By midmorning Monday, the counter at Tim’s Bait & Liquor had disappeared under license forms, coffee cups, minnow invoices, and the sort of folded lake maps men keep in glove boxes long after the folds have stopped meaning anything. Minnesota’s fishing opener arrives Saturday, and Misquah, as usual, is behaving as if a holiday has been announced by the Department of Natural Resources and confirmed by the coffee urn.

Tim Brevik said he has ordered enough fatheads, shiners, leeches, nightcrawlers, hooks, propane, lantern mantles, bobbers, and “other necessary foolishness” to get the Chain through the first weekend, though he declined to say whether he had ordered enough advice. “You can never have enough advice,” Brevik said. “That’s the problem with advice.”