Pheasant Hunting on Pontoons

It's not official, but for most folks Labor Day is the end of summer. Then school will be in session, days will be getting shorter, and the next vacation probably won't be planned until Thanksgiving, at least.

Some of the lake country resorts stay open year-round here in Minnesota, particularly if they have a decent ski slope or trails for cross-country skiing. Then there's Paul Cox's Misty Inlet resort, on Loonfoot Lake. He's been known to keep his place open until mid-September: but that was to accommodate a business group, back in the nineties.

After the first week of September, Paul Cox plans to give the cabins a top-to-bottom cleaning, 'mothball' the outboard motors, and pull the pontoon boat up to the picnic area. The other boats go into a big shed at one end of the property, but the pontoon rig's too big to fit inside.

Besides, Paul Cox has another use for it.

"I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't like being with people," he told me. "But it's nice to have peace and quiet, too." On weekends, anyway. Paul Cox works at Fisk Implement and, during the Christmas season, the Coalworth store when he's not running Misty Inlet.

Most weekends, though, he'll be back at Misty Inlet. "Puttering around" he told me. Also, after the middle of October, hunting pheasant. From a chair on the pontoon boat's platform. He bags a few pheasants each year: but I suspect he likes the view of Loonfoot Lake.