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Not the largest bass I have caught!

With the rain finally starting to get back to normal levels, it was a good chance to get caught up around the house.   The garden has started to somewhat dry out and my corn is looking more like corn than cattails, there's a lot of work to be done.  Many of my plants are yellowing from the constant saturation of  water just below the surface.  My dahlia's have simply rotted away, the beets refuse to come up, and the deer are having their way with the potatoes.  Oh well I did get the entire thing weeded and rototilled, cucumber fence is up, and the onions continue to amaze me as they have started to break the soil around them as they add layers to themselves.  Last weekend was predicted to be a wash out with almost 2 inches of rain forecasted, it didn't even come close.  It was quite windy and with the pending weather it seemed useless to head up to Mille Lacs Lake.  Sunday turned out to be just the opposite of what Friday's forecast had for the weekend and although it was windy, I had just enough time to sneak to a lake I had been meaning to try for a few years, Indian Lake in northwest Wright County.  It's actually quite small which would help protect from the wind.  The DNR reports have the lake with a nice abundance of 10" plus crappies with a few nice bluegills, it was certainly worth the try.  With only a few hours to fish I arrived to see the boat ramp was almost completely under water.  It wasn't too bad as it took wading in foot deep water to get to the trailer winch to disconnect the front bow eye, lucky the landing turned fairly deep at the end and was easy to tie to the dock.  After parking the car and believing that all the lakes in Wright County were under no-wake restrictions, I idled to the other side where it was calm and dropped the trolling motor.  The lake has a nice drop from the shore, the water was nice and clear with the weeds appearing in about 15 feet of water.  I stayed on the weed edge casting into shore with my ultralights as crappie were the main target. Using small rubber jigs that usually do well, all I could get were largemouth bass in the 8 - 14 inch range, and a lot of them.  On ultralight tackle and 4 pound test line, they can really put up a fight.  I suppose if I had brought out some larger bait like worms rigged Texas Style the size would have been larger yet my target were crappies.  To my surprise I only managed one 9" black crappie.  Switching colors, styles, sizes, shapes did little.  Years ago I would often go to Lake John, just a few miles from Indian Lake and do really well on crappies.  Maybe the high water has something to do with it, I don't know but it was still nice to get out.

Too much for the sandbags

So the same theme regarding water levels has been discussed many times.  Indian Lake tends to have some fairly high banks so most of the cabins around have no issues, except this one.  I am sure the owner purposely built this cabin close to the water (back then you could) assuring a great view of the lake,  A convenient walkout allowed instant access to his boat with the deck seemingly extended above the water.  Well I'm sure they only intended to appear that way, yet you can see that it is now definitely extended over the water.  Hopefully the water will recede before the winter freezes it as it's a mess now, I couldn't imagine dealing with the freezing effects on the saturated concrete.  Another interesting thing was the presence of 2 aerators operating around the lake.  In effect from April to November, most Lake Associations run them in the winter to avoid low oxygen levels which kill the fish.  Called the Indian Lake Restoration Project, I suspect the aerators help keep the water clear and moving.  I did catch a few bass around them but can't say for sure what that means.  Anyway it was good to get out, even for a few hours, and discover a different lake.  With such of positive lake report I know I'll be back there again sometime for those crappies.

I finally found time to switch my DSL Internet speed from 1.5 MB to 12 MB.  Calling CenturyLink they assured me ti was nothing more than switching a filter and I shouldn't notice any disruption in service......famous last words.  After spending and hour with their tech support, they concluded that my modem wasn't up to the standards it needs to be.  Because it was late, the only place open was Walmart and luckily they had one.  Between Centurylink's India Tech Support and NetGear's India Tech Support, I was finally connected and downloading by 2:00 AM this morning.  Although I do think computers are nothing but a passing fad anyway, I'm not a total idiot but geez!  Looking back, a good simple set of instructions and an expectation of time needed to allow the components to make the right decisions would have saved me about 3 hours.  Oh well.  My brother Steve and I are heading for Leech Lake on Friday to spend the night at Brindley's and fish both the evening bite and most of Saturday.  Word is the walleye bite has slowed because of the mayfly hatch and Mille Lacs is finally turning on.  Just my luck however it will be nice to see the guys at the resort again.  Hopefully we can change that slow bit into a fish fry.