In the words of that “Saturday Night Live” sage, Roseanne Roseannadanna, if it isn’t one thing, it’s the other.

This summer, Michigan’s Lake St. Clair didn’t get as warm as it usually does, resulting in excellent muskellunge fishing in August when the activity typically slows down.

Now an unseasonably warm fall has prevented the water from cooling to where it normally is at this time of year, resulting in slow muskie fishing just when it’s supposed to be dynamite.

“I think it’s just the transition period,” said Bert Cummings, a long-time Lake St. Clair angler from Monroe, Mich., who in the last two weeks has watched his daily muskie catch decrease by about 80 percent.

“This is the time of year that the water normally cools down, and when it does, the muskies start eating like mad because they know that winter is coming. And it’s the time when the big ones move in from the middle of the lake to the shallower water along the shorelines.”

Cummings’ 29-foot Pursuit is almost a daily fixture on St. Clair in September and October, when muskie fishing often is so hot “you can’t keep up with them,” he said. “Ten days ago I was out here and boated 12 and lost about as many. But this last week it has got pretty slow. If you get two, three a trip, you’re doing pretty good.”

While anglers on the American side of the lake have been catching a lot of smaller fish, Cummings said, he has been concentrating on the Canadian side for bigger fish.

“But the problem the last few days has been dirty water at the mouth of the Thames, where we’ve been catching them,” Cummings said of an Ontario river.

Though no one keeps official records, Lake St. Clair is widely recognized for producing more muskellunge in a single day than most lakes do in a season.

The average fish caught there are among the biggest in North America.