It’s just the beginning

It’s just the beginning

Depending on which way you look, most lakes are already wide open, dark water from shore to shore, moving again like winter never happened. Others are still locked in, white, flat, quiet, holding on like they’re not ready to give it up yet.

Plenty are somewhere in between.

A week ago, just about everything still looked locked in. Now it’s split. Some have gone. Some are close. Some are right in the middle of letting go.

You can see it when you drive by, moving from lake to lake. One has a strip of dark water along the shoreline. Another has a point blown open where the wind has been working on it, where the sun floats a little longer. And on some, the ice still hangs out in the middle, but it has changed. It loses that clean look, turns gray, soft, tired.

It’s not ice anymore. Not really. But it’s not open water either. It is somewhere in between, and that is where things start to happen.

If you are out there at the right time, usually on one of those calm evenings when the air finally gives in a little, you hear it. One chirp at first. Then another. Then a few more until it builds into something steady.

Spring peepers.

They show up when it actually is. When the ground softens, when the water starts to move, when everything underneath begins to shift.

About that same time, walleyes are already sliding shallow in the dark, doing what they have always done. The season is still closed, most people are not thinking about it yet, but it is happening anyway.

Perch are already up there too. Sliding shallow early, sometimes before the walleyes, not quite ready yet, but getting close.

Most of it happens before we ever call it spring.

And every year, right about then, I find myself doing the same thing. Perch fishing. First time in the boat for the year. First cast over open water around here.

It never feels like much at first. The water is still cold. The boat feels unfamiliar for a few minutes, like you forgot something over the winter. The shoreline looks different with what ice is left pulling away. Nothing has really filled in yet.

You make a few casts. Maybe move a little. Then eventually, one of them connects.

The first fish of the season. Usually small. Nothing special. But it is not supposed to be.

That fish does not mean the bite is on or that everything is ready. It does not signal perfect timing or peak conditions. If anything, it is a reminder that you are early. And that is the whole point.

The ice is still letting go. The water is still settling. The fish are moving, but they are not set up the way they will be in a few weeks. Everything is in transition.

That’s the part most people miss.

Everyone notices the first open water. The first warm day. The first real sign that winter is over. Not many people notice what happens right after, when things are still figuring themselves out.

But that stretch matters.

The woods start to give a little. Snow pulls back into the shadows, hanging on in the dark timber while the open ground turns soft and damp. Turkeys are sounding off, distant at first, then closer, echoing through mornings that finally feel still again. Birds come back in small waves, not all at once. A few new sounds every day.

The water changes too. It rises a little, dark and quiet, then just sits there, different than it was before. Not alive in the way it will be, but not asleep either.

Nothing is in a hurry, but nothing is standing still.

You can feel it when you are out there. In the air. In the way sound carries. In the way the shoreline looks when the last of the ice finally pulls away and disappears.

The ice breaks. The water opens. The peepers start up in the dark.

And somewhere in between all of it, you find yourself back in a boat. The motor turns over, a sound you haven’t heard in months, and that faint smell in the cool air hits you all at once. Your hands feel stiff on the first few casts. The line lays quiet across cold water that has not seen a lure in a long time. 

A small tap. A slight pull. Just enough. The first fish of the year. It is not big. It is not special. But it does not need to be. Because for a second, everything lines up. 

The long winter. The waiting. The quiet. All of it leads to that moment. And just like that, you remember. 

It is just the beginning.