After being home for a couple of weeks, I decided to head back to the cabin for a few days. I knew that the weather was going to be a little on the hot side, but I still decided to head north and relax. Even though my heart says I need to fish, my body sometimes has other plans.
On Friday I grabbed my fishing pole and headed down the steps to our lake. Unfortunately, after a few steps I tripped and fell. Luckily, I stopped myself from going head first, although I still ended up lying on the ground. After weighing my options, I was able to get my bearings and rise to my feet. That’s about the time that I decided to regroup and try mastering those steps on another day.
The following morning, I headed out in search of another lake to do some shore fishing. There are three lakes on this one road that is labeled as Low Maintenance. I knew which lake would be best suited for fishing from shore. I did check out all three, but ended up at the one I had in mind. The water, in this area is so high that the first lake I checked had so much water that I could barely turn around at the access.
I had rigged my ultralight with a small jig and a plastic nymph, which I tipped with a small piece of night crawler. I caught a bluegill on my first cast and I continued to catch bluegills. As I cast close to the lily pads, I hooked something much bigger. It was a largemouth bass about 15 or 16 inches. After two more casts, I hooked another bass, about the same size. I hooked one more bass, but it got off just a few feet from shore. It started to get hot and the deer flies were a little too friendly, so I thought that it was time to leave. As I drove out the exit, there was a deer standing alongside the road just staring at me. By the time I decided to take a picture, it turned and ran off into the woods. One thing that I have always liked about this area is that there is always plenty of wildlife and you never know what you will encounter on any given day.
I am writing my column as I sit in the cabin watching all of the birds, chipmunks and red squirrels at the feeders. The chipmunks and squirrels feed off of the ground after I squirrel-proofed the feeders.
One of the best parts of being at the cabin is waking up in the morning to the sounds of the loons and the trumpeter swans sounding revile. This is music to my ears and it never gets old.
Sometime between my last visit and this one, the racoons got into a couple of my feeders. Although they were left empty, those rascals decided to knock them down just the same. We have finches, both gold and purple, nuthatches, humming birds and chickadees. I haven’t seen any blue jays or gross beaks on this trip. One good thing is that I didn’t have to fire up the mower; the grass isn’t quite tall enough to warrant mowing – next time it will be there.
I can’t wait until I get my boat repaired so that I can be out on the water again. I am still planning on visiting Spider Lake this summer. That’s a trip that I take at least once a summer and I hope that some of my family will be here to do a little fishing with me when I do.
Until next time: It’s summertime and that is a great time to explore our State Park, take a walk on one of the trails in our area or have a little picnic at one of our many city parks. And, whenever possible, let’s do a little Fish’n!
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