MISQUAH — Surface temperatures on the Chain crossed seventy this week, and with the solstice handing us the longest day of the year, you’d think the fishing would follow the daylight. It does not. The walleye have gone, as they go every June, honest at dusk and dishonest at noon. Fish the first hour and the last, and forgive the middle; the middle of a late-June day is for the dock and a sandwich, and I will not hear otherwise, and neither will the fish.

Walleye are holding off the first break in eighteen to twenty-two feet on Big Pelican, taking a leech or a slow crawler harness worked just off bottom. The better fish are coming at last light, which is now near nine-thirty, so plan supper accordingly and tell whoever’s waiting that it was the fish’s fault, which is the oldest true excuse there is. Whitefish and Little Pelican are running a few degrees behind Big Pelican, as they always do, and a step behind on the bite to match; if Big Pelican’s too busy of an evening, they’re worth the run.

The crappies have pulled off the shallows and onto the brush cribs — the ones the Sportsmen’s Club sank years ago and won’t say exactly where, that being the entire point of a crib. Find one and keep it to yourself; that’s the etiquette, and I’ll deny telling you, and so will the next man. The pike are working the cabbage off Sandy, aggressive and not particular, which makes them the right fish for a kid who wants to feel a pull. And the panfish are thick off Sandy and Bass for anyone with a child and an afternoon, which is the best fishing there is, and the cheapest, and the kind you remember longest, and don’t let anybody tell you different. Mud Lake is, per the standing report, underrated.

One reminder that outranks the fishing this week: the loon chicks are on the water now, both of them (see Outdoors), riding low and unable to dive from a wake. Mind your speed on the north end of Big Pelican, the holiday especially. The fish will wait for you — that is the one dependable thing about fish, they are still going to be there. The chicks won’t get the same grace. Tim’s Bait has leeches, crawlers, ice, and the patience to hear how big the one was that got off, which is, after the bait, the main service we provide.