Spring retreat - day four

The rain swept over Green Lake in the evening of the third day.  It began with scattered drops on the surface of the lake as I fished about 7 PM, grew in intensity as I made supper under the tarp and shelter, and rattled deafening on the tarp as I ate.  I could hear nothing else.  Carrying on a conversation would have been difficult.

The rain continued during the night, bringing unfamilar sounds.  Sharp raps on the tarp, like someone tapping it with a stick.  Noises like footsteps.  A tree or large branch crashing in the forest.  Spooky.

However, the extra effort to set up camp on the first day proved its worth.  I cooked and ate my supper out of the rain, slept in a dry tent, and woke rested to another misty morning.

After breakfast, I drove to Kate's and Dunc's Lakes.  The track into the lakes seemed hardly more than a wide trail, as it wound through the woods, threaded between low beaver ponds, and climbed over oaky ridges.  However, regular use had kept it clear of brush and passable to within a few hundred meters of the lakes.

The lakes appear very different.  Dunc's has a very shallow, mucky periphery.  I waded the south end, where a reedy marsh made the footing a little more secure.  Even so, I felt nervous wading on my own, and I took extra care to watch for holes and beaver channels.  Nothing seemed to rise on the lake, so I cast streamers over the flats toward the edge of deeper, darker water.  Once or twice I tried to ease out from the edge of the reeds to get my fly closer to the drop-off, only to find the deeper muck unnerving.

The clouds had broken up a bit, showing patches of blue sky.  Sunlight and shadow passed over.  In the patches of sunlight, I could see the flats clearly and watched keenly for anything following my fly.  Once, during a retrieve, I spotted a trout break from the deeper water to chase something over the flats; but it had turned and retreated again before I could lift my rod and reposition my line.  Most of the time, though, a fitful breeze rippled the lake surface, and I cast blindly, slowing working along the edge of the marsh.  After about 90 minutes of fishing in thigh deep, cold water, I began to feel cold and clumsy.  I tenderly picked my way to shore, easing cautiously into each step.  Back on shore, I ate some lunch to restore my energy, then walked 10 minutes to Kate's Lake.

The walk to Kate's Lake provided the most rewarding part of the day.  Passing a small wetland, I saw a barred owl fly up into a tree.  It perched nonchalantly as I fumbled quietly in my bag, only to fly deeper into the woods out of sight as I finally pulled out my camera.  However, the camera proved useful for capturing the early buttercups, round lobed hepatica, and patches of walking fern along the trail.

Kate's is a classic shield lake:  rocky, deep, clear.  Without a canoe, I could only cast from the shore.  After about twenty minutes, a older man came strolling down the trail with his golden lab.  He'd caught trout here last spring he said, but a bit later, when the blackflies and fiddleheads were out.  Also in the winter, through the ice.

I fished a while longer after he left, still without success.  At one point, as I sat on rock, dangling a leg toward the water, a northern water snake startled me by swimming just below my shoe.  A few feet further, it slowed eased out of the water, tasting the air carefully as it did so.  On the hunt for frogs, I assume.