Waiting for Ice

Special Ice Lures from JR's

The warm weather has finally left us and we have returned to much better conditions, at normal or below!  With near zero or below temperatures at Red Lake, we should be making at least and inch a day of ice an if it continues we should have enough ice to pull out the wheel houses next week, which would be nice! Last week the topic was the Ice Fishing show in St. Paul and of course one could not leave without buying a few lures to add to the collection.  My friend Keith Holtan was looking for some bubblegum colored jigs with a gold back, the best I could find were these glow Pink/red with gold glitter on the back.  Not exactly what he was looking for however they are dang close!  I have offered him these but he stated he will hold off.  That's OK, when I am slaying them on Red Lake next week with them he will definitely be rethinking his decision!  These lure are made by JR's in Brooklyn Park, MN and are featured across the Midwest.  I drive by their shop every night going home from work and have spent a lot of time talking with it's owner, Duane, regarding the current stat of the wholesale fishing business.  He is quite interesting to talk to as both of us have been to China and share our stories!

Air boat for fishing the shallow saltwater sloughs

We have our annual APEC conference in San Antonio, TX this year in March and I have got my friends fired up to maybe spend the weekend before the conference fishing down along the Texas coast near Corpus Christi.  We have done this a couple of times like last year when the conference was in Tampa, FL or a few years back when it was in Charlotte, NC and we drove to Charleston to fish for sheepshead.  I have fished in Texas a few times with my friend Joe and Matt with the first time fishing out of a high powered air boat like the one pictured here.  This matches the one we fished out of a few years ago, it has a big block GM engine with 2 counter-rotating 8 bladed propellers.  Sitting on the top seat, high up off the water is quite the thrill for sure as being from Minnesota this is an absolute blast and I'll be the first to sign up.  Looks like we can round up three or four guys, at minimum my friends Matt and Joe, staying at a nice resort along the inter-coastal and fish for red fish, black drum, sea trout and flounder.  My assumption is that the resort will cook our fish and there is nothing better than fresh red fish or sea trout with a nice glass of TX Whiskey to wash it down.  I should have more information by next week, it will depend on how many guys we can get lined up.  I might even get the opportunity to bring home some fish.

Brandon's Walleye's

My neighbor Brandon Larson stopped by the house on Thursday night with his newer 2017 GMC 1 ton diesel pickup truck. I am looking at something somewhat similar so we took a ride as he explained he was heading to Red Lake in the morning with a friend.  I asked him to text me a report, which I received a few hours ago.  They have about 12 inches of ice for about a mile out and they pulled their wheelhouse out with an ATV.  Brandon claims that this afternoon they nailed 7 keeper walleyes, most on the rattle reels.  It matches a lot of reports that I have seen today and I am looking forward to talking to him on Monday when he returns.  He is out of Greater Minnesota Rentals which is a few miles East of JR's, our preferred outpost, on the south shore.  I am sure that the ice is better there than by JR's.  As I stated, I have been negotiating on a different pickup truck and should have most of it done by next week.