A Day on the Lake

Let's Go Fishin'

 Our friend Linda emailed recently to invite us on an eight hour boat ride on Lake of the Woods. She had won this trip for six at a charity raffle and thought we'd enjoy coming along. I imagined the boat would leave Warroad in the late afternoon and we'd enjoy the sunset as we cruised up to one of the island resorts for dinner. For the trip to last eight hours we'd have to go to the posh resort with the eight course meal. I said yes, of course. Linda's mother Helen, her husband Larry, and their son Mike would be joining us.
  But it was not a sunset cruise at all. Rather, it was eight hours of fishing starting at eight a.m. Our boat would be leaving from Arneson's Resort at Rocky Point, which would mean getting out of bed at five a.m.  We had taken Linda and Larry for a day of lobster fishing when they visited us in Boston last year. That had involved a four a.m. rising, so maybe this was payback. When I asked Linda about this she just smiled and said "You two seemed like the perfect couple for this. Larry said so too."
  It was quite cool when we arrived at Rocky Point, about 57 degrees. It was only blowing about 10 mph so the lake should have been calm, but the waves were out of proportion with the lightness of the wind, a notorious trait of this big shallow lake, The resort has several boats that it sends out with guides all through the summer. Our guide, Captain Tim, said he had clients almost every day between fishing opener and Labor Day. We looked to be the only boat headed out on this mid-September Monday. Tim said we'd head to the northeast for about twenty minutes then troll to the east with the wind behind us.
  The boat was a thirty-five foot cabin cruiser with a pair of powerful inboard engines. We took off at high speed, pounding into the waves. Most but not all the spray missed us. Right away Helen and Teresa wanted life jackets, more for warmth than from fear of sinking. Tim cut the engine so we could dig out the lifejackets. The resort radioed Tim to ask if he had broken down.
  We pounded off again till we reached the fishing grounds and Tim mercifully shut off one engine and throttled the other down to a stuttering 2.5 mph. The boat rocked gently in the swells and the temperature rose a couple of degrees. This might be okay. One thing I had learned from the lobstering trip was that the best way to ease the hours along is to eat steadily throughout the day. We had brought along a good supply of sandwiches, fruit and junk food.
  The boat had five downriggers pointing off the stern. These looked like miniature cannons with an eight pound lead ball hanging from the end. Tim set a regular fishing rod and reel into a socket attached to the downrigger. With a practiced motion he let out 30 feet of line looping the near end into a clip attached to the lead ball. He then lowered the ball till it was four feet off the bottom. Now the lure and hook would be thirty feet astern and just off the bottom where the walleye feed. The weight of the ball bent the rod as though there was a huge fish on it. Once a fish was actually hooked, the line pulled free of the lead ball. We knew we had a fish because the rod went straight for a second or two until the fish started to fight. We took turns taking the rod out of the socket and reeling the fish in. Once you had a fish reeled in you stood a good chance of losing it in the netting process. At first Tim did the netting and even he lost one. Our crew soon took over that job and the number of lost fish went up. We were catching a fish every 15 minutes or so. We had to throw back several big ones because they were over 19 1/2 inches. The big ones were the breeding stock and Tim admitted that since the throwback rule went into effect, fish numbers have gone up. However, if you catch a fish over 28 inches, you are allowed to keep one "trophy fish." Otherwise we were each allowed four walleyes and two saugers, the walleye's taste-alike cousin.
  Tim said when fishermen come from Iowa or North Dakota they expect to catch fish, especially after paying $720 per day. With the downriggers, they are guaranteed to catch fish. "But downriggers take all the skill out of fishing," he said.
  Mike does more fishing then any of us, and after a few hours asked if we could try spinning, or using the rod and reel with live bait. Tim motored over to a spot a little east of the resort and put worms on our hooks. I'm not afraid to put a worm on a hook, but Tim has baited several hundred thousand hooks in his 16 years as a guide and his worms tend to stay on the hook while mine fall off. Fishing was much slower now that skill was involved. With the engine shut off we wallowed in the waves. My potato chip consumption went way up. After an hour someone suggested we go back to downrigging, which we did for the rest of the day. We wanted our limits.
  Tim told us that over the years most of his clients have been easy to get along with. He said they used to take mixed parties to make up a boatload of six. This didn't always work out so well. He once took out a husband and wife and their young son along with "two older four-fingered gentlemen: four fingers of whiskey, no ice." Once oiled up, the gentlemen began using inappropriate language. After two or three such incidents, the resort banned mixed parties. A group of fewer than six gets a discount.
  More boats joined us on the lake as the day turned warm. Tim gave us an extra 45 minutes of fishing to fill the cooler. Once ashore, we went up to the resort restaurant for cocktails while Tim fileted our fish. If you're going fishing, this is the way to do it. Keep those charity raffles coming, please.