They worked the cabbage beds, the shaded deeper sides. They lost visual at just over 13 feet and the depth finder stopped pinging the weeds at 15. The cabbage grew to the surface from where it started at 7 feet, and laid across the surface like a torn green blanket to about 10, where the water swallowed it and made it stay at home.
They moved quietly over the beds, marking the depths they knew to stay away from, where the broad and strong leaves would never allow 6 pound test to survive, maybe not even 8. At 13 feet, when they lost sight of the cabbage, they set the first orange buoy and continued to skirt this edge, this deep edge, as they slowly mapped the entire cabbage bed.
In just a few minutes, they’d placed all 5 buoys, which showed the first rudimentary trolling route. They would zig and zag along the route they’d just finished, testing how close they could come to the marks and to the taller weeds. It was early morning, barely light. This was the time to be on the lake, any lake anywhere. This was the time when your soul smiled again, touching the sky and the water and the silence, oh my goodness the silence.
The tiller man ran a longer line, a simple slip sinker and lindy rig tipped with a leech, though this was July. The bow man jigged, chartreuse with a fathead minnow, slowly raising and controlling the descent back to the bottom, where they knew the walleyes lived. Their likenesses were showing on the screen, cartoonish fish logos at 14 feet, bellies probably ticking the last of the cabbage.
The first walleye tapped the long line, the leech. It was a light tap, timid in its own way, and the tiller man gave the fish more line, more time to examine what it now held. He kept light contact with the line, feeling the pressure the fish was exerting, waiting for it to change, even just a hair. When the change came, when the tap had become a slight pull, the tiller man set the hook.
In the 14 foot depths, the 3 pound walleye fought the hook that had painlessly cut into her lip, and she tried to run to the depths, to safety. She could see the bottom gliding away, deeper and darker, but she wasn’t able to follow. She was being pulled in a very bad direction and the fighting did nothing but tire her. She was losing. When she caught sight of the hull and the light from a rising sun, she tried one final run to freedom.
In the boat, the old friends nodded and knew. The fish were there, in the cabbage weeds, the high rent area on all lakes. This was the best water, the coolest and most oxygen-rich, and the fish were safe among the slowly moving leaves, a freshwater cousin of kelp. Some would stay in the area for their entire lives and others would roam and live by ambush in other depths.
The fishermen knew where the fish were going to be and they knew it was no guarantee that they’d be hungry, or even curious. It didn’t matter to them. If they caught some fish, it would be a good day. If they didn’t, it would be a good day. They were on the lake and nothing else was important. Just two good friends enjoying the silence, oh my goodness the silence.