It was a late spring day, filled with promise and delivering most of it. Warm, almost hot, with a great number of plants in the garden and clear sky’s except for the wildfires in Canada depositing the smoke above. A bit hazy but not oppressive. You can get a sunburn if your not careful!

The snow peas are coming up now and a lot of stuff is in the ground. Raspberry bushes putting out tiny flowers and asparagus is pouring out of the ground. Weed whipping and mowing around the house and property being taken care of by our son. Now he and his good buddy, Zeke, are now splitting big rounds of wood for the woodshed. The 30 ton hydraulic splitter is now working vertical and it’s kinda noisy. The boys have on ear protection and it’s time to go fishing for some relaxation in the calm waters under the Trade lake bridge.

We put all the gear in the old Ranger bed and drive down about a half mile to the bridge. All of our new friends on the North shore are getting ready for bed in the twin cities. We get to the bridge and there is already a guy fishing on the east side of the bridge. He hooks a small sunfish just as a bass boat appears going east and the fish tangles a bit on the bow of the boat. He just caught a boat and the fish! Amazingly, the line untangles, the fish comes up and the boats pilot apologizes for the event. Sort of the area word of OPE, rhymes with soap. We all do it, mostly at Walmart when carts are on a collision path. Accompanied by ‘Sorry’ Try it, you’ll see.

The boat had a 225 HP engine on the transom, spitting cooling water out in a neat stream towards the starboard. Going nice and slow through the channel between Big and Little Trade lakes. Good helmsman.

Only sound around. Nice and peaceful. Norm spreads out the seat of the canvas campfire chair, puts his feet up on the bottom rail and can see Julie’s bobber just at the edge of the Lilly pads on the north side of the channel.

Perfect cast. Ahh, this is more like it! It’s Monday and there is no traffic coming by and the motor craft are away, idling into little Trade.

A loud small gas engine breaks the silence. It is a Cabin owner spraying off their dock. Lots of water causing small ripples in the channel and it is loud. Oh well, probably left overs from storage on shore. It will end soon.

The operator continues until we leave a half an hour later or so. Her husband drives up in a 4 wheeler and asks her if she got the sides and underneath parts of the dock.

The humor gets Norm’s attention. Quiet time at the lake indeed. The older guy on the other side of the bridge could care less. When Norm congratulated him on catching a bass boat AND a fish, he didn’t hear a word. Probably the power washer noise. He was preoccupied anyway and not smiling at the unusual catch of his. The bluegill was pretty small and not a keeper. Norm would have quickly tossed the fish into the bass boat as payment for a prize for being a good sport.

That catch and release was worth the trip alone, even though Julie didn’t catch anything but the early green ublick that appeared a bit early in the year. It was good to drive back home to peace and quiet and water the new snow peas and let the cats in the house. Another day in the paradise of near the lake living. It’s pretty good. Jack