There is still one boat left in my yard that has not been winterized, just in case I get a chance to drown a couple more minnows this season. I keep telling my wife that I am waiting until the last minute. When we awoke to a whiteout this past weekend, she asked me if this was the last minute or not. I guess it is.
But I still did not put the boat away for the winter yet.
The lakes are starting to show a little bit of ice in the mornings and by late afternoon they are back to open water. Little Iron is usually the first lake to freeze over and it is ready to go any day now. The snow sat on top of the water for a while, reminding me of a slushy nightmare from last winter. It is not ready to keep ice yet.
Gunflint and Poplar are showing the same thing in some bays, so it should be any day now that we start hearing the cool sounds of overnight ice making.
It is easy to forget how much I like the snow until it appears again every fall. The animals leave tracks everywhere, revealing where they like to wander. It reminds me how many creatures there really are out there. Now I can actually see all of the things my dog is sniffing at in the warmer months.
Snowshoe hares, chipmunks, squirrels, foxes and of course, wolves have all left prints in our driveway the past few days. Oh, I almost forgot about the skunk who likes to check out our garbage cans every Wednesday at the end of the driveway.
Snow might show us things we would normally not see, but it also covers things we do not want to see. For instance, my yard always looks much cleaner after a good dumping of fresh snow. The random scrap wood piles and miscellaneous junk lying around my yard just magically disappear— until spring of course.
Two winters ago I lost my wedding ring for a couple of months. Rachelle and I tore the house apart looking for it with no luck. In late March I was standing in the driveway telling my father-in-law about the missing ring while we were noticing some gravel spots that were beginning to show themselves on that sunny day. I looked down at the melting driveway and there was my ring just sitting on the ground!
It sat there for most of the winter, covered in snow, and I could not even guess how many times I had plowed right over it. It must have fallen off while I was removing a glove was all I could figure. How odd to find it while “fessing up” to my father-in-law. We could not believe it.
Cory Christianson, a graduate
of the University of Iowa, has
worked as a fishing guide on
the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If
you have any fishing reports
or stories to share, send an
email to: christiansoncory@
hotmail.com or call 218-388-
0315.
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