While watching the sun rise up over Lake Michigan this morning (in Mid-May at around 5:45 AM), I began to think about ‘opening day’ of fishing season, and where to go to catch some nice looking Walleye, Perch, Crappies, and Pike in early June, and beyond. For some reason, although I live very close to Lake Michigan, it feels more natural for me to travel further north to escape the bustling cities and burgs, while searching for less inhabited, and more wilderness and rugged climes.
From a very early age, our whole family used to travel north via station wagon to the ‘Canadian boundary waters’ around Baudette, Minnesota and ‘Lake of the Woods’, where our Norwegian immigrant grandparents and parents homesteaded on their ‘300 acre farms’, 70 to 100 years ago, along the banks of the ‘Rainy River’, … where we would also camp at the ‘Wabanica Beauty Spot’ and meet up with our Norwegian cousins during the summer months. Some of the best ‘Walleye Fishing’ anywhere in the USA can be found in that area of the country.
I have a lot of fond memories from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s from that part of the world. From picking wild strawberries and blueberries in sun drenched fields next to the farms, to milking cows, churning fresh butter and making ‘home made ice cream’, riding horses, hiking around the farms, rounding up goats, rams, and sheep, bailing hay with my cousins, and eating blueberry pancakes for breakfast every morning (as well as some fresh Walleye and Perch fillets), … also shooting our Dad’s old bolt action single shot .22 rimfire rifle at cans in the river (after picking up several boxes .22 cartridges for 50 cents a box at ‘Gambles’ in downtown Baudette), with our many kindred cousins. In later years (1984 and beyond), my brothers, Dad, and a few friends, would often travel further north beyond Wawa, Ontario, Canada while taking a train up to ‘Errington’s Island Resort’ on Lake Wabatongushi (https://wildernessisland.com/) to continue our Walleye fishing forays. However, our trips to ‘Wabatong’ were all later, … after I had ‘joined the Navy to see the world’, and graduated from college.
In any case, that’s where my thoughts often travel to at this time of the year, as our small blue planet turns through another cycle of world unrest and chaos, … and as many of us wish for world peace and harmony. In the meantime, I often surf the local news on the internet and visit sites like ‘Zerohedge’, ‘Rumor Mill News’, and other conspiracy blog sites, as well as stock and financial websites, to fish and surf for current events as well as northern lakes to explore, while scammers, trolls, and misinformation specialists seek to sink their hooks into anyone that will offer them a hook or a line, or the time of day, or play into their many malevolent memes.
But, I digress. Instead of wandering down that mentally and spiritually destructive path, I will often attempt to divert my attention to more positive frequencies while remembering to; “ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive, E-lim-i-nate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, [and] Don’t mess with Mr. In-Between”.
“You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum, Bring gloom down to the minimum, Have faith, or pandemonium [is] liable to walk upon the scene”.
https://genius.com/Bing-crosby-ac-cent-tchu-ate-the-positive-lyrics
Meanwhile, I thought that I might try my hand at setting up my own blog to encourage more ‘input and output’ (I-O), and see where that road and the world takes me.
If that doesn’t work, … we can always ‘Go Fishing’ for Walleye instead.