Many times in life the best gifts are the rare and unexpected.

They don’t have to be expensive or highly valuable, but rather special and cherished due to the happiness it brings.

A lone trillium is one of those gifts that appeared in one of our flower beds. From where it came I do not know, but it joined a trout lily, some yellow violets and a clump of purple violets as spring flower volunteers.

They all are very difficult to cultivate and take years to nurture…but they are an unexpected gift from somewhere.

I have several old friends that are much like that trillium, I can’t even remember when we became good friends, they are just were like those wildflowers…a gift of sorts. What makes them special is their ability to find joy in life and share that with people around them.

We often share time together doing common interest things like hunting or fishing or making meals to share.

So you can imagine the enthusiasm I had when I received a call from them about a day of fishing on the lake.

I didn’t care about which lake, but I knew that walleye season was in full swing, and it only meant one lake for these fellows and that was Pymatuning Lake.

When Sim and Ken gave me the word that they wanted to give the walleye fishing a try I was all in with the excursion.

We met up in Grove City at a convenience store and gassed up and grabbed some hot coffee for the trip up to Jamestown. Grove City is the kind of town where folks will initiate a conversation and of course it was around fishing.

Towing a fishing boat filled with rods and nets was sort of a give away! The fellows we talked to were caught up in the moment and shared their own fishing reports over the past week or so.

It appeared that the hot fishing was up on the causeway section near the Ohio line.

Not one to ignore some good information I listened to the reports of walleye and crappies being in shallow waters of 5 feet or less and we headed north to Espyville and the causeway launches.

It didn’t take us long to get in the water and we sorted out our gear, tackle boxes and lunches.

The walleye were hitting on crawlers and the pan fish liked a minnow or grub presentation.

We had plenty of all offerings and we headed out to the channel area that cuts through the lake. The depth finder would be crucial as we stayed on the edges of weed beds and found humps and structure.

Find these areas and we knew we would find fish!

The first hit of the day proved to be a small perch and then Sim had his rod bend over that left no doubt that he had on a whopper of a fish.

When the fish started zinging out his line and the reel was singing as the drag was tested I knew it was on.

The fish pulled the boat and tested Sim and his equipment. I had the net in hand for what seemed like forever but we didn’t see the lunker.

We took guesses at what it might be and settled on a catfish, muskie or carp due to its strength.

When we finally brought the fish to net we were all amazed at the size of the flat head catfish we brought on board. Fifteen or 20 pounds of muscle and power he was a dandy but not what we were seeking.

The fishing was awesome on this day as we continued to land a mixed bag of fish including; channel cats, yellow perch, black crappies, white bass, blue gills and then finally walleye.

Yes we were on a wind drift and Sim caught a small walleye and then Ken caught a keeper.

We found an area that held fish and it was in only 4 feet of water over structure and humps, the fish seemed to lay in ambush right in an area that all of those things came together.

Finally I was into a walleye and when I landed him he was short of being legal.

A 15-inch walleye is the legal length required and many of our fish were just shy of 15 inches.

The boys kept at it and we soon had 8 legal walleye in the live well and an assortment of crappies and perch.

The boys had promised their wives fish for dinner and I was just along to pass them the net!

It appeared the walleye were active all afternoon long and would be getting more active as late afternoon and evening approached.

However I had an appointment with a boat dealer and had to shove off at 4 p.m.

After going through 6 dozen crawlers and 5 dozen minnows I guess the boys had enough fishing until we reached the dock and they said, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

I laughed and headed for my truck thankful for another day with my friends on the lake.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.