June 16, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

I was up before 7:00 a.m. waiting for Peterson Excavating to arrive, which they did just after 8:00 a.m. The first thing they did was drive the big front hoe onto the yard near the harbor and began loading all of the broken cement pieces into the bucket. Then they dumped the bucket of cement into a dump truck which then hauled the debris away.

I can tell already that the work is going to make a mess of the yard, but there's no way around it. If the harbor is to be repaired they need to have the right equipment on site to do it, and that equipment is big and heavy and is going to create ruts in the yard and tear up the lawn; as can be seen in the pictures below.

The big front hoe used to pull/push the harbor wall back into place

The dump truck and Bobcat used to haul rubble and move rock

At least it's not raining today, not yet anyway. The temperature seems stuck at 52 degrees and the sky is overcast and grey. The wind is 8-12 mph out of the NNW.

At 11:00 a.m. I went out to the harbor to check on the progress. I could see that the harbor wall was not straight and aligned to its original position. I asked Butch if that was a far as they could pull the wall back, and he responded, "yes." Despite the fact that they have a big front hoe with a lot of power, they simply can't pull the wall back to its initial position. It shows the power of the ice, which was able to push the wall out in the first place.

Butch and Larry (the guy helping Butch) did secure the wall with thick cabling in an effort to help prevent against future ice damage. The real key, according to Butch, is going to be the tile drain system that they will install to keep much of the water away from the wall so there will be little ice to do any future damage.

By 3:30 p.m. the guys from Peterson had wrapped it up for the day, and I was ready to fishing. I went over to see if John Newman wanted to accompany me, and he did. He wanted to wait, however, until Tom Malay was finished mowing Newman's lawn.

We finally got out onto the lake at just after 6:00 p.m. We fished in 9-12 feet of 67 degree water in front of the house and cabin, before moving down toward Schiebe's

Jigs tipped with fatheads and leeches was our approach, but unfortunately all we caught were several smallish perch and few rock bass. Not even a pike tonight.

The weather, however, was beautiful. The temperature had warmed to near 70 degrees, the wind was calm and the sky was clear. It was wonderful time on the water even if the fish weren't biting.

We came ashore around 8:15 p.m. and parted ways. I went inside, ate dinner, did some reading and then called it a night. The guys from Peterson's are going to be here early tomorrow morning and I want to be up when they arrive.