An Outdoorsman’s Journal: Three days on Spring Lake

Hello friends, This week I headed over to Buffalo City, which is in Buffalo County and on the Mississippi River, to fish for perch on Spring Lake, a man-made backwater on the river and very popular spot to catch a variety of fish.

I would be camping on the ice for two nights and, as usual, had my golden retriever Red along for companionship.

Sunday, March 2 — High 42, low 29 This trip just about did not happen as five days earlier, I had fallen through the ice and sprained my ankle, twisted my knee, and hurt my back in a pretty touchy experience. So here is the plan: drive to Spring Lake with a trailer in tow with my ATV and a small trailer to haul my gear to paradise. The ice is getting rough, so I chose to drive my ATV down a dike road and to haul my gear down a rock embankment and out to where I wanted to fish/camp, using Otter sleds.

I have camped on Spring Lake at least 35 nights of my life, and it seems like the catching is either feast or famine. Getting the gear down the rock embankment was very touchy with a bum ankle, but that worked. Hauling my gear to where I planned on fishing was no problem, and I might add that the last two times I camped here were for three nights each time and very good perch and gator fishing.

I had about two hours of daylight left and was building camp when I heard someone from far away call my name. I had no time to investigate and then my friend who just happened to be Mike Bucholz from Mondovi walked over and told me he was catching some perch on tip-downs where he was at. I had just enough daylight to stay on task; plus I wanted to check out my spot. Long story short, at dark my tip-down, tip-up, and Finicky Fooler had yielded me nothing.

Monday, March 3 — High 52, low 30 I was up long before the sun and had most of my camp moved to Mike’s spot, which was officially marked with an orange peel. My friends, I have to tell you, taking down, hauling, and setting up a camp like this is no simple task, but I was excited and did catch one small gator at my first spot while breaking camp. I set up camp in a very casual way and had two experiences with my tip-down where I missed a fish, presumably a perch. I also had one tip-up out for gators and moved it three times over the next two days but had zero luck. I did speak with several fishermen from Balsam Lake, Medford, and Mondovi. Most reports were slow to non-existent, but I did end up having a real nice time with Clyde Gumbert of Gilmanton, who raises chickens for the meat bird industry, and Treig Pronschinske, who is a state assemblyman representing the 29th Assembly District. Treig is also the chairman of the Sporting Heritage Committee, so between the outdoors, fishing, hunting, pond management, and farming (Treig is also a beef farmer), we had plenty to talk about.

As far as my day’s results on catching fish went, it was my slowest of the ice season. Towards dark I prepared my camp for what was guaranteed rain, and that meant tarping my Eskimo ice shack. About 11 a steady rain began and lasted until just before daybreak. My camp was tarped; Red and I were in a dry sleeping bag on a cot with zero cares.

The next day I did my best to catch some perch and I have to admit, it’s a good thing I am not a perch fishing guide. On the other hand, I caught two and the biggest was 13.5 inches. I was not alone in my minimal catching and at noon it started raining and became very foggy. Each trip to the ATV was about 400 yards and the climb up the rocks was a pure test of the ankle, knee, spine, and my balance while carrying weight.

Idrovehomeinwetclothes, stayed in them “foolishly” until 8 p.m., and then caught a heck of a chill that came to an end when I took a glorious soak in my bathtub.

Sunset

Mark Walters