The Lake Where You Live

The fishing season’s opening day started cool and rainy. If you’re like me you don’t feel obligated to fish on the opener; on such a day I chose to stay on land.

The sky cleared toward late afternoon, though, and I decided to give it a try. After a trip to town for some large fathead minnows I set out with my favorite walleye rod, a one-sixteenth-ounce chartreuse jig tied on with a clinch knot.

As I motored eastward toward my first walleye spot I felt a chilly wind in my face and was reminded of the saying: “Wind from the east, fish bite the least.” I can’t prove or disprove the veracity of that, but on this opening day it held true. 

I tried three spots and caught nothing before the sky clouded over and a sheet of rain swept across the lake from the west. I made it back to the pier just in time to avoid a soaking.

A couple of days later toward evening the wind had shifted 90 degrees counterclockwise. It still carried a chill. “Wind from the north,” the adage goes, “do not go forth.” I did go, regardless. In the season’s early days, marked by inhospitable weather, the water cold, the fish sluggish and scattered, I’m prone to questioning.

Do I still have the touch? Can I still distinguish between the bite of a walleye and the bounce of the jig on the bottom rocks? Are the fish in the same places as in past years? Are there still fish in the lake?

The fifth place I tried gave me the answers, all in the affirmative. I detected my first strike just as the sun hit the treetops. It was just the slightest tik that the line transmitted to the sensitive graphite rod, I missed that fish, but in the next half-hour I brought three walleyes to the boat, all about 14 inches. I returned each one to the lake, the last just as daylight faded into deep gray.

The action was sporadic; I sat over a bottom carpeted with coontail in about 10 feet of water and cast the jig in all directions. The fish struck at widely spaced points around the circle.

Now in mid-month the water remains cold, the fishing a challenge. Last evening (May 16), a north wind under a gloomy sky chased me off the water after an utterly unproductive half-hour.

I wait now for the water to warm and for the fish — walleyes, perch, panfish, smallmouth bass – to kick their feeding activity into gear.

I also await more pleasant conditions, fishing without need of a hoody and a jacket, comfortably warm days, mellow evenings, the sun lighting up the western clouds as it sinks below the tops of the pines.

“Wind from the West, fish bite the best. Wind from the South blows bait into their mouth.” You know, days like that. They’ll be here soon. 

Ted Rulseh is a writer, author and lake advocate who lives on Birch Lake in Oneida County. His new book, “Ripple Effects,” has been released by UW Press. You can learn about it his visiting my website at https://thelakeguy.net.