Ontar-eee-ooohh

Another day on Roderick Lake, a day to do some SERIOUS fishing, y'all. And so we headed out this morning -- not ALL that early BTW. Probably got on the water about 10:15 or a bit later. We took the time to sleep in, then cooked up some bacon and eggs and I figured out the coffeemaker and brewed up some caffeine, too.

It was much cooler this morning than Friday had been, and very cloudy, too. So we both donned jackets (and I put a fleece zip-up under mine), and L popped on a baseball cap, as well. We actually did NOT fish on this lake (Roderick) but on another that his friend P does NOT "share" with most people. Obviously, P liked L enough to share the locale of this one with him, years ago. And that one is a goldmine, for walleyes. I kid you not: we were not on the lake for even THREE minutes, and L landed his first one. The second one followed by about ten minutes. Eventually, after about 2 1/2 hours, we called it quits. Plenty to eat for dinner, plus some to bring back across the border (regulations allow us 4 walleyes per license, per day) - so we can bring back a day's limit with us. It rained lightly, and neither of us had any rain-repelling gear (I did not have any, and he had forgotten his at his home in Duluth). But we kept on, keepin' on. It was fun - I hadn't done any of that since I was a kid, and my main memories from then, were of extreme boredom while being forcefully kept in a boat and told to be silent. Ugh.

So, from a relative rookie start-up, I did okay. I really was babysitting one of his baited lines when I got a "hit". Wow! He told me how to set the hook, and since it was raining, the handle on the rod was slippery. I had enough to do, just to try to hold onto the slippery devil, but then had to try to reel it in and land it in the boat, to boot. And I was gettin' that bad boy close to the boat, when he broke the line and took off with my bright yellow jig. Damn. All that for nuttin'.


Obviously, this li'l guy was NOT a "keeper", so we returned him to swim with his other li'l buddies. Isn't fishing (in the rain) glamorous? My straggly, rain-soaked hair and saturated jacket tell the tale without words! And the rain was washing the oils from my face, stinging my eyes.

We continued fishing, and I actually landed a few. Towards the end of our fishing day, L got one of the biggest ones we'd caught -- and, tah-dah! it had MY jig in its jaw! So I was revenged! Plus L got the jig back. We ran out of bait (crawlers), and ended up fishing with artificial worms, which strangely DID work.




So... It was a goo-oo-ood day, folks - and one last photo of the happiest fisherman at this camp.