May 13, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

I woke up early this morning -- 6:00 a.m. CDT -- and the temperature was a brisk 36 degrees. The sky was overcast and grey and the wind was blowing at 10-15 mph out of the north. I stayed in bed for an hour or so thinking I might fall back asleep, but no such luck. So I got up, made some coffee, got online and read the Detroit and San Jose newspapers getting each city's view of last night's Sharks 3-2 win over the Red Wings in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals.

At 8:30 a.m. I gave John Newman a call and asked if he was ready to help me get my boat in the water, which he had offered to do yesterday. He was up and ready so we convened at the boat ramp at 9:00 a.m. The boat was in the lift by 9:15 a.m., and all went according to plan.

The wind, which was still around 15 mph from the north would have made getting the lift canopy on a challenge, so we decided to wait until Saturday or Sunday when the winds are supposed to be much less stiff.

As I write this at just after noon, I see a bank of heavy mist or light rain moving across Sucker Bay toward our house. It's already cold and damp outside, and this light rain should make everthing wet.

Although Blogger.com is back up and running -- it had been down for a couple of days -- it still seems to be having trouble with formating. There is way too much white space in my last post, and despite multiple attempts to edit the entry, it keeps posting the way you see it. I'm hoping all will be fixed by the time I post this entry.

Kathleen's brother Tim and his son Jackson are on their way up to Leech Lake to take part in a the grand Minnesota tradition of walleye opener, which begins tonight at midnight. In an effort to be completely legal, I applied my new boat license stickers to the boat before I put it in the water, and I bought my 2011 fishing license from Birch Ridge Resort this morning.

Tim and Jackson arrived at the lake around 3:00 p.m. By that time there was a steady, light rain falling and the wind had picked up a little. The temperature was reading a cool 36 degrees.

We contemplated going fishing, but it was simply too rough to take the boat out. I don't mind the cold and rain, but I'm not going to have the boat bounced around in the boat lift getting out onto the lake and returning to the lift. There's simply too much chance of damaging the boat.

So instead we stayed in the house, had pizza for dinner and then watched a movie. The weather report for walleye opener is more rain, more strong winds and slightly warmer temperatures, in the mid-40s. If the weather changes, and I feel it's OK to go out onto the lake, we will go fishing. The report for Sunday is clear skies, warmer temps, in the 60s, and lighter winds. Sunday looks light the better day for fishing.

I'll file another report tomorrow.

May 10-12, 2011 -- On Leech Lake (a recap)

I arrived in Bemidji on Tuesday, May 10, and the next evening I wrote a long blog entry about my first two days at Leech Lake. Unfortunately, Blogger.com, the web site that hosts my blog, had technical difficulties and all blogs written and posted from May 11 through May 13 (at around 11:3o a.m. CDT) were lost. I will not try to re-create my entire entry, instead I'll just bulletize the events of the past few days.

May 10:

• Arrived at Bemidji airport around 4:30 p.m. CDT and went to Corner Sports to pick up my boat, but they hadn't finished the service on it, so I was told to come back on Wednesday, May 11.


• Enjoyed a cold beer on John Newman's dock as we watched the sunset into the Western sky and had a nice conversation.


• The weather in the evening was still up over 60 degrees, skies were clear, and there was just a slight breeze out of the SE.

May 11:

• Picked up my boat at Corner Sports, complete with two new deep-cell batteries for the trolling motor, and a new cranking battery for the main motor.


• Came home, got ready to launch boat, but the electric motor on the boat lift went out, and that subsequently caused the lift chain to break. Shore Brothers scheduled to come out on May 12 to fix the lift motor.


• Weather was in the high 60s, mostly sunny, winds out of the north at 10-13 mph.


• Went fishing with John in his boat at the Birches, and we caught a number of decent sized perch, and I caught jumbo which we kept and added to John's basket.

May 12:

• Weather was much cooler with a high of 44 degrees. Mostly cloudy, grey skies, with the wind out of the north at 10-15 mph.


• Got the lake pump working so we can use the various faucets around the property to pull lake water.


• Shore Brothers replaced the electric boat lift motor and fixed the chain. The lift seems to work fine. I'll launch the boat tomorrow.


• The Sharks beat the Red Wings 3-2 in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals ending a thrilling series and will send the Shark north to Vancouver to take on the Canucks in the Conference Finals.

I'll do a full post on May 13 of the days events.