August 26, 2012 -- On Leech Lake

This morning we awoke to a very strong west wind blowing at 15-25 mph which created a series of high waves and white caps that crashed into the shore in front of our house and cabin. It looked unlikely that we'd get out onto the lake to do any fishing.

As for the rest of the weather, it was a beautiful day. The temperature made it up to 78 degrees, the sky was sunny and blue.

After breakfast I went to the ATV-garage to get the blacktop sealer expecting to seal up some cracks in the driveway, but apparently the sealant went bad over the winter. No matter how much I shook the bottle or stirred the contents, it sealant wouldn't mix properly keeping me from completing that chore. I'll have to pick up another bottle of sealant when Joe and I go into town this coming week.

But there's no shortage of things to do here at the lake so I moved onto my next chore. A few weeks ago I had put zinc stripping along the apex of the roof which is supposed to suppress mold and moss from growing on the shingles. The strong winds we've had during the summer pulled the zinc stripping from underneath the shingles, and left the stripping just laying on top of the roof. The stripping needed to be put back in place and then tacked down so it wouldn't be displaced by the wind.

Using little dabs of some of the black roofing tar I had left over from when Rick and I put a new roof on the cabin, I was able to put in place the zinc stripping on the roof of the house. And then just to make sure the stripping didn't get blown out of place at the cabin, I used the tar to tack it down as well.

My next project was to set up a "stairway to heaven" mouse trap in the garages of both the house and cabin. You can click on the link if you're interested to see how such a trap is built. First, I cleaned out nine dead mice from the trap in the house garage before refilling it with fresh antifreeze and rebaiting the can (I prefer to use peanut butter). I set up a similar trap in the garage at the cabin. By nightfall the trap in the house garage had already claimed its first victim.

Joe and I ate a late lunch and then I got out the power washer and did a quick reclean of the roadside deck, which are planning to start staining on Monday. Since I had washed the deck a few weeks ago when I power washed the entire house, it wasn't too dirty and I was able to finish the job in a little more than a half an hour. As I was putting away the hoses and the power washer, I noticed that the wind, which had been blowing hard all day, was at last dying down a bit. That got me thinking about getting out onto the water.

Joe didn't feel like going fishing so he remained on shore, but I took the boat out for some evening fishing. I got on the water at 7:30 p.m. and planned to fish until a little after sunset, so about an hour. Although the wind had calmed a bit, it was still blowing at 10-12 mph out of the west, so once on the lake I used the drift sock to slow my drift.

I set up in front of Newman's house in 13 feet of 74-degree water and let the wind push the boat toward shore and toward the boat lift.

I was using a 1/4-ounce Bass Pro Shops XPS walleye jig tipped with a Northland grub. I caught a couple of small perch, a northern pike and the smallest walleye I've ever brought into the boat; a little eyeball measuring no more than 4-inches. All of the fish were released back into the lake.

We had a simple spaghetti dinner, and then Joe and I watched a movie on DVD to close out the night. A productive day and I was even able to get in a little fishing. Good night from Leech Lake.