No Boat Yet

AIM's Walleye Length to Weight Conversion

It's been a month now since my bonehead move on Leech Lake, hitting another boat.  As stated the damages definitely required a major repair as I brought it into Frankie's the day I returned from opener. After getting all the estimates and settling with my insurance company, it's simply a matter of getting in line with the body shop and everything points to it being ready for this weekend.  Of course getting the boat back doesn't necessarily mean that it's ready to go.  Knowing that it would probably be at the repair shop for 3 - 4 weeks I removed pretty much everything that wasn't bolted down, you never know.  It only took about an hour to empty all of the compartments out however putting all of the stuff back in will be another story.  This will be a great time to clean up everything, sort through the good and the bad, kind of like getting a new boat!  Having expected it a week earlier, I have resigned myself to the fact that it's probably a fair punishment if you may, for damaging it in the first place.  Never the less I am getting restless as the water temps on Mille Lacs are now in the low 60's and the mudflat bite should be starting to turn on.  There was a catch and release tournament on Mille Lacs last Sunday at the Red Door put on by the AIM Pro Walleye Series (read the story here).  This is a great venue for the lake as the teams would turn in their top 5 fish caught.  I understand that the fish were assigned a weight based on a method given to all boats.  Each fish was required to have it's picture taken with a specially formatted SD Card, in a provided measuring trough, and any discrepancy from the strict rules resulted in disqualification of that fish, and I understood there were a few.  Here are the AIM Rules if you are interested.  Although the total results of the tournament have not been officially released the winner, Bob Nitti's (Hunter's Point Resort) team submitted 5 fish that weighed 38.13 pounds, over a 7 1/2 pound average.  In the press release referenced earlier, the winning strategy was using slip bobbers with leeches on the top of the flats.  Pretty impressive, which brings me back to my boat.  I'll have to scratch that itch pretty soon as i get really excited about 26 - 28 inch walleyes that roam Sherman's Flat this time of year.

Onions!

So, while the boats away it's given me a great opportunity to get caught up on a few things around the house.  It's not that I haven't had a fair number of times fishing as 3 days at Lac Seul feels like a month of fishing around here.  I would never say that that's satisfactory yet it's nice to have the pole shed half cleaned out, the garden planted, and the lawn is starting to look pretty good.  It's been a very wet and late spring which has delayed a my gardening as the soil continues to be saturated causing it to lump then dry hard after tilling.  It's really almost too hard to till but it's got to be done.  Because of this my potatoes are just poking through, the first rows of corn is about 2 inches high, but wow, my onions are looking pretty dang good.  Last year I'm sure that they were planted too deep and never really developed any bulbs of a decent size.  This year we ordered onions from Texas, Long Day varieties for our long summer days, as well special onion fertilizer with trace nutrients.  The instructions state to also us a 23-0-0 fertilizer 2 weeks after planting to boost the tops of the onions.  Having 46-0-0, I simply used half the recommended application rate and did it ever help as my onions have never looked so good.  I guess we'll see in another month or two how they turn out.  Another thing I did was spray my apple trees for the first time.  Getting a $50 coupon from my neighbor Pete, I bought a 26 gallon tree sprayer, big enough to spray all of my apple trees in one mixing.  This thing will spray 30 feet vertically and does a great job, as long as I mix the orchard spray correctly.  My first batch didn't turn out too well as I doubled the dose and instead of mixing 2 TBS per gallon I mixed 2 ounce per gallon.  Well, the trees did not like that one bit as it burned the leaf tips.  Worried I might have killed the trees, they are finally coming back and looking pretty good......another lesson learned, haste makes waste.

Besides getting the Ranger back and ready, I have been working on my Jon Boat for the Mississippi River.  Our steady rain has keep the river close to flood stage for the last 6 weeks but it's starting to recede.  I need to look for a 25 hp short shaft motor as the 15 hp Evinrude that's on it is not quite enough power for 2 guys. I do like fishing the river and is always my short term escape when I have a few hours to kill.