabbage if there's any growing. Then the rule of thumb calls for small colorful jigs, eighth or sixteenth ounce, tipped with minnows be they real or Gulp Alive, or possibly leeches. Cast 'em out and drag them along the bottom slowly, very slowly. All the while thinking any small tick or weight might be a fish.
Most of that knowledge came from reading a dozen articles on Spring walleye fishing. Oddly enough Allan and I used the same tactics in Canada. The only difference was in the far north we substituted twister tails for the minnows. Don't know if that would work down here in the southland. Probably not. After all, our walleyes are smarter than theirs.
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