I had a chance to fish Lake of the Woods with Bruce Mosher and his son, Carter, of Beltrami, Minn., on Sunday and Monday. Bruce is the inventor of the Ice Buster Bobber, which has become standard gear among ice fishermen in the past decade, and the two of us have fished together numerous times over the years.

We started our adventure on the Rainy River in Baudette, but it wasn’t happening on the river so we loaded the boat and headed back to Wheeler’s Point.

Anglers enjoyed a beautiful afternoon this past Sunday on Lake of the Woods. The saugers have been biting fast and furious on the big lake, but the days of open water fishing are numbered this year.

We’d heard there was a “sauger fest” happening in the lake out from Lighthouse Gap in about 25 feet of water, and that would be an understatement. From about 3:30 p.m. Sunday until we pulled anchor and headed back to camp shortly before 6, the three of us conservatively boated 60 saugers and easily could have kept a limit if that had been the goal.

It was a beautiful afternoon on the lake.

We tried the river closer to the lake again Monday morning, but the result was the same as it had been the previous day so back to the sauger hole we went. The fishing wasn’t as good as it had been the previous afternoon — at least for some of us — but Carter had the hot rod. Every time I looked over, it seemed, he had a sauger at the end of his line.

In another month and a half (or less), Lake of the Woods again will be dotted with fish houses as it was in December 2010.

Barring an unusually summer-like November, it probably will be my last opportunity to fish Lake of the Woods on open water this year. In another month and a half, the big lake once again will be covered with fish houses.

You can read more about our recent adventure on Lake of the Woods in Sunday’s Outdoors pages.