You probably heard it yesterday. Not the silence that enveloped your lake as March advanced, the snowmobile season wound down, the ice anglers' shanties gone, the lake an empty expanse of white. Not the faint sounds of life, the scratch of a nuthatch on oak bark, the distant percussion of a woodpecker, the woods slowly waking.
No, this was even better -- snow melt water raining down on your deck. Winter had held on, without mercy, barely an hour above freezing since, say, the end of December. Yesterday the temperature topped 50 degrees, and the melting began in earnest. At five o'clock in went to the lower deck to grill supper, getting a minor shower of roof runoff as I stepped out the door, taking refuge under the screen porch.
I could hear nothing except the loud splatter of large drops on the lower deck boards, the upper deck's much-oversized foccacia loaf of snow turning at last to water, shrinking. Out on Birch Lake, the snow's surface, lit by a low sun, bore a stippled texture, a sure sign of melting (though two feet of snow and 18 inches of ice will take a while to go away).
I lit a charcoal fire, let it burn down, then placed six bratwursts on the grill and sat on one of two stacks of pier boards, stowed under the porch last fall. It was wondrous, on the third-to-last day of March, to sit without a coat and grill supper, fully comfortable, the white smoke rising through the lid vents scenting the air with summer.
It won't be long before I'm down at the lake, knee deep, assembling metallic pier sections in erector-set style. Soon I'll be toting these wooden pier sections, two at a time, down the stairs to lay in place on the frame.
It was a hopeful thought, but no match for the sensation of water splatting down on wood, not in bashful, now-and-then drips, but in a cascade -- abundant, persistent. It was a beautiful sound. I hope you heard it, too.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Monday, March 4, 2013
Reef in waiting
On a lake where most residents are seasonal or weekenders, social events are important. It's good to have extended contacts with people you otherwise would rarely see, people who enrich the lake experience. What kinds of events help pull your lake community together? On our Birch Lake, one activity is fish crib building. A couple of weekends ago I joined about a dozen other volunteers in building five cribs on the southwest lobe of the lake. They now sit out on the ice, awaiting the thaw that will allow them to sink to the bottom.
When I arrived that Saturday morning at the meeting place, the Birch Lake Bar, a few other laborers were waiting as a light snow fell, adding a bit to the six inches of light powder that had come the previous day. Soon more volunteers arrived, and we moved to a neighboring property where logs about ten feet long had been stacked, each one with a half-inch hole drilled toward both ends, a uniform distance apart. These were serious logs, some nearly a foot in diameter.
We wrestled two dozen of them into the beds of two pickup trucks -- some were heavy enough to require four men. Then we drove out onto the ice, needing all the power and traction of four-wheel drive to make it through the snow. We stopped out in the middle of that southwest lobe and went to work. First we dragged two of the biggest logs down and threaded lengths of steel rebar through holes at each end, Then it was a matter of threading the other logs onto those bars, in alternating directions, in the manner of Lincoln Logs, until we had a crib six logs high. Between log layers we piled on saplings and branches, so that the finished product took on the look of a porcupine.
Two cribs thuse built, we went back for another load of logs. And so it went. That morning we built five cribs. Each one would later be covered with wire mesh to help hold the brush in place, then festooned with concrete blocks that would speed their way to the bottom. The end result will be, in essence, an artificial reef in about 18 feet of water, in theory a magnet for walleyes in what otherwise has been a featureless and fishless stretch of rocky bottom.
I enjoyed my first venture in crib building and was glad to make a small contribution to the lake's continuing improvement. Most of all it was good to meet a few more of my neighbors -- we had a good time pointing out to each other the locations of our places along the wooded shore.
Now we just have to hope the cribs sink where we put them. There is always the chance that the lake ice will break up and that a floe carrying the cribs will drift elsewhere on a strong wind. Someone will need to watch where the cribs actually go down. Then it will be a matter of finding them, with help from a fishing sonar, when walleye season opens in May.
When I arrived that Saturday morning at the meeting place, the Birch Lake Bar, a few other laborers were waiting as a light snow fell, adding a bit to the six inches of light powder that had come the previous day. Soon more volunteers arrived, and we moved to a neighboring property where logs about ten feet long had been stacked, each one with a half-inch hole drilled toward both ends, a uniform distance apart. These were serious logs, some nearly a foot in diameter.
We wrestled two dozen of them into the beds of two pickup trucks -- some were heavy enough to require four men. Then we drove out onto the ice, needing all the power and traction of four-wheel drive to make it through the snow. We stopped out in the middle of that southwest lobe and went to work. First we dragged two of the biggest logs down and threaded lengths of steel rebar through holes at each end, Then it was a matter of threading the other logs onto those bars, in alternating directions, in the manner of Lincoln Logs, until we had a crib six logs high. Between log layers we piled on saplings and branches, so that the finished product took on the look of a porcupine.
Two cribs thuse built, we went back for another load of logs. And so it went. That morning we built five cribs. Each one would later be covered with wire mesh to help hold the brush in place, then festooned with concrete blocks that would speed their way to the bottom. The end result will be, in essence, an artificial reef in about 18 feet of water, in theory a magnet for walleyes in what otherwise has been a featureless and fishless stretch of rocky bottom.
I enjoyed my first venture in crib building and was glad to make a small contribution to the lake's continuing improvement. Most of all it was good to meet a few more of my neighbors -- we had a good time pointing out to each other the locations of our places along the wooded shore.
Now we just have to hope the cribs sink where we put them. There is always the chance that the lake ice will break up and that a floe carrying the cribs will drift elsewhere on a strong wind. Someone will need to watch where the cribs actually go down. Then it will be a matter of finding them, with help from a fishing sonar, when walleye season opens in May.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Of ice and angling
Up in Wisconsin, up in Wisconsin
The weather isn't very nice.
Up in Wisconsin, up in Wisconsin
They gotta fish right through the ice
-- Lou & Peter Berryman
Those words from the song "Up in Wisconsin" (sung to the tune of "La Cucuracha") come to mind when I ponder ice fishing (as in ponder actually doing it). Do you ice fish on your lake? Not many people do here on Birch, at least not this year. From our screen porch I can see only three, maybe four shanties. I am told, though, that the winter walleye fishing is good here. I have not tried it.
Well, I did once, last February, when friend Steve drove up from Manitowoc and we set tipups on a rock bar that's productive in summer, and so also should be in ice season. We caught none, and it was a miserable day, single digits, strong wind driving sharp pellets of snow, one of those days where if not for the fact a friend drove three hours for the express purpose of fishing, you would say, "Not today."
The truth is I have some mental hurdles to clear before I become an ice fisherman, It's not the cold: As a sister of mine says, "There is no cold weather -- only the wrong clothing." And even on that single-digit day with Steve all that got cold were my fingers when I bared them to bait the hooks and rig the tipups.
No, for me, it's the hassle. Summertime, you grab a pole, a lure box and a container of leeches, shove the boat out, motor over to a spot, drop anchor (or not) and fish. In winter there's the shanty (and maybe a heater), the ice drill, the buckets to sit on, the ladle for scooping slush out of the holes, the tipups, the messing with microscopic line with cold hands. And besides that all the layering up with clothes, heavy socks, lined boots. And so thus far, in our second season of being here at the lake often enough to make ice fishing realistic, I have not done it.
I do confess a dinner of fresh-fried walleyes caught from 36-degree water would be superb. And my kid brother did offer to sell me cheap, or loan me free, an assortment of gear. So I must say it's tempting. I am told walleyes can be had just a few yards out from what in summer is the end of my pier, and for that matter from the neighbor's as well. A little shed on shore for equipment so I wouldn't have to lug it up and down the steps each time -- who knows? Maybe it could be somewhat convenient. And I am after all slipping into semi-retirement, so more time is available.
As for now, it's a "maybe next year" thing. If I can talk one of my brothers into coming up and trying it for a weekend, who knows?
The weather isn't very nice.
Up in Wisconsin, up in Wisconsin
They gotta fish right through the ice
-- Lou & Peter Berryman
Those words from the song "Up in Wisconsin" (sung to the tune of "La Cucuracha") come to mind when I ponder ice fishing (as in ponder actually doing it). Do you ice fish on your lake? Not many people do here on Birch, at least not this year. From our screen porch I can see only three, maybe four shanties. I am told, though, that the winter walleye fishing is good here. I have not tried it.
Well, I did once, last February, when friend Steve drove up from Manitowoc and we set tipups on a rock bar that's productive in summer, and so also should be in ice season. We caught none, and it was a miserable day, single digits, strong wind driving sharp pellets of snow, one of those days where if not for the fact a friend drove three hours for the express purpose of fishing, you would say, "Not today."
The truth is I have some mental hurdles to clear before I become an ice fisherman, It's not the cold: As a sister of mine says, "There is no cold weather -- only the wrong clothing." And even on that single-digit day with Steve all that got cold were my fingers when I bared them to bait the hooks and rig the tipups.
No, for me, it's the hassle. Summertime, you grab a pole, a lure box and a container of leeches, shove the boat out, motor over to a spot, drop anchor (or not) and fish. In winter there's the shanty (and maybe a heater), the ice drill, the buckets to sit on, the ladle for scooping slush out of the holes, the tipups, the messing with microscopic line with cold hands. And besides that all the layering up with clothes, heavy socks, lined boots. And so thus far, in our second season of being here at the lake often enough to make ice fishing realistic, I have not done it.
I do confess a dinner of fresh-fried walleyes caught from 36-degree water would be superb. And my kid brother did offer to sell me cheap, or loan me free, an assortment of gear. So I must say it's tempting. I am told walleyes can be had just a few yards out from what in summer is the end of my pier, and for that matter from the neighbor's as well. A little shed on shore for equipment so I wouldn't have to lug it up and down the steps each time -- who knows? Maybe it could be somewhat convenient. And I am after all slipping into semi-retirement, so more time is available.
As for now, it's a "maybe next year" thing. If I can talk one of my brothers into coming up and trying it for a weekend, who knows?
Saturday, February 16, 2013
180.5 acres
It's my first time on snowshoes, not counting a day last March when I tried them out on crusted snow, with miserable results. Today the snow is reasonably fresh powder, about a foot of it on the ground, and the shoeing is just great.
The snowshoes are a gift from my wife, Christmas 2011. Here in February 2013, we finally have enough snow to make it worth trying them on. I'm not used to this form of exercise, so it's tiring, but I take my time and stop often for breaks. That includes chatting with a Birch Lake neighbor up from Wausau, an hour from here, visiting for the day to do some remodeling on his cabin down the hill from us.
With permission I cut through his lot down to the lake (our frontage is steep and I don't want to negotiate the 40 or so stairs with these boards on my feet). Where earlier this winter I used to walk the dog, there's now enough snow that it would be a struggle just in boots. Instead, I trudge along ("float over the snow" is not really the right description), leaving big, ovoid tracks, in the process making what seems like the first acquaintance with certain muscles.
Have you ever snowshoed or just walked on your lake in winter? It's like having (if temporarily) a lot more real estate than you actually own -- in our case 180 acres plus the 0.5 on which we pay taxes. Out on the lake snow is a wondrous place to be on a 20-degree, cloudy-bright February Saturday. Recent snowfalls have edge-frosted everything -- pines, oak, cabins -- in a way that reminds me of gingerbread houses.
When I stop crunching over the snow, it's completely quiet, except for the now-and-then putt- putt-putt-putt-roar-putt-putt of an ice auger from near a shanty just out from the point across the lake. There isn't enough wind to make a sound in the trees. In general it is silent enough, if you stop long and listen, almost to give the sensation of falling.
Part of me, on this back slope of winter, can't wait to see warmer days melt off this coat of snow, so I can, for the first time, watch the process of ice going out on a lake. After that we'll still have our extra 180 acres; we'll just have to enjoy them from a boat or canoe, or immersed, with our without flippers, mask and snorkel.
Another part of me has grown to love this white season up north and will have to confess to sadness at seeing it go. In the meantime, I have the snowshoes.
The snowshoes are a gift from my wife, Christmas 2011. Here in February 2013, we finally have enough snow to make it worth trying them on. I'm not used to this form of exercise, so it's tiring, but I take my time and stop often for breaks. That includes chatting with a Birch Lake neighbor up from Wausau, an hour from here, visiting for the day to do some remodeling on his cabin down the hill from us.
With permission I cut through his lot down to the lake (our frontage is steep and I don't want to negotiate the 40 or so stairs with these boards on my feet). Where earlier this winter I used to walk the dog, there's now enough snow that it would be a struggle just in boots. Instead, I trudge along ("float over the snow" is not really the right description), leaving big, ovoid tracks, in the process making what seems like the first acquaintance with certain muscles.
Have you ever snowshoed or just walked on your lake in winter? It's like having (if temporarily) a lot more real estate than you actually own -- in our case 180 acres plus the 0.5 on which we pay taxes. Out on the lake snow is a wondrous place to be on a 20-degree, cloudy-bright February Saturday. Recent snowfalls have edge-frosted everything -- pines, oak, cabins -- in a way that reminds me of gingerbread houses.
When I stop crunching over the snow, it's completely quiet, except for the now-and-then putt- putt-putt-putt-roar-putt-putt of an ice auger from near a shanty just out from the point across the lake. There isn't enough wind to make a sound in the trees. In general it is silent enough, if you stop long and listen, almost to give the sensation of falling.
Part of me, on this back slope of winter, can't wait to see warmer days melt off this coat of snow, so I can, for the first time, watch the process of ice going out on a lake. After that we'll still have our extra 180 acres; we'll just have to enjoy them from a boat or canoe, or immersed, with our without flippers, mask and snorkel.
Another part of me has grown to love this white season up north and will have to confess to sadness at seeing it go. In the meantime, I have the snowshoes.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
If we build it, will they come?
The Friends of Birch Lake (where we have our cabin) plan to build fish cribs later this month. Already a couple dozen lie sunken on the lakebed, though I confess I know the locations of only three or four. They're tough to find with the low-quality sonar unit on my fishing boat (the lake friends group does have a map, but sometimes even that isn't a great deal of help).
Anyway, the theory is that you build these frames of large logs, spiked together and festooned with brush. You weigh them down with concrete blocks, set them on the ice in the chosen spots, and wait for spring. Then, in theory, once in place they attract fish. So in a lake like ours, largely stripped of weeds by rusty crayfish and with limited bottom structure except for a rocky, humpy area on the northeast side, these cribs become good places to find walleyes and smallmouth bass.
That much in my experience is true -- I have caught fish around the Birch Lake cribs (though I've had more success observing those fish while snorkeling than I've had catching them). What's less certain is that cribs help produce rather than simply attract fish -- big difference. The idea is that the cribs provide cover -- places to hide -- for fish fry, so that more avoid getting eaten and grow to adulthood, and thus the populations of perch, bass, walleyes and bluegills get bigger. What's more likely is that the cribs just concentrate fish -- the number in the lake stays about the same, but they are more focused on the cribs (less scattered) thus easier to find.
Either way, I'm all for adding cribs to the lake. I wish I could help build them, but it looks like I will have to be out of town on business the the day appointed. I hope my fellow Birch Lake Friends members will be generous about sharing the locations -- or that I get to see the cribs on the ice before it melts.
Do you have cribs on your lake? What is your experience with them? Have they improved the fishng? How and to what degree?
Anyway, the theory is that you build these frames of large logs, spiked together and festooned with brush. You weigh them down with concrete blocks, set them on the ice in the chosen spots, and wait for spring. Then, in theory, once in place they attract fish. So in a lake like ours, largely stripped of weeds by rusty crayfish and with limited bottom structure except for a rocky, humpy area on the northeast side, these cribs become good places to find walleyes and smallmouth bass.
That much in my experience is true -- I have caught fish around the Birch Lake cribs (though I've had more success observing those fish while snorkeling than I've had catching them). What's less certain is that cribs help produce rather than simply attract fish -- big difference. The idea is that the cribs provide cover -- places to hide -- for fish fry, so that more avoid getting eaten and grow to adulthood, and thus the populations of perch, bass, walleyes and bluegills get bigger. What's more likely is that the cribs just concentrate fish -- the number in the lake stays about the same, but they are more focused on the cribs (less scattered) thus easier to find.
Either way, I'm all for adding cribs to the lake. I wish I could help build them, but it looks like I will have to be out of town on business the the day appointed. I hope my fellow Birch Lake Friends members will be generous about sharing the locations -- or that I get to see the cribs on the ice before it melts.
Do you have cribs on your lake? What is your experience with them? Have they improved the fishng? How and to what degree?
Thursday, January 24, 2013
The great eraser
One reason for building our place here on Birch Lake was to be able to experience a lake in all seasons. Most of my time up north had been in summer; here and there a weekend in autumn, never in winter. Now we spend about half our days here, year-round. This has been an interesting winter on the frozen water.
When we left here for home earlier in January, about eight inches of snow covered the lake. The snow had been trampled by ice anglers, packed down by snowmobiles and four-wheel-drive vehicles, laced with the tracks of skiers and snowshoers (and dented with my own bootprints and Freckles' paw marks).
While we were away for a couple of weeks, a warm spell melted the snow down. Then came a few inches of new powder, followed by a windy spell. By the time we arrived again four days ago, the lake was nearly a blank canvas, an expanse of white mottled with patches of bare blue-black ice.
On that whitescape I walked yesterday (with Freckles) and today (alone). The snow was a bit crusty in places, and there the wind had carved out miniature mesas. Looking down on them reminded me of flying over the desert landscape of Arizona or New Mexico, the wind having sculpted from snow in a few days what it took millions of years to fashion out of sandstone.
Most interesting, though, were the patches of bare ice, most of them no bigger than the surface of a summer swim raft. Every one was different, some showing large bubbles below the surface, others nearly opaque blue-white, one spot so clear I could see all the way through an imagine looking at the bottom, in that place (I know from the lake map) about 25 feet below below my boots. A stress crack in that area revealed an ice thickness of at least 10 inches, allaying any fears I may have had for my safety, standing over such deep water.
I walked from one of these bare, irregular ice patches to the next as if connecting dots. Freckles soon learned to stay on the snow to avoid losing control of his legs; I stepped a little carefully on the ice myself, knowing the damage a hard fall could do to my 60-year-old frame.
It's magical seeing the lake this way. One day I need to learn how to punch holes in this ice and catch a few walleyes for dinner. Right now, though, I wish it would snow. We're in a winter drought, and the land needs moisture. At this latitude we still have two months to make up the shortfall.
When we left here for home earlier in January, about eight inches of snow covered the lake. The snow had been trampled by ice anglers, packed down by snowmobiles and four-wheel-drive vehicles, laced with the tracks of skiers and snowshoers (and dented with my own bootprints and Freckles' paw marks).
While we were away for a couple of weeks, a warm spell melted the snow down. Then came a few inches of new powder, followed by a windy spell. By the time we arrived again four days ago, the lake was nearly a blank canvas, an expanse of white mottled with patches of bare blue-black ice.
On that whitescape I walked yesterday (with Freckles) and today (alone). The snow was a bit crusty in places, and there the wind had carved out miniature mesas. Looking down on them reminded me of flying over the desert landscape of Arizona or New Mexico, the wind having sculpted from snow in a few days what it took millions of years to fashion out of sandstone.
Most interesting, though, were the patches of bare ice, most of them no bigger than the surface of a summer swim raft. Every one was different, some showing large bubbles below the surface, others nearly opaque blue-white, one spot so clear I could see all the way through an imagine looking at the bottom, in that place (I know from the lake map) about 25 feet below below my boots. A stress crack in that area revealed an ice thickness of at least 10 inches, allaying any fears I may have had for my safety, standing over such deep water.
I walked from one of these bare, irregular ice patches to the next as if connecting dots. Freckles soon learned to stay on the snow to avoid losing control of his legs; I stepped a little carefully on the ice myself, knowing the damage a hard fall could do to my 60-year-old frame.
It's magical seeing the lake this way. One day I need to learn how to punch holes in this ice and catch a few walleyes for dinner. Right now, though, I wish it would snow. We're in a winter drought, and the land needs moisture. At this latitude we still have two months to make up the shortfall.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Stacks of silver coins
It's been said that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow -- that they live with it so intimately they distinguish its every texture, form, nuance and variation. Well, it turns out the first part of that sentence, about the hundreds of words, isn't true, but I'll bet the other half is: to the keen observer, snow isn't simply white stuff.
So it can be with ice, specifically lake ice. Here on Birch Lake near Harshaw, warm weather back a week or so melted some of the 6- to 8-inch cover we had going into the New Year. Some new light snow has fallen since then, but the wind has moved it around, sweeping scattered patches bare. Looking out from the living room window, I find myself wanting to go take a close look and those bare spots.
Ever since I was a kid, skating on the frozen river near my home in Two Rivers, I've enjoyed examining ice. I remember glorious days when friends and I skated on ice clear as a sheet of glass. I've enjoyed such days with my kids, too, gliding along, looking down on rocks and gravel, exploring tangles of sunken branches, skating right atop a small school of redhorse suckers swimming at full speed, trying to flee in fright.
The features of the ice itself were fascinating, too -- the cracks that revealed its thickness; rippled, washboard areas where wind kept the ice from freezing smooth, translucent patches where an incoming spring mixed and stirred the water.
What I liked (and still like) best were the stacks of coins. Have you seen this? The ice is clear, several inches thick, and there's a stack of silver-white bubbles fixed in it, each the size of a quarter or half-dollar, an eighth-inch or so apart. How does this happen? Well, you generally see this over shallow water. There has to be a source of air, such as a plant still respiring down on the bottom and sending up oxygen, or something in the mud decaying and releasing bubbles of gas.
One cold night a skin of ice forms over the lake. The next day the sun shines through and whatever process is at work sends up tiny bubbles that collect against the ice's underside, forming one larger bubble, flat like a coin. The next cold night makes the ice a little thicker and traps that bubble in its matrix. The next day another bubble forms. And so it goes. The result is purely beautiful, especially when struck by a low sun from east or west.
Next time out on your lake (if it's not covered by snow), look closely at the ice. You'll discover a richness and variety much like what the Eskimos surely have come to see in snow.
So it can be with ice, specifically lake ice. Here on Birch Lake near Harshaw, warm weather back a week or so melted some of the 6- to 8-inch cover we had going into the New Year. Some new light snow has fallen since then, but the wind has moved it around, sweeping scattered patches bare. Looking out from the living room window, I find myself wanting to go take a close look and those bare spots.
Ever since I was a kid, skating on the frozen river near my home in Two Rivers, I've enjoyed examining ice. I remember glorious days when friends and I skated on ice clear as a sheet of glass. I've enjoyed such days with my kids, too, gliding along, looking down on rocks and gravel, exploring tangles of sunken branches, skating right atop a small school of redhorse suckers swimming at full speed, trying to flee in fright.
The features of the ice itself were fascinating, too -- the cracks that revealed its thickness; rippled, washboard areas where wind kept the ice from freezing smooth, translucent patches where an incoming spring mixed and stirred the water.
What I liked (and still like) best were the stacks of coins. Have you seen this? The ice is clear, several inches thick, and there's a stack of silver-white bubbles fixed in it, each the size of a quarter or half-dollar, an eighth-inch or so apart. How does this happen? Well, you generally see this over shallow water. There has to be a source of air, such as a plant still respiring down on the bottom and sending up oxygen, or something in the mud decaying and releasing bubbles of gas.
One cold night a skin of ice forms over the lake. The next day the sun shines through and whatever process is at work sends up tiny bubbles that collect against the ice's underside, forming one larger bubble, flat like a coin. The next cold night makes the ice a little thicker and traps that bubble in its matrix. The next day another bubble forms. And so it goes. The result is purely beautiful, especially when struck by a low sun from east or west.
Next time out on your lake (if it's not covered by snow), look closely at the ice. You'll discover a richness and variety much like what the Eskimos surely have come to see in snow.
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