October 3, 2012 -- At Leech Lake

The forecast for today called for strong winds out of the north, yet temperatures near 70 degrees and sunny skies. Yet this morning the wind was very light out of the south, and while the temperature did get close to 70 degrees later in the day the sun only broke through the clouds and haze a couple of times throughout the day.

I spent a good portion of the day power-washing the boat lift canopy to clean off an entire summer's worth of seagull guano. After sitting in the hot sun for months, that 'crap' didn't want to come off easily. But I stayed with the chore and I can now report that the canopy is clean and is hung up to dry. Since I had the power washer out I also washed of the boat and trailer and cleaned off any weeds I could find. There are no aquatic invasive species on my boat and trailer.

At roughly 4:00 p.m. the light southerly breeze that had been blowing all day shifted and began coming out of the north at 15-20 mph. And with the north wind came the smell of smoke. There are 8 separate wild fires burning in the northwest part of Minnesota and the smoke from those fires made its way to Leech Lake on the strength of those strong northerly winds.

The haze from the NW Minnesota wildfires drifted over Leech Lake

It was about this time that I took my daily bike ride to the Harbor and back. Along the way I had stop and chats with Lainy Malay, Norm Hansen, Dick Schiebe and Ron Geppert. A very sociable bike ride!

Once home again I did some laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, showered and ate dinner. Then I listened to the first of the presidential debates on MPR.

Tomorrow I plan to take the boat to Corner Sports in Bemidji despite the winter storm warnings that have been issued for the area. If the forecast is to be believed, the Bemidji area is going to experience rain turning to snow midday and then into Friday with a possible accumulation of a foot or more of snow. We'll see.

Generally a quiet day at Leech Lake. No fishing report today since my boat is on a trailer sitting in front of my garage. More tomorrow...

Seven days and counting.