The buzz

I don’t know how things are on your lake, but here on Birch there isn’t much point in fishing except when the light is low, which means overcast skies, very early morning (including pre-dawn) and late evening into full darkness. It’s possible to catch smallmouth bass here in the full light of day, but walleyes are light-sensitive and hard to find in sunlit hours.

So, being too lazy to roust myself at, say, 4 a.m. to take advantage of the early bite, I generally head out on the water just as the sun touches the tops of the pines. Soon the sun is gone and night slowly comes on. Then interesting things happen in the air around me. For one thing, mosquitoes come out, whining in my ears even when I’m fishing the mid-lake rock bar, far from shore. Here a little repellant works wonders.

Other times I see newly hatched mayflies heilcoptering over the water. On a few early June evenings I often found myself surrounded by tiny white midges, which had hatched by the millions. As darkness deepens, bats patrol low over the water; I see their shadows against the surface, which still retains a bit of brightness. Now and the when I cast, a bat will veer sharply toward my airborne bait, having picked it up on its echolocating system. Once as I reeled in a lure, a bat struck my taut monofilament line and for a long moment just hung there like a butterfly mounted on a pin.

Now, in August (and this happened last year, too), as the light fades, my boat’s envelope is invaded by flies that hover in place, a few dozen of them at a time, all around me and just above the level of my cap. Together they create a faint buzz – I hear it if I hold still and listen carefully. They don’t land on or otherwise pester me; they just hang in the air, bodies black, wings a blur. They seem shaped like flying ants, though I doubt that’s what they are, as ants I’ve seen on the wing don’t behave that way at all. What I really should do is capture a couple with my hat or with the little net I use to dip minnows from my bucket, and bring them back to the cabin for examination. The Internet being what it is today, I might even be able to identify them, down as far as order, anyway (likely not genus and species). Have you seen flies like this on your lake?

At any rate, things in the air add interest to night fishing, and that’s nice at times when those creatures below the waterline aren’t interested in what I offer.