Same Stuff, Different Day

The big clean up for the mass exodus back to civilization will begin tomorrow. Our Ohio children leave for home on Monday and the Arizona kids follow a couple days later.

I'm giving fishing one more shot tonight. For the first time in five days there are no white caps on the lake. After the sun goes down my son, grandson and I will troll the lake with large Rapala's hoping to snag the monster walleye. I'm not holding my breath.

There's a tradition at our lake that's been going on for 25 years. When people leave they go down to the dock and wave good-bye to the lake. I don't go. I stand on the upper deck porch and say to myself, "good riddance".

We're renting the place out in mid-August. This means all has to be in order from a cleaned yard to a spic and span inside of the cabin. One of the best thing I can say about this place is we've never had vermin inside over the winter.

I set a record of sorts at the Minnesota place this summer. I arrived on June 10 and will leave August 2. This is the absolute longest I've been in this place in the last 25 years. As for fishing I caught two snake type Northern Pike, four teensy weensy large mouth bass and a plethora of rock bass(inedible).

One day I motored to the center of the lake, put a leech on my hook, shut off the engine, put on my radio head set tuned to Rush and let the waves take me wherever they desired. It was the most relaxing day of my vacation.

September is the very best time to be Up North. In a moment of delusion I briefly entertained the idea of driving back from Ohio to enjoy the changing of the leaves. I did write 'briefly', right?

So, in a short time it'll be back to Ohio. I'm sure by next spring I'll have forgotten the realities of Ten Mile Lake. I'll be thinking positively of the possibilities of catching strings full of walleye, large and small mouth bass and the monster Ten Mile monster residing at the bottom of this 212 feet deep lake.

Hope springs eternal.