Sometimes lucky is better than good.

If the outdoor kahunas are smiling on me this week, I will be camping and fishing for walleyes on Sakakawea.

Like many others, I suppose, plans are subject to change and things come up to change them.

My brother has the camper and I plan to drag my boat up to the lake - at least that's the plan.

A couple years ago, I wanted to revisit Big Stone Lake in South Dakota. In college, my roommate introduced me to the lake, and we had some decent success wader fishing, pulling 3- to 6-pounders out throwing floating Raps.

So we went back with the boys and watched the wind blow for three days. It wasn't just blowing, it was howling. It goes that way sometimes.

Some of the best days I've had have come about purely by accident. Such was the case in college.

Lake Thompson is kind of like Devils Lake. It started rising about the same time, and now what used to be a glorified slough is a pretty good walleye lake.

Our first trip in the boat, we were doing what most others were doing - dragging worms and bottom bouncers with little luck. Almost as a last resort, we ducked into a cattail bay with some flooded timber, thinking we might be able to drag a pike or two out of the trees. Throwing Countdowns between the cottonwoods, we started pulling 3- to 5-pound walleyes out on almost every cast.

The key to this particular area was an abundance of fresh water scud, or shrimp as some call them. A few trips wading down a submerged road told me that. When I peeled the waders off, you almost needed a putty knife to clean them off. The box of my pickup was orange for the rest of the summer.

I had gotten to know a fisheries graduate student from Michigan who had been after me for some time to take him along. Finally consenting, I told him I would have to kill him if he told anyone about my secret spot. He confessed he didn't know much about walleye fishing; salmon were more his game.

Fishing is kind of a funny business. Buzz words get thrown around like jigs and twister tales. Presentation is one of those words.

In this case, I told Dave that presentation was more of a psychological than a physical thing.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"It's an attitude thing," I said. Watch, I told him.

Waders strapped on, we walked down the flooded road bed. I had a black and gold Countdown tied on, and before my first cast I paused, looked to the sky and mumbled something like, "Oh great kahunas, grant us good fortune today as we blah, blah, blah, blah."

Long story short, the first cast was a 22-incher.

Dave's jaw almost hit the water. "Wow, that works!" he exclaimed. "What did you say?"

"Doesn't matter what you say, as long as you mean it," I told him.

It took him a few casts with a jointed Rap, but he started pulling in some fish, too.

The moral to the story?

If there is one, it would be no amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.

So it goes.

(Reach reporter Brian Gehring at 250-8254 or brian.gehring@bismarcktribune.com.)