May 26, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

The weather at 8:00 a.m. at Leech Lake was as follows -- the temperature was a cool 38 degrees (yes, it's the end of May, but it's northern Minnesota), the sky was clear and blue, and the wind was variable with a breeze of about 7-10 mph out of the SSE, which meant the lake in front of our house/cabin was calm.

I have a business call I must take today at 9:30 a.m., so I'll be on shore and in the house until roughly 10:30 a.m. or so. But after that, I'm hoping that Rick and I can get out onto the lake to do some fishing. Maybe we'll zip down to "Bass Bay" and try our hand at some panfish or crappie.

After my call and some breakfast, Rick and I went fishing. The weather was very nice, if not a bit cool. The temperature was 46 degrees, the sky was clear and blue, the wind was out of the SSE at 8-12 mph and the water temperature was hovering around 62 degrees.

We started fishing in 11 feet of water off Second Duck Point using jigs tipped with shiners. We had a few bites, and something nipped the entire body of my shiner off the jig leaving just the head, but we caught no fish.

I moved the boat to 12 feet of water straight out in front of our house, but we didn't have a lot of luck there either. I caught a few small perch and Rick didn't hook into anything. So, once again I moved us. This time I position us in front of Norm's cabin allowing the wind to push us north toward Schiebe's in about 9 feet of water. For this drift I changed up and went with a Mimic Minnow Spin from Northland Tackle.

I my very first cast I caught a nice perch; not quite a jumbo, but still a nice fish. I proceeded to catch at least a half of a dozen to 10 perch during that drift with the Mimic Minnow, but Rick, who was using a jig and shiner, caught nothing.

At about 1:45 p.m. we came ashore, had some lunch, then launched into some chores. I planted the other two Colorado blue spruce trees at the cabin, while Rick started tearing about the old smoker that Clancy (the previous owner of our house) had left behind the Bunkhouse and which has been an eye sore for the entire 10 years we've owned the property.

After I had planted the trees, I went over to the house and helped Rick finish tearing up the smoker. It was made of mostly sheet metal and heavy wood so it was not an easy thing to demonlish. But at last we had it torn down to the point we could load it into the back of my truck.

Paulsen's, who live down the road from us, have has some roof work done to their place and as a result have a large, industrial-sized dumpster sitting in their driveway. When I stopped by to chat with Duane this morning I noticed that there was barely anything inside the dumpster and asked if I could throw the old smoker in it. Duane was fine with it as long as American Disposal, the owner of the dumpster, OK'd it. I called AD to check, and got the go ahead.

So at about 4:30 p.m. Rick and I threw the old smoker materials into the dumpster, cleaned up and came home. Once home I swept up the driveway where we loaded the materials into my truck, swept out the back of the truck, and generally cleaned up. Rick, meanwhile, checked out the roof on the cabin (which had replaced last year) just to make sure everything still looked good; and it did.

While sitting inside the house listening to music and waiting for dinner to cook, I looked out toward the lake and right where our dock meets the shore were a mated pair of Canadian geese and 5 yellow-tinted goslings. For the longest time the 5 little geese preened themselves, rested in the warm evening sun and snacked on just hatched birch flies, while the two adults stood on guard, one looking north the other south. Instinctively these geese parents protected their offspring and held the family together. The geese stayed near our dock for nearly 25 minutes before moving toward the water and wading away. I watched them move north toward the cabin before they disappeared behind the trees.

After dinner I walked out into the living room and looked outside only to see the that the Canadian geese and their 5 goslings had returned. Three of the little geese were bundled together sleeping while the other two goslings and the adults ate birch flies and grass. This is one of the many pleasures of the northwoods, being close to nature. When I'm here at Leech Lake I see eagles nesting, Canadian geese with their goslings, families of beaver, deer and their fawns, turtles laying eggs and on and on. At Leech Lake I'm connected to nature in a way that I'm not able to achieve aware else. I have to say, it's good for my soul.

We went fishing at 8:15 p.m., about 45 minutes before sunset. As usual, we trolled from Malay's cabin to the north and between Second Duck and Duck Points to the south in 9-12 feet of water pulling Minnow Raps at a ground speed of between 1.75 and 2.45 mph depending on if we were going with or against the wind. The wind was blowing at 12-17 mph out of the SSE, the water temperature was 62 degrees, and the air temperature was 42.

During the two hours we were on the water I caught a 13-inch, a 15-inch and a 16-inch walleye -- all of which went back into the lake -- as well as a northern pike. As was the case earlier in the day, Rick was skunked.

Good night from Leech Lake.