I finally made it up north and got to go fishing on Spider Lake with my son Brad and grandson Dylan. The day started out good with a few pike being caught, but when the wind picked up and the temperatures started to drop, the fish just turned off.
After putting in a few hours of hard fishing, we decided to call it a day and head to the cabin. After doing a few things around the cabin, Brad and Dylan decided to take Dylan’s boat to a nearby lake to try their luck and make sure the boat was ready for another season of fishing. Dylan did catch a couple of nice northern. One was 26.5-inches, and the other was 32-inches. They released the larger one and kept the smaller one for the frying pan.
As for me, it felt great to be on the water and driving the boat again. When I am driving the boat, I am totally in my comfort zone. It is as if all my health problems seem to disappear when I am on the water. I guess that it is true when they say fishing is great therapy.
Although we were gone for four days, it went by all too fast, and it seemed like it was not enough. I do believe that both Brad and I are ready to get back up there again.
It didn’t take long for the birds to show up at the feeders. The hummingbirds were there first, followed by the chickadees, nuthatches and grossbeaks. The feeders at my house are always invaded by blackbirds, but the cabin feeders are not visited by those pesky blackbirds. I have, from time to time, had a red winged blackbird visit, but I don’t mind them.
Another bird that seems to be abundant in the north woods is the northern flicker. Although they never seem to visit the feeders at the cabin, I have spotted them around the cabin and quite often when walking or driving through the woods. When I was a kid, flickers were abundant in the southern part of the state. I would spot them whenever I would venture out into the nearby slough. Flickers, like so many of the critters of my youth, have disappeared from this part of the state. I can’t remember the last time that I have seen a jackrabbit. I would venture to guess that the loss of habitat has been responsible for the scarceness of these critters. When driving through the countryside, I notice fewer fence lines and there are not many woods standing at the edge of fields like there once were.
Until next time: I can’t believe the number of weeds that are cluttering the shoreline of Fountain Lake. I have seen many accesses with signs posted at boat landings that say the lake is infested with milfoil. I would hope that it is not milfoil, but I have never seen the lake with this many weeds before. On the upside, there are some decent fish being caught in our area lakes.
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