NEW RON COLUMNS!

It was like fishing in a giant cocktail glass.

On Bowstring Lake on Saturday, white chunks of ice lined the south shore and the rest of the lake was almost ice -- 41 degrees on the surface in the main lake.

And as the morning progressed, the air temperature seemed to drop a few degrees, turning a north wind as raw as raw can be.

And, then, it began to spit a cold rain, and somebody said it was snowing in Fargo and that was heading our way.

So, was everybody miserable?

Absolutely not. The walleyes were biting. Amazing.

Under conditions typically not favorable for catching anything (except a cold), the landing nets were flying often enough to make bragging rights.

Joe Moravec of Plymouth, along with his son, Joey, and Dick Kendall of New Prague were watching slip bobbers on a rock pile Friday and had pulled in a limit of 18 walleyes by 11 a.m.

"That's the best fishing we've had since 1996," Moravec said, flashing a lunker smile.

At the boat docks at Bowstring Shores Resort, owner Darv Oelke had plenty of company, largely because walleyes were being caught off the dock in about 8 feet of water.

Light jigs, tipped with fatheads or shiners, appeared to be the popular choice among anglers. The key was to fish slow and not expect a hard strike. Most often the bite consisted of nothing more than a feeling of something hanging on the end of the line.

The bulk of the walleye action was provided by male fish still roaming the shallows in a postspawn mood, although a few 20-inch-plus females also were caught.

The Schara Family Opening Day Party began as usual Friday night, with plenty of exaggeration about previous fishing opener successes.

By midday Friday, there was more bragging amid the family.

A case in point: I start anticipating the opener ... oh, shortly after deer season ends in November and another autumn of bird hunting is history.

And it doesn't end.

On warm days in December, I'll head to the garage to sort lures, learn new fishing knots or just hang out with fishing stuff.

My wife doesn't understand. If the phone rings for me, she answers and says I'm in the garage playing with my toys.

In the subzero days of January and February, I mostly just look longingly at my lineup of fishing rods. They stand there like patient soldiers waiting for the next walleye wars.

It's a painful experience surveying the fishing tools of summer. When it's 10 below, a tackle box looks like something from outer space.

In March when it's warm enough to melt snow, I'll make a few practice casts in the driveway and hope the neighbors didn't see me fishing on asphalt.

In April, my itch for the opener is scratched a little by the chance to wet a line on the Mississippi River below the dam at Red Wing. A few April days also are spent chasing wild turkeys, which you must do before the crack of dawn. Rising the middle of the night to hunt turkeys tends to deaden your fishing mindset, but opening day sickness quickly returns.

Fishing fever, they call it. Minnesotans tend to be sick a lot.

You wanna fish, but you can't.

You wanna sit in a fishing boat, rocking gently. You wanna reach into the minnow bucket and make a cast without wearing mittens.

You yearn for water in a form that doesn't groan as ice but laps to the song of loons.