What's the Chances

At the walk in lake access nobody else is parked here. Everyone else must have either listened to the weatherman’s weekend forecast or called it a summer and loaded up the truck to haul the kids off to college, but knowing nobody else is around for miles and miles is nice.

No need for hurry today. I stuff my rain in gear in the cockpit just in case. One rod is plenty. I think this is going to be a two cigar, one water bottle outing. I hitch my life jacket real loose and shove off.

After an hour of catching fish without swatting a single bug, it hits me. The big summer Rush is over and even the pesky winged critters have settled down. Little specks of yellow goldenrod tell tale the shoreline taunting the treetops to start showing off there autumnal colors.

Its ripples skittering across the bay today and not waves. Summers final breezes are gently blowing through Cattails stands that look picture perfect right now with there thick brown tops and sharp green fronds swishing easily. I can see why somebody would cut these to weave a basket. I might have to try it sometime; now I bet that’s a fifty percenter.

As I paddle closer to shore, rocks are white striped and lined with dried lake foam. Discarded insect skeletons lie just above the sugary brown sand. Into the water I gaze upon a red rock, but it’s not an agate, then a white rock, some sort of quartz I suppose. One crawling crayfish with claws I’ll just leave alone, backs under some driftwood.

Tree shadows pulse out over the lakes surface. It’s the living jig saw puzzle reflected into my face. A natural mirrored image so soft as I drift through the watercolor and I can stir it all up with a tiny paddle stroke. Nobodies watching, so I had to let the kid in me loose. It propels me to fish.

I plop a twister tailed jig in front of some large pond weeds growing up from the lake bottom. Its cheating this time of the year knowing without a doubt this is gonna be a bluegill blowout. It takes just a few minutes paddling into various weeds, around alder bushes draped out over the lake to finish a late summer’s limit.

I figure its half a cigar to the truck from here. It hasn’t rained yet and my water bottle is empty but when I get home my glass WILL be half full, that’s a hundred percent guaranteed