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He asks off handedly, What was your best day outdoors? I need no long thought-out thinking. One tops them all. It was mid-September, an early fall to boot, things got crisp quick, the leaves were turning early with the cold overnights, but the days still held such glories in afternoon warmth.
We packed a tent, loaded a canoe, grabbed some grub for a couple of days, took a stab at a map and said let’s try that one. We parked at the end of a long since out of use two track, the ruts were still there from some long-ago logging operation. We had the dead end to ourselves, and by the looks of things, nobody had been there in years. We dry portaged to the first lake, paddled across it, up another hill across the feint portage. About mid-way across, I found a Minnesota DNR, fish rule, old wood one, treasured it like a deer shed and then we slipped into the destination lake.
For several hours, two-pound walleyes, one after another, never such a day since. Along the north shore of the lake, we lunched on some massive Canadian shield stone. It was warm to the touch from the abundant sunshine, it felt good to stretch, we finished our cold sandwiches and back to the walleyes.
They never knew we were absent, they hammered the minnows, then from the shore, west of the boulder field, a massive thwack, then another, then two adult bull moose erupted clashing and grunting. It was a show, turf went flying, branches were snapping, small spruce trees cracked like baseball bats. When they stopped fighting, we paddled over to take a look.
We pulled up the canoe, I forgot all about my minnow dangling in the water as we made our way to the woodland arena, it looked like a bulldozer got drunk, ripped earth, smashed brush bushes and trees.
It was a mess, and we got to see it made.
Back to the canoe, my rod tip was a thumping, yet another walleye. It was just one of those days, that when the sun started to clip the trees canopies we backtracked out, found the U.S. Forest Service road and we just ambled along looking for a place to set up the tent. A small spur of gravel, we took it, at the end was a pile of logging slash several years old, dry as a bowl of unbuttered popcorn, firewood was easy to put up that night.
He ladles a steak on to my plate, then one for him. He sits back in his folding chair says, “Man what a day.”
He then says, “Only one thing could top a day like that.” I said, “What?”
He said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if a wolf howled?”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth. We both sat agape, it howled only once, but under all those crisp stars, the firelight dancing, yeah, that was a cake topper for sure.
- The Trout Whisperer
