Broken Record

Dire situation on Mille Lacs, Sunday Morning

Thinking about this weeks post forces me to look backwards at the one last week and decide what was the big event as this is Fishin' With Dave, not What the Heck is Dave Doing,  yet the current weather situation here in Minnesota has forced this to become exactly that.  Getting older doesn't help either yet much of my time has been spent removing snow or helping people.  As posted last week, normally this would be about our Perch Extravaganza experience but the heavy snows of the last month really put a damper on this and in fact although they had a record crowd  yet for this year hindsight is definitely 20/20.  Mille Lacs Lake has about 18 inches of snow on it, much of the snow is light and fluffy, the type that can really get blown around easily.  Saturday night was the backside of the storm and for Minnesota that usually means the counter clockwise rotation of the low pressure as it moves east, the winds roars out of the northwest as it is squeezed between the outgoing low and the incoming high pressure system that rotates clockwise, and blow it did.  We had winds Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon of over 45 mph, essentially blizzard conditions.  With the light snow it really drifted and if you were on Mille Lacs with a wheel house and didn't get off the lake before the big blow, you were stuck.  Apparently hundreds of wheel houses got drifted in and had to wait for the resort plows to get them out.  Check out this link for the story.  I guess 10 years ago we would have toughed it out as it would just be another story in our minds.  Today, Russ, Mark and myself look pretty dang smart for staying away.  I still missed the event but there will be next year!

Down the Road to the Pole Shed

So the title, Broken Record.  Many of you know exactly what that means yet others recognize the
phase but are not sure of it's origin.  In the 60's us kids used to play records, 45's (so named as they rotated at 45 RPM) and LP's (so named as they were Long Play albums with 10 - 15 songs).  Records had grooves with the music profile etched into those groves then a fine needle, usually made out of sapphire would travel in those grooves turning the mechanical bumps and valleys into music. Often times a record would get a scratch on it causing the needle to jump back to the previous groove and it would simply sit there and keep repeating itself until you bumped the needle to the next groove.  Well this weather is like a broken record!  Snow then cold, snow then cold.  As last week stated, and today being the last day of February, we have set the modern day record for the amount of snow and it shows.  Waking up yesterday there was another 2 inches of the fluffy stuff.  I decided to stop and take a picture, it was sort of pretty if one wasn't sick of dealing with this.  If you notice on the left side, which with a strong Northwest wind, would be the side where it drifts, the tops of the snow banks have been pushed back further into my yard to accommodate the next snow fall.  Interesting but March is usually our snowiest month.  The National Weather Service is already issuing it's flood predictions for this spring and depending on how fast it melts or how much snow and rain we get in the next 6 weeks will be a big determining factor.   One can usually figure on about the equivalent of an inch of rain in each 10 inches of snow.  With February's 30+ inches of snow there is a lot of water stored up in the Mississippi drainage area, it will definitely be interesting.  Floods tend to change the river quite a bit...some for the good, some for the bad.  At least it gives me a good reason to get in the boat and go exploring!

So I did do something fishing related this week, Cabela's is now owned by Bass Pro Shops and everything I like about Bass PRo is now at the Cabela's store just 6 miles form the house.  Two weeks ago the discussion was about a Berkley Lightning Rod, a very nice fishing rod on Sale for $29.95.  Although we are not going to Dallas, I still consider the rod/reel combination that was bought is still Joe's.  Thinking about maybe a heavier rig for catfishing, I did buy the 6'6" Medium Heavy 1 piece spinning rod with an appropriate matching reel to handle 12 pound test line, perfect for heavy sinker, cat fishing on the river.  It will also be a nice crankbait rod and my neighbor Todd will do a lot better with it.  Also it was time to renew my Navionic's chip that is in the GPS on the Ranger, it does an excellent job mapping Lac Seul.  The offer is the same as last year's....$100.00 to renew the yearly update subscription or $49.00 for a new chip with 1 year's updates included.........duh!  I already have buyers for the old chip if needed and if push comes to shove, it will be a good spare for the Jon Boat.  Either way you can't go wrong!  I did get to help my friend Bruce in Garrison and see Bill and his mother, both were a nice way to spend a Saturday.