June 16, 2012 -- On Leech Lake

At 10:00 a.m. this morning the sky was grey, but bright, the temperature was already 75 degrees and the wind was out of the SSW at 8-12 mph. The forecast was for storms to roll in shortly after 12:30 p.m. and for rain for most of the afternoon.

Kathleen and I started the day with coffee on the end of the dock. There were only two boats out in front of our house and near Second Duck Point. Down at Duck Point, however, were more than a half a dozen boats, and I think I know the reason why.

I ran into Sandy Newstrand on the road the other day and she was coming from Birch Ridge Resort where she had picked up two frozen walleye, both 27-inches long, which she was planning to stuff and mount. She took up taxidermy several years back and often does work for guests at the resort. Apparently a guy caught a 27-inch walleye and while he was dealing with it he handed his wife the rod and reel. She took the opportunity to cast out the lure and moments later had hooked herself a second 27-inch walleye. Since the couple will probably never catch two such big fish back-to-back again, they decided to have the mounted. And where did they catch the two prized fish? Duck Point. So now guests at Birch Ridge are hovering around Duck Point trying to get their own trophy fish.

As the morning progressed, the wind began to pick up and the sky began to darken. Forecasts called for a storm to roll through the Leech Lake area sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m. I thought about going fishing before the storm hit, but decided to stay on shore, enjoy a pot of good coffee with Kathleen while sitting on the dock.

From our vantage point at the end of our dock, we could see the storm approaching from the southwest. The wind was picking up -- near 20 mph -- and the rain was clearly falling. Then right at 1:00 p.m., as predicted, the storm hit. The rain came down in heavy sheets while the wind kicked up a notch to near 25 mph out of the southwest.

Kathleen and I sat on the back porch (not the lakeside, but the side of the house facing the road) and watched the heavy rain beat down on the ground. The temperature had dropped from 82 degrees at 12:45 p.m. to just 65 degrees by 1:30 p.m. Since it was now chilly, we went inside to warm up.

Kathleen asked me innocently enough if I'd removed the insulation from the vents under the house; a routine chore that I've done for each of the 11 years we've owned the house. But for some reason, this year I'd forgotten to do so, so I got on some old clothes and made my way under the house to remove the blocked up insulation. Doing so will provide better ventilation under the house reducing the possibility of molds growing down there and keeping our house cooler during the heat of July and August.

Crawling around under the house is a hot and dirty job, so once the job was complete I took a quick shower to clean up. Kathleen and I then spent from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. relaxing and just hanging out in the living room as the storm made its way through the area. By a little after 4:00 p.m. the wind had died down to 8-12 mph out of the WSW, the clouds, while still plentiful, had parted a bit to give way to some blue sky and the temperature began to climb closer toward 70 degrees. It was a perfect time for Kathleen to go running and for me to get some fishing in.

I got the boat onto the lake at 4:20 p.m. and decided to motor south toward Second Duck Point and let the wind push me north toward our house and toward shore. I turned off the motor in 14 feet of water, deployed the drift sock and put a fathead minnow on my jig. I noted that the water temperature was varying from 69.9 degrees to 70.5 degrees depending where I was on Sucker Bay and how deep the water was.

I made several drifts over a wide area of Sucker Bay during the next 100 minutes, but caught only dozens of small- to medium-sized perch. I did catch a couple of perch that were a bit over 10 inches, but no 11-14 inch perch which I consider to be the size of jumbos.

I came ashore just after 6:00 p.m. and no sooner was I comfortably back in the house when the wind began to pick up to 15-20 mph out of the WSW with some gusts up over 25 mph. The lake was quickly churning with white caps and most of the boats that had been out on the lake at the same time as me moved to get off the increasingly rough water.

Kathleen and I spent a quiet and enjoyable evening at home reading, talking, listening to music and eventually watching a movie. We had a wonderful day at our oasis on Leech Lake. Good night.