Still able to float my boat

I hadn’t been fishing in a while.

Not like this anyway.

For three days in a row, my friend Mike and I fished Fort Peck Lake from morning ‘til night with little interference other than time out to cook meals and run the dogs. We didn’t catch a lot of fish, but we caught enough to keep ourselves fed.

I could live on fresh walleye.

The weather was typical of early May, running the gamut from cold and rainy to warm and windy. One minute we’d be skimming along at full throttle and the next we’d be slowed to half speed, bouncing through 4-foot rollers while spray flew over the windshield. At times I wished I had a bigger boat.

However, while filling up at the marina gas dock I longed for a much smaller one.

There were a surprising number of boats on the lake considering the limited access due to the low water levels this spring. Most of the boat ramps are high and dry. We used a low-water ramp that I didn’t even know existed to launch the boat.

Few private docks were even in the water, most folks choosing to wait until the lake rises. But I’d been monitoring lake levels since ice-out in March, and it wasn’t rising. I couldn’t wait any longer. I took the dock apart and slid one section down to the water so we could get in and out of the boat without wading through the mud.

The bay has shrunken in size. It now more closely resembles a creek, but it still holds enough water to float my boat and that’s all that mattered.

It could -- and probably will -- get worse. At the water’s edge, the stump of a 4-inch diameter Russian olive is visible, evidence that the lake has been lower and stayed there for some time.

Once we were on the water, though, it didn’t much matter. There were still a few fish where we expected them.

I hadn’t fished open water since late last summer, but the first strike brought it all back – life surging on the end of my line, bowing the rod.

For three days we thought of little else but fishing, where to go, and what to use. We didn’t watch the news, do any chores, or run into town. Pretty much all we did was fish.

It had been too long.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]