A Time to Fish

My first open-water fishing trip of the summer is in the books.  It took until June 7^th this year for my feet to leave dry land courtesy of a boat.  Some years I’m on a lake sooner, some later, but the progression towards that first trip is always the same:

**Ice-out on lakes in April brings the official end to winter fishing…if plunging through thin ice in March hadn’t already done so.  Short poles into storage, long poles come out.

**Spring/summer sporting goods magazines appear in mailboxes exactly one day after the last floes of ice disappear into my favorite lakes.  Needing nothing, I scan the pages and remember how limited I felt with only six rods at my disposal last summer.  And how often I wished for a 27^th variety of crankbait.  And how a bigger tackle box would disperse my 40 pounds of lures more evenly.

**Make an unplanned trip to the recycling center, toss magazines into any open bin, drive to nearest parking lot and stop the car until the cold sweats, shortness of breath, and nausea have passed.

**First weekend in May the rivers and streams up north are full of fish making their yearly spawning run.  We are reminded they exist.  We are reminded they are not legal for the taking yet.  We are read our rights.

**Second weekend of May is the Fishing Opener, a great opportunity to practice waiting in line at boat landings.  No thanks.

**Third weekend of May is the Fishing Opener for everyone who avoids the Fishing Opener.  Another chance to practice fishing amongst the masses.  No thanks.

**Memorial Day weekend, the start of the summer vacationing season.  There are nearly 5.5 million people living in Minnesota, and every single one of them heads to a lake at some point this weekend.  Not this one.

**School ends in early June, meaning my weekdays are open and so are the lakes.  It’s time to fish.

Daughter Two and I headed north to my parents’ farm on Sunday, June 5^th, for a few days of getaway and woods work and fishing.  What was forecast to be a delightful day wasn’t – stiff winds, falling temps, and intermittent rain made an evening in the house much more appealing than an evening on a lake.  The lousy weather also gave everyone a chance to dust off the “Cold Front Lukey” nickname that had been in storage since I last worked my meteorological magic in late summer last year.

Monday was June 6^th, the anniversary of D-Day, and as I watched scenes from the Normandy landings on the morning news I noticed the weather on the other side of the window was slightly worse than it was on the 72 year-old footage.  “Wind from the west, fish bite the best.  Wind from the east, fish bite the least.  Wind from the northwest, might as well fish in a toilet.”  The temps were slightly warmer than the previous day, the sun shone a bit more often, but when evening rolled around and a decision had to be made to fish or not to fish, the howling northwest winds made the choice easy – we took our rods to the bathroom and practiced our jigging techniques in the porcelain pond.

Tuesday, June 7^th, brought lots of sunshine and calmer winds, if not warmer temps.  As late afternoon became early evening we prepared -

-       dug some worms

-       chose the necessary rods

-       gathered extra clothes (the light wind was now straight out of the north)

and departed for one of our favorite lakes.  The excitement shared by the three of us (my dad, Daughter Two, and me) was minimal for a first trip; it was still pretty windy, borderline cold, and we had worked hard around the farm the last few days and were low on energy.

On the way home we all agreed that the fishing was great.  The catching was terrible (Which wasn’t a surprise, considering we saw no deer on the way to the lake.  I’ll explain some other time.), but the trip was full of positives.  We had some laughs…almost immediately, actually, since my first cast landed in a tree.  We had some excitement when a probable 20-pound bass boiled the water under my lure that I wasn’t watching.  The bathroom at the landing was spotless and smelled delightful (not so in late August on a 90 degree day).  The motor fired right up after my 56^th pull of the rope, which came right after my dad said he hadn’t done what I thought he had done with the gas tank, which he said right after my 55^th pull.  We saw a mother mallard with a raft of ducklings and heard loons singing to us from across the lake.  We watched a beautiful sunset that warmed our hearts just enough to ward off frostbite once the sun was gone.  Oh, and we didn’t sink – which didn’t seem like a possibility until we pulled the plug from the boat before heading home and watched gallons of water pour out of it.  Apparently the boat has a leak.

Yes, we did catch a few fish.  No, they didn’t bite very hard or very fast.  Yes, we caught some nice ones.  No, we didn’t keep any, which means no, we won’t be having a fish fry.  But we have memories, and we have the first trip of the summer out of the way.  It’s been said that a bad day of fishing beats a good day of working.  I have a hard time agreeing with that simply because there really aren’t any bad days of fishing.  The smile proves it.