Loons, spruce seeds and fishing

 

Black spruce seed

Perhaps the best news of the summer is that the loons successfully nested on Red Lake. The resident pair near our cabin had two young. They were nearly full grown when we left. We saw loons with young in many other parts of the lake too.

I am stumped on what makes a good loon nesting year. Our pair had not fledged any young in five years and that seemed to be a common condition around the lake. Last spring we had very high water and very cold temperatures. I guess that's just what the loons wanted.

It was also a great year for the conifers to produce cones. Both the black spruce and balsam fir around our place were so top heavy with cones that the tree tops were nodding. When the spruce cones opened in early September their single-winged seeds rained down for weeks. 

Alas, the cold start to the fishing season screwed things up all summer. Walleye never seemed to come into the shallows to spawn and when the water did warm up in July the fish just stayed out in the deep.

I caught only three walleye off the dock all summer. Normally I would catch dozens. I probably only caught a half a dozen pike and just two bass. I did have a small lake trout follow my lure in June.

Brenda and I did manage to get a couple of pike to eat by taking to the boat about six times. On our last trip we were skunked.

The best fishing always comes from early warm springs. That's what the fish like and what we want too.