Long Lake Yarns

We gather around the firepit on a dark, chilly night. Even if all you are doing is having good unspooky conversation and roasting marshmallows, you can’t help but look beyond what the fire lights.  At least in Michigan, you know you aren’t going to be some creature’s evening snack. Nothing bigger than a raccoon is likely [...]

Moonset. Not yet dawn. But not quite still night. It would be so good to be sitting in Ghost Bay right this very minute, watching moonset happen. I am in the city now. Moonset must happen from some vantage point in my city. Don’t you think? Maybe from the river’s edge, at just the exact [...]

Long Lake. August 2011. A gentle breeze. Moderate temperature. A good day for finding clouds that look like a man with sideburns scratching his head (over to the far right). And best of all–those sunbeams.

This is April 3rd on Hillman’s Long Lake. Geez. We checked our logs. Last April 3rd we had just gotten the dock into the water.  Ice out occurred about two weeks earlier. On April 3, 2010 we were paddling in Ghost Bay and I saw a giant pike spring out of the big weed bed. [...]

Our young neighbor Zach says the walleyes on Hillman’s Long Lake bite most frequently through the ice at twilight.  They are probably so distracted by the beautiful sunsets that they lose their sense of self-preservation and just decide to nibble those tasty minnows after all. Steve caught this nineteen-incher a little before sunset, on a [...]