For all practical purposes, it's winter. The lakes are fully staged for the close of the coffin that seals them until spring. Meanwhile, back behind the beached docks and idle swimming platforms, a cabin glows warm with crisp, dry oak and a dim yellow reading lamp welcomes winter's first good read. Not a bad way to wait out first ice, assuming you've already patched the mouse holes in the fish house and greased the tip-ups.

So, you wait with the patience of a saint for the lakes to harden. Summer won't have it, though. It bounces back with fury. Days stay in the 50s, while nights barely see freezing. You're officially second-guessing yourself about shelving the boat.

I happen to know one decorated angler who refuses to winterize his boat until the stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Scott Glorvigen doesn't say "uncle" until there's a skim coat of ice on the deepest and clearest lakes in the neighborhood.

"They're the last to freeze," said the veteran walleye pro. "On top of that, the walleyes on big, clear, natural lakes continue biting right through the fall."

It's post-turnover. The rigid stratification of water temperatures and oxygen levels has been broken. Ten feet of water looks and feels much like 50 feet of water. A layer of warmer water forms along the basin, though, made that way as surface temperatures continue downward. As the surface layers continue cooling, that band of warmer, oxygenated water becomes more attractive to walleyes, as long as prey is available.

To find fish, however, an angler needs more to go on. There might be tens of thousands of surface acres blanketing deep basin areas. Fortunately, most things in nature aren't random.

These armored members of the perch family are suckers for structure. So if the bottomless basin is the place to be, they'll occupy pieces that are nearest or adjacent to structure. Glorvigen earmarks the deepest basin sections on a lake that broach significant and sheer structure.

He's shrunk the size of the lake by highlighting key deep water and structure combos, but the fine-tuning doesn't end there. Glorvigen is guided by prevailing winds, too. "There's a connection between wind direction and the currents they cause," he explains. "The winds are usually bearing down from the west, north or northwest. That mixes the water and collects baitfish on the downwind side of the lake, or the downwind side of mid-lake structures."

The blending effect moves organic matter around and puts color back in the water. The phenomenon encourages walleyes to range shallower and improves the potential for daytime feeding. Glorvigen says fish that were lumbering along the bottom in 30 or 40 feet of water might shift into the 20s or teens if the wind howls from the same direction for consecutive days.