In the world of lakes, there are large ones and there are small ones. Some are so large they are considered great, others ponds so small they don’t ever achieve the naming rights of what they actually are: lakes. The lakes that are great are inland oceans, vast volumes of water so great that cities can flush sewage into them and power plants can wash mildly radioactive water into them and no one really notices. Unless it happens nearby a beach where the affluent gather, then people talk about it for a while and other people put up warning signs with a stick figure swimming and a circle around him with a line through his chest along the beaches. No matter, those lakes are so great that the water will change soon enough and the sewer water will mix with the nuclear water and as long as the Zebra Mussels work overtime to make the water appear clear, then things will be all right.
These greater lakes can whip up some serious waves, too. They’ll pound the shoreline where little Abigail plays, and if the waves hit the beach for long enough there will be a sneaky undertow that Abby and her parents should seriously watch out for. My grandmother almost died in an undertow off some beach in one of the Hawaiian islands, but that story also included my aunt playing the hero and saving her, and I’ve never seen my aunt swim even once so that story that I’ve always believed seems suspicious to me now. Either way, in a great sea or a great lake, undertows are scary and serious. It might be wise to avoid places with western beaches that face the oncoming winds. No worries though, you can always head East to Detroit. That’ll be nice, until your car gets lit on fire.
In smaller lakes, there’s no worry about the water djiinn sneaking up on you. But in those smaller lakes, those ponds, there’s not much nature to observe. There are turtles, sure, and bass and probably some small northern pike, but not much else. There might be loons, and some Cormorant. I saw a Cormorant in my lake a few weeks ago, and that was my first run in with that mischievous bird since the last time I filled a white pail with finger mullet and put my son on guard to fling sand at any Cormorant who might think my hard netting work was somehow done for her greedy benefit. Small lakes might have these things, but small lakes have small waves.
Those who water ski might like the sound of that. The sound of a lake that’s really a pond, where the wind has no room to whip, and waves cannot build into all that much before they hit a shore and must retreat, regroup, and start over again. This is what these water skiers think. That a small, shallow lake, with no giant wind and no ensuing giant waves to ruin their perfect run is the way to go. To think this way is to trade the incredible power of a lake so big that it is not as dangerous as a lake so great, and to think like this is to assume that there is no fun to be had in sitting on a porch watching a dark whipped up sea send rollers towards your pier and your shore.
When mornings are calm, and the lake is glass polished into a mirror, this is when I like to fish. I have always said that I’d rather fish on a dead calm lake and catch nothing than fish in a wind and catch something. I don’t mean this as much as I used to, but I do still mean it. But when I’m looking for a lake I want a lake capable of displaying a wide spectrum. I want a lake that can lay flat in the morning, so I might cast and catch nothing, and then I want that same lake to whip up in the afternoon when the storm clouds roll in. I want boats to rush for the shelter of their canopied piers, and I want rollers to build from one side until they reach the other and people walking the shoreline- people who are familiar with oceans- suggest that the rollers are the same as those that they’ve seen on sounds or bays or open salty seas. I want the power of the lake to be undeniable, and I want to be able to watch it from nearby where I can hear what is happening and feel the power of a large, momentarily angry, lake.