Category Archives: Long Lake activities

Firepit

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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 moving about. The 2000 or so black bears that live in Michigan’s lower peninsula hardly ever even claw at people. But gazing into the shadows, it’s still easy to remember what scary stuff our ancestors knew could be lurking there.

This night was a cool almost-fall night. The sky was clear. We could look up and see our Milky Way galaxy all milky like it is, and was.

Moonset in Ghost Bay

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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 perfect time. But I don’t live near the river. Maybe from a highrise, aimed in the right direction a few times each year. But I don’t live in a highrise either.

Long Lake. In Ghost Bay. This was August, 2011.

 

April 3rd: enough already!

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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. There was a loon near Belly Button Island. And this year? Well, you’re looking at it.

We are crying “uncle” here in Michigan. And it has nothing to do with the fact that about a week and half ago we were paddling in the waters off Cedar Key, Florida.

I drove home today through sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Made it home without incident, but many others were not so fortunate. Cars were in ditches, flipped over in the median, and sitting by the side of the road apparently waiting for the blizzard to pass. I-75 was awash in emergency vehicles and motorists in trouble. There were definitely moments when I wished we had not followed our habit of  swapping out the snow tires in mid-March.

I hope our feathered migrants know not to head here yet. Loons? Stay where you are. And you ruby-throated hummingbirds? I assume you’ve left Costa Rico, but definitely hang out in Tennessee and warmer places awhile longer. Michigan is no place for the delicate ones this early April.

Ice Fishing on Long Lake

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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 tip-up.  Not much later than an hour after this fish was swimming in the lake, we were eating walleye for dinner.  Very tasty!