Overnight low: 31 F

This time of year we start seeing boats put into storage, piers pulled out, cottage piping drained and windows shuttered. And yet it’s possibly the most beautiful time to be out on your lake. Not swimming in it, mind you, but on it or looking out over it.

This time of year, we see outdoor enthusiasts packing the fishing gear away and pulling out the shotguns, the grouse guns, the deer rifles. Yet it’s still a great time for fishing. A sense of urgency pervades the underwater world. Muskies, walleyes and bass are feeding heavily for the winter. It’s the time of big baits for big appetites. Last week on Birch Lake near Harshaw, Wisconsin, where I live, I caught a 7-inch smallmouth bass on a 5-inch walleye sucker minnow. Imagine what the muskies are eating.

I ignored this morning’s near-freezing temperature and went fishing for a while, parking the boat above a favorite rock bar. The 20-inch smallmouth I caught wasn’t the highlight – that was the general sense of urgency to be felt all around. Urgency for me because the remaining fishing days are few (and I am not a hunter). And urgency for the wild things. I saw ducks stopping by on their migrations. Seagulls swooping down to pluck something or other from the water. And above, a vee of geese. I heard their calls but had to scan the sky to locate them, very high, straight over my head, against cottony clouds.

There’s a narrow window between now and winter, a window quickly closing. Within two weeks, maybe three, the leaves will flare, fade to brown, and blow away. The air's crispness will give way to bite, and November's winds will turn vicious.

So now is the time to be with your lake. Pick a warm autumn day and take a long, slow boat ride. Soak some minnows in a favorite fishing spot. Take a cup of coffee or hot cider,  sit on the pier bench you will soon take down, scan the shorelines and enjoy the colors of the trees reflected in still water. Enjoy the lake while you can. Make a few more memories. Winter’s on the way, and winters here are long.