Three Months at Leech Lake

On the evening of May 10, I arrived at Leech Lake. I still remember that initial rush of joy when I first walked into our lake front house and smelled that familiar smell of the lake. There's nothing like it.

Today is August 10, meaning that I've been at the lake for three months now. It doesn't seem like I've been here three weeks, let alone three months. I've been fortunate enough to have many visitors here this summer. Kathleen has made two visits, once in late May/early June and again in late June/early July. My parents have been here, as have Tim and Sandy Coyle and their boys on two occasions. My friend Rick visited from Australia for several weeks in June. My granddaugther Ashley was here with Kathleen and I for nearly a week. And right now my son Joe is here at the lake with me.

I've also made three trips down to St. Cloud, each for several days. So my time at the lake has simply flown by.

During my stay the harbor restoration work was started and completed. All three of the out buildings at the house were painted. And too many other various maintenance chores and projects were done to even recall them all.

Of course some serious fishing was done as well. Numerous walleye were caught, most of which were released back into the lake, but several also graced our dinner table. Bass, northern pike, perch, rock bass and even a bullhead were hooked.

I visited with many of my neighbors, although most of my time with other "Leech Lakers" was spent with the Malays and Newmans.

I've taken many rides on the ATV all over Ottertail Peninsula, including one long ride up to Birch Ridge Resort to buy bait.

I've been blessed to encounter much of the wildlife that surrounds Leech Lake. I've seen eagles, loons, merganser ducks, mallards, Canadian geese, pelicans, herons, kingfishers, cormorants, orioles, finches, redwing black birds, hummingbirds, numerous types of woodpeckers, cedar waxwings, and dozens of other types of birds. I've seen mink, otters, squirrels, woodchucks, and deer. I've seen turtles, frogs, toads and snakes. The variety of wild flowers I've had the pleasure to see are too numerous to name. And of course the back drop for all of it is Leech Lake. The life source for all of the wild life in the area.

Now I'm just two weeks from returning to San Jose, a city of a million people in a region that is home to nearly 15 million. Here at Leech Lake, it's a 30 minute drive into Cass Lake, a small town of barely 800 people. It's just under an hour's drive to Bemidji, the closest "city" to Leech Lake, with it's 12,000 residents, many of which are college students at Bemidji State University.

The contrast from the remote, peaceful and relatively uninhabited area of Leech Lake to the megatropolis of the San Francisco Bay Area will be shocking. But that's one of the reasons all visitors to our "oasis on Leech Lake" love it here so much -- it's so quiet, so peaceful, so sparsely populated that one can literally go days without seeing or hearing another person. When people are here they are able to put the rest of the "real world" behind them, to let go and find an inner peace that is hard to attain when in the midst of a city. That is the true beauty of Leech Lake.

I've been very fortunate, blessed really, to have had the opportunity to be at Leech Lake for three months now. I try very hard not to take a minute of my time here for granted, or to fail to recognize the beauty that surrounds me. It will be hard to leave here, but I will forever be grateful for my time at Leech Lake.

August 10, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

Your host motoring the boat back to the boat lift after muskie fishing on Leech Lake

This morning was much warmer than yesterday. The temperature at 10:00 a.m. 68 degrees, the humidity was 70% (so it felt warmer than 68), the sky was mostly cloudy with some sun and blue sky visible, and the wind was 8-15 mph out of the SW. The lake had some occasional white caps, but it is no where near as rough as it was yesterday.

Joe and I had a slow morning, and then just after noon took a bike ride down to the Ottertail Peninsula Community Center, a 6-mile round trip. I hadn't taken a bike ride in several weeks so it felt great to be out peddling on West Shores Road, one of the prettiest roads anywhere in the country.

Once home, Joe wanted to do yoga and just hang out, so I took a brief ride on the ATV and then went fishing. Joe said he didn't want to go fishing since I was going to be doing some drifting and jigging and that's not a fishing method he particularly enjoys.

I took the boat out between the house and cabin in 13 feet of water, deployed the drift sock and let the west wind push the boat toward shore and into shallower water. The water temperature was 76 degrees.

As usual I tipped my jig with a fathead minnow and got to work. I caught a few small perch, a rock bass and then a smallish northern pike. When I reached down to pick up the pike and remove the jig, it thrashed hard in the water and bit through the line taking my jig with it.

I retied a new jig on and was ready to fish, but the dark cloud that I'd been eyeing for the past 30 minutes was moving closer and I could see it was about to rain, and hard. I quickly stowed my rod and reel, put away the other gear on the deck of the boat, pulled in the drift sock and then motored back to shore. No sooner than I stepped onto the dock than it started raining. I ran back to the house to avoid getting drenched in what was a hard rain, although it lasted only 10 minutes or so.

Once the brief rain storm had passed, the sun came out, the wind died down a bit to around 5-10 mph, although it seemed to be swirling, coming out of the SW one moment and then out of the NW the next.

Joe had been wanted to try some muskie fishing so we thought we give it a try this afternoon. During the past several weeks I've seen numerous boats with muskie fishermen in them throwing heavy lures. Those boats have been positioned from in front of our house and as far north as Schiebe's cabin. With the wind periodically blowing from the SW, I thought we could start by fishing in front of the cabin and letting the wind blow us north toward Schiebe's place.

I took the boat out to 10-12 feet of water and positioned us over an expansive weed bed and stretches the entire length from our house to Schiebe's. Both Joe and I threw inline spinner baits. We fished for more than an hour and didn't get so much as a follow. Pretty typical for muskie fishing, even here on Leech Lake.

We came ashore just before 6:00 p.m. and we got dinner going. I had been slow cooking ribs all day so all we had to make is the grilled corn and Cole slaw. We took our time both preparing the meal and eating it, so were weren't done with dinner until sunset.

We watched the sun sink into the western horizon and the beautiful glow it left behind, then went inside where is played dominoes, listened to music and then finally watched a DVD. No fishing tonight for us.

Before I knew it it was already 2:00 a.m. and I hurried off to bed. Another wonderful day at Leech Lake.