Fishing on Lake Leelanau is pretty good, even compared to what might be considered its heyday.
But angling opportunities in the Cedar River, once considered a haven for big bass, pike and panfish, have degraded immensely.
Those are some thoughts from Bruce Lehmann, whose recollections of the watershed date back to the late 1940s when he could barely lift a pole. His grandfather and father, nicknamed “Bones,” bought the property where he and his wife, Janine, reside in 1936 for a few hundred dollars.
He’s a first-magnitude bard. Bones was an avid largemouth bass fan who was known to canoe up the Cedar River at dusk, toss splashy top baits at six-pound bass, then paddle home in the wee hours of early morning.
It was common to catch a limit of yellow perch — 50 back then — that went 9-12 inches after impaling a juvenile with an oversized hook. The rig was held off the bottom by a red-andwhite bobber only somewhat smaller than a beach ball, all in wait for a toothy northern or even one of those wall-hanger bass.
“The pike fishing was good, the smallmouth bass fishing was good, the largemouth was good and perch were there always. Now the whole lake has changed,” Lehmann said.
Well, not so much the lake basin as its drainages. The natural water level of Lake Leelanau has been raised as much as 12 feet by a series of dams, with the first built in 1854. Over the past few decades flows through the Leland and Cedar rivers have diminished, causing a buildup of sand that is no longer flushed through the system.
Fishing in the Cedar River, by far the longer and wilder of the two, has suffered while most concern over the Leland River has to do with accommodating boat traffic. “The Solon Swamp doesn’t have the flow, so fishing up the river and in the little lake isn’t worth going. Most of the fish are stunted,” Lehmann said.
So much for those trophy largemouth.
But Lake Leelanau itself remains excellent for fishing lake for walleyes, which were aggressively planted by the DNR and now have a self-sustaining population, smallmouth and perch.
“Back in the 40s and 50s you would catch more fish in an hour than what you wanted to clean. It’s still healthy. We have a lot of minnows in the lake. There were eight boats in front of my house this fall catching perch. The last time I went out I caught my limit (25) in an hour,” Lehmann said.
He especially enjoys introducing young people to fishing including his three grandsons, who live in Grand Rapids. You can find Lehmann helping to organize Kids Fishing Day held at Veronica Valley County Park, then teaching youngsters oneon- one how to hook and land bluegills.
Lehmann recalls when hunting and fishing were more than pastimes in Leelanau County. He tells of stories handed down from his father and grandfather, as well as first-person conversations between old-timers and a greenhorn.
He was the greenhorn. “You did what you needed to survive,” said Lehmann, a honorably discharged Coast Guardsman and retired lab technician at the old State Hospital in Traverse City. “It was part of how they made their living. John Garvin fished, hunted, logged, harvested ice and trapped to supplement the farm.”
Lehmann points to the Garvin farm as an example of semisubsistent living because he’s close to the Garvin family and it’s across County Road 645 from the “up north” cabin built by his family. The cabin was destroyed by trees toppled during the wind sheer storm of 2015.
The Lehmanns looked north from their homes in Toledo with a $500 insurance check owed in compensationforthelossof his great grandmother, who died in an automobile accident. They spent $425 to buy 600 feet of south Lake Leelanau near the mouth of the Cedar River from Tony Odai.
“He was a character in Cedar. He’d lend money and collect interest. The neighbor up the road (Garvin) was very upset at my grandfather for paying that much for a piece of swamp. Nobody paid that kind of money for that stuff,” Lehnann said.
Those were days when land was cheap, times were tough and nature’s bounty in the form of wild game and fresh-caught fish was plentiful on the Leelanau peninsula.
“They wanted a place to fish up north. The Upper Peninsula was a little too far. Somebody said the bass fishing on Lake Leelanau was really good. I think they spent one night across the lake at Perrin’s Landing, which was just a couple cabins and no resort by any means. It was pretty wild up here in 1936,” Lehmann said.
He recalls enjoying the distinct taste of venison long after deer season ended when his elbows couldn’t reach the dining room tables of long-time county families.
“It was part of making a living. But they only shot what they needed and didn’t waste a thing,” Lehmann said.
His appetite for hunting and fishing has waned, but not because of a lack of opportunities. He enjoys his hobbies as a shipwright and maker of gun stocks. And he’s content whiling away days and evenings with a mate patterned as his complement.
Janine grew up in Yuma, a Walton-like lumber town in Wexford County with “not much money but a lot of love,” as Bruce describes. She retired as a psychiatric nurse at the State Hospital, where they met.
“My grandmother would say, ‘Boys,, I need something for dinner,” Janine said. “Then they would shoot something.”
Talk about teamwork. It was 16 degrees on Dec. 16, 1986, when they laid the foundation for the home they designed and built.
Janine’s hobbies include quilting and gardening.
“And I’ve had a weakness for boats and a love for old guns. So we tolerate each other,” Bruce said.
