Basket added to the fishing hall of fame

As I look out at Lake Tetonka from our little cabin in Waterville, it’s interesting to realize I am looking at one relatively small part of a much larger picture. Tetonka is one of many lakes in the Cannon River watershed. The Cannon River has its origin in Shieldsville: a tiny creek grows as it flows, forming Gorman, Vollney, and Sabre lakes above Tetonka. Then on to Morristown after forming Lake Sakatah. It goes on to flow through Cannon Lake, then under the 35 N Interstate bridge and through Faribault, Northfield, and Cannon Falls. It empties into the mighty Mississippi River near Red Wing. The Cannon River provides great fishing opportunities in its lakes and several dams as it makes its journey. The lakes provide fantastic recreational opportunities. Lake cabins, pontoons pulling screaming youngsters on tubes, jet skis, water skiers, and kayaks provide summer pastimes for many enjoying the great outdoors. 

 

Unfortunately, many ditches and creeks empty into the Cannon above Tetonka. With all of the rain this season, there has been tremendous runoff from the farm fields above Tetonka. Throw in 90-degree hot, muggy days and you have the recipe for weed growth and a lake filled with green algae. 

 

Opening day for Walleyes this year was a disaster. On that much-anticipated evening, I couldn’t even cast my line in to catch some of Minnesota’s state fish. Boats had a difficult time getting to their boat lifts. Weeds everywhere, the lake was choked. Tetonka has a diverse number of different weed types, unfortunately including undesirable mill foil and curly leaf pond weed. 

 

This year for the first time ever, I decided to have the weeds near my property sprayed by a professional service. My neighbors jumped on board! Lake owners need a DNR permit to spray the weeds; Brad King and wife Elaine took care of all of the details before they sprayed. Within a week the process had cleared the weeds and I was catching beautiful bull bluegills off the end of the dock. The spraying team did a wonderful job of being environmentally safe for the lake water and ecosystem, and getting our weed problem under control. 

 

I've owned a wire basket to hold fish for many years. The basket has a plastic float on the top to keep the wire basket from sinking to the bottom. The basket was tied to my side when I was part of a group fishing crappies at dark many, many years ago in front of Barney's drive Inn on Clear Lake. The basket has floated on my dock pole for the past 12 years holding great numbers of fish for a fish fry. 

 

A friend told me he was ready for a tasty meal of fresh sunfish. I went down to the dock to catch a meal of nice-sized sunfish fillets and to my delight, sunnies were biting. I put a batch in the good old floating fish basket; I'd clean them after lunch. When the time came, down to the basket I went and lifted it out of the water. Surprise, the basket was weightless–not to mention fishless: the bottom of the basket had rusted out and the sunfish were back in the lake. I can't force myself to throw the old basket away. I have to be creative and figure a way to enshrine it in my fishing hall of fame. 

 

My son Marc and grandchildren Ryan and Nathan had a good fishing opener for walleyes on Sabre Lake; they caught several nice specimens where the Cannon River enters the small 263-acre lake. A few weeks ago they returned to fish the lake and found the river mouth full of weeds and the entire lake painted with green algae. They'd come a ways from Mankato and decided to fish the boatless lake. In the middle of the lake they began catching big crappies. Ryan left his jig in the water and reached for a cold Dr. Pepper. In the wink of an eye, the pole was gone overboard to the bottom of the lake. Marc marked the spot on his GPS, they tied on big jigging Raps, and on the third pass Ryan hooked the pole. He was able to land the rod with a 12” Crappie still hooked on the jig. 

 

We decided not to spend the Fourth of July at the lake cabin this year. The fourth was on a Friday and this meant fireworks and lake celebrations well after dark both Friday and Saturday nights. Too stressful for our wondering Sammie. She would have spent both nights hyperventilating and shivering under the bed. She'd have to miss her traditional Fourth of July, Davis Market, hotdog treat. 

 

We were rewarded with a post-fourth evening light show several nights last week. Hundreds of fireflies glowed and put on a fantastic display. In the backyard of the cabin, we were treated to a boomless show with flickering bright lights, surrounded by the sounds of silence.