This past weekend was a rewarding one. I got to spend a few days at our cabin with my son, Brad, and my grandson, Dylan. Brad and I got to the cabin on Friday night and Dylan arrived the following morning. It was great spending time with those two and doing a little fishing and reminiscing. We were looking forward to going to Spider Lake, but more about that in next week’s column.
When we first got to the cabin, I filled the bird feeders, but found it strange that the hummingbird feeder still had nectar in it. I guess the neighbors must have been here and put out their feeders. Strangely, the birds never cane around the whole time that we were there.
On Saturday we decided to go to a little lake a couple of miles from the cabin to fish for northern. Dylan was driving my boat, which felt a little strange to me as I usually always drive. He had hooked his depth finder and another locator, so I figured it was the thing to do. He remembered how we had caught some big pike a few years ago, so I said let’s try that.
This involved trolling back and forth in the middle of the lake, which is 70 ft. deep. We caught fish in 50 feet of water using deep running lures. Most of the fish that he saw on the locator were suspended at 20 feet. I have found that fishing on this lake and trolling the weed lines usually produces smaller pike. You can also catch bass when fishing the weed lines while casting spinner baits. Like so many lakes in the area, this is a very clear lake.
All three of us are excited to go to Spider Lake and, like I said earlier, I will have to wait until next week to tell you about it. Spider Lake brings back many fond memories and it reminds me of my favorite rod & reel, which I haven’t thought about for some time.
The Zebco Cardinal 4 was my first open face reel and by far my favorite. I have caught everything from Crappie to Muskie with that reel. I bought the reel and a Berkely Cherrywood rod at the same time at the old Pamida store on South Broadway. I’ve broken the tip of the rod off at least two times and had it replaced. What started out as a 5’-10” fishing pole is now barely hitting 5 ft.
Whenever I was using that rod and reel combination, everything just felt right with the world. I suppose I could have put a different reel on the rod and continued to use it, but it just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.
It was no longer usable because the ends of both spools had fallen off. They had quit making the reel quite some time ago, so I never had any luck finding a replacement spool. The last spool fell apart when I was landing a nice sized northern while fishing Lake Tetonka in late fall. I finally retired “old faithful” and moved on. It now hangs on the wall in my rec room.
Until next time: There is nothing better than falling asleep to the calling of the loons or waking up to the sound of the resident trumpeter swans signaling the beginning of a new day.
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