How now, brown trout?

Today is so beautiful that we’re all sneaking away from what we’re supposed to be doing to do what we just have to do: look at Torch Lake. I was not the only one down at the Day Park basking in the sunshine, admiring the view, watching the fish. But I am not going to show you pictures of the others. Just what we were all looking at.

The Fall People gazed at the quiet shoreline where the Summer People had pulled up their docks and drifted off Downstate or to Florida or whoknowswhere.

We looked past the surface of the lake, where the trees hung upside down amid the clouds, to the place where the brown trout swam. They are, the fishermen among us speculated, returning to the place where they were planted by the DNR. It’s spawning season, and they are determined to fill their old cradle with more brown trout. We wish them well.

One poor trout was hauling around a lure that had snagged its belly. It’s hard to say what the trout thought of the whole thing, but all the people looking down from the pier were sympathetic.

Time to get back to work, souls restored.