Heading to Superior for the opener

By Joel Myhre (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, May 10, 2008

So when the snow finally broke, I’m sure anglers in the area had a slight hope that, for once, the weather would be nice this weekend for the fishing opener. That, considering the battering winter we’ve suffered through, Mother Nature would reward us with the kind of weather specs we’ve come to appreciate around here – sunny skies, temperatures in the mid-70s, just a slight wisp of wind for refreshment purposes, and most of all, no chance of rain.

Prior to following my routine of watching the weather forecast before heading off to work, I assumed such a forecast was mere fantasy. And as it turned out, it was. Forecast for Saturday’s opener (and please don’t kill the messenger on this one): temperatures as low as 36 and as high as 47, winds up to 13 mph, and rain likely.

Yuck. Sounds like good weather, for a duck.

As I have written in other columns, I typically have spent my fishing openers either on a trip to Lake of the Woods, or in one of our traditional early summer fishing holes around here. Of course, with the weather the way it has been, those trips have yielded little fishing time, not to mention only a few fish.

Oh, I admit – and we all can -- there has been an occasional opener where the weather cooperated and I caught fish. But those openers have been few. Most times, the opener involves either miserable hours in the boat, or lots of time in the cabin watching movies on cable.

Over the last three years, there’s also the guilt factor. When you have a toddler, leaving the family for a weekend of recreation just isn’t quite as fun.

So we have decided to do something different: a family vacation along the North Shore.

My wife and I figured it has been a long time since we have truly taken in the sights along the North Shore: the big ships coming into Duluth, the fun climbing rocks at Gooseberry Falls, the history of Split Rock Lighthouse, and the breathtaking views of Lake Superior. In addition, we thought we’d incorporate some healthy activities: biking, hiking and golfing, to name a few.

We also figure our 3-year-old daughter is old enough to enjoy the sights. Lately, her big thing has been to wander around the yard, pretending she’s somewhere else. We also figure we can tell her Lake Superior is the ocean, because, to a 3-year-old – or anyone else looking out on the lake who didn’t know it was a lake.

Just for kicks, I decided to figure out where Lake Superior stands among the largest lakes. Here’s what I have determined:

It is the largest in the world in the following category: surface area of freshwater lakes, when considering a single lake.

When a lake is defined as a body of water surrounded completely by land, Superior is second behind the Caspian Sea, which is a salt water lake.

It is the third-largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, behind Baikal lake in Siberia (former Soviet Union), and Tanganyika Lake in Zambia, Africa. Even though Superior is larger in surface area, it is only 1,333 feet deep, far shallower than Baikal (5,370 feet) and Tanganyika (4,800 feet).

All that said, I figure a trip to the North Shore will be a refreshing change from battling those fish on a bad weather day.

And after all, the fish would rather bite in June anyway.

Joel Myhre is The Journal’s general manager. E-mail him at joel.myhre@fergusfallsjournal.com