August 2, 2012 -- On Leech Lake

This morning at 8:00 a.m. there was low rumbling of thunder, some light rain and overcast skies. But by 10:00 a.m., the weather had cleared and it was as nice a day as we've had in a long time. Clear blue skies, a nice breeze blowing out of the NW and a temperature of 74 degrees. It was the perfect day to enjoy a cup of coffee on the back deck. The only downside was that Kathleen wasn't here with me.

After my coffee and some work online and around the house, I took a bike ride down to the Harbor and back. Roughly a 4-mile round trip. It felt good to stretch my legs and move, even if the old bike I was riding -- Kathleen's Dad's old bike -- is much too small for me.

I was just getting ready to go next door to the cabin to cut a roll of zinc tape in half -- in order to retrofit it along the cap of the roof of the garage that is attached to the house -- when I got a call from Lainy. Yep, she had another bat in the house. So I grabbed my net, got on the ATV and drove down to the Malay's cabin.

Unlike the bats that I captured yesterday, this bat was either sick or injured because it had crawled underneath the small refrigerator that the Malay's keep in their back, screened-in porch and wedged itself between a bracket and the cooling coils.

I had to use a yardstick to push the tiny bat out from its hidden spot and then easily scooped it up in the net and deposited it outside. Just as I had rid the Malay's of another bat, Dave Levy, the local carpenter who is does work on everyone's cabin in the area, including ours, stopped by to seal up the chimney grating on the top of the house; a suspected entry point for the bats invading the Malay's house.

Once on top of the house and near the chimney, Dave called out that there were several bats nestled in and around the base of the chimney. I quickly scampered up the ladder and onto the roof to get a look myself. In addition to four or five live bats, there were maybe a dozen more than had died. Using a stick, and later the yardstick, I managed to get all of the living bats to vacate the area so Dave could set about his work.

At that point I left the Malay's and went back to the cabin where I spent an hour or so cutting up strips of zinc which I will later install on the roof of the house-garage.

As the day progressed, the temperature climbed in to the mid-80s and the wind calmed to just a slight breeze from the SSE. With the zinc cut, and with lunch taken care of, I decided to do some later afternoon fishing.

I fished in the "honey hole" between our house and cabin in 10-12 feet of water using a jig and artificial bait, but didn't catch a thing. I did have a nice "slow pull" on my line and when I set the hook I could tell there was a big fish on the line, but as I started to play the fish it gave one strong yank on the end of my line and broke free. I tied on a new jig, tipped it with an Northland artificial grub and set out fishing again, but still could not boat a fish.

By 6:15 p.m. I was back on shore. I spent the evening doing some work online, reading, listening to music and watching yet another glorious sunset over Sucker Bay. Good night from Leech Lake; more tomorrow.

Another beautiful Leech Lake sunset over Sucker Bay