TIM’S DOCK — Fishing opener produced fewer fish than some had hoped and more stories than anyone could reasonably store, according to the informal accounting conducted all week at Tim’s Bait & Liquor.

The most common report was “slow but close,” a phrase Tim Brevik said usually means the speaker had one bite, two theories, and no interest in changing lakes. Big Pelican gave up enough walleyes to keep the cleaning station honest, Whitefish produced crappies in the reeds, and Mud Lake produced a northern that was either thirty inches or “looked like it from the angle.”

Brevik said the pattern was not surprising. Cold water, bright sky, and heavy opener traffic can make walleyes behave like taxpayers. “They know you’re there,” he said. “They don’t have to answer.”

The best verified fish of the week was a 24-inch walleye caught near the south break on a jig and shiner. The best unverified fish remains a subject of debate, especially because the man who reported it also reported losing his net, which complicates testimony.

At the dock Tuesday, three anglers laughed over coffee beside two small perch and one empty cooler. None seemed disappointed. “You don’t come up here because the fish are dependable,” one said. “You come because the stories are.”

The report fits the larger pattern on the Chain this spring: cold mornings, soft afternoons, and a lake system waking unevenly from one bay to the next. Big Pelican has been first to draw traffic, Whitefish first to produce theories, and Mud Lake first to remind everyone that not all water wishes to be popular.

The Lake Association asks boaters to watch for loons, slow near channels, and use the landings as landings rather than places to hold reunions. Tim Brevik added one more rule from behind the bait counter: if a person has to say “I’ll only be a minute” at the ramp, that person will not be a minute.

By late week, the story had already changed in the usual way. The weather was a little colder, the fish a little larger, and every decision that had seemed questionable at the time was now being described as strategy.