Birthday today

 

New WiFi Thermostat

It's hard to believe but today is my 67th birthday.  It's not that I feel old, quite the contrary, I feel young however I wish my body felt the same way!  Having already received calls from my dearest friends the next thing is tonight getting on Facebook and taking care of all of those friends.  Geez, just what I want on my birthday, more work!  One of the real issues of getting old is staying up with the latest technology and how to set it up.  Yep, here you go , one can just buy a doohickey that connects to the WiFi, just download the App on your phone and voila, what a convenience.  Well sure, if you're 13 years old for a guy that grew up with a black and white television and 2 channels (WEAU in Eau Claire and WKBT in LaCrosse), heck I was 36 when I got my first cell phone, it isn't that easy.  Today I see my friends 6 year old kids maneuver around a cell phone like  it was their 3rd hand!  My latest  encounter was installing a WIFI controlled thermostat in the house.  
Simple right?  Not so fast.  Removing the old thermostat, marking the 5 wires hooked to the old base, making sure they were on the new base correctly, then easy, snap the new thermostat on the new base and it will power up, Simple right?  After an hour of diagnosing and reattaching the wires to make sure they were all in place, still no power.  Calling the 1-800 tech service, they were backed up 40 minutes but promised to call me back.  Admittedly not as smart as the Smart Thermostat, I still had some tricks up my sleeve so the next step was to call Ben Aiona, my godchild who is an HVAC guy.  After the laughter stopped he directed me to the furnace where the blue wire needed to be connected.  So why was it not connected at the furnace but at the thermostat?  I guess it doesn't matter as doing what he said fixed everything perfectly.  As I was finishing up Honeywell called me back, go figure.  It's still working, next thing is to set up the Ring Security light/camera's.  Of course they make it look so easy.  Unfortunately one need the QR code off the back and they are already mounted, getting the cart before the horse again!!

Springsteel Island Resort

As far as ice fishing, the furnace in the Salem seems to be working just fine.  It's gone through 3-30# tanks of propane without a hitch so it should be good to go.  Given this good news,  within a couple of weeks it's heading north to Springsteel Island resort for a month.  Maybe right after the Superbowl.  Then my friend Bill Dull from California is bound and determined to sleep out on the ice so he is flying up the first of March to spend a few days ice fishing again.  He came last year but the early spring forced us to fish out of portables and to stay on shore at night.  I am looking forward to his visit as he always has a nice scotch for sipping!  It's been frustrating with my DirecTV so it may just have to be old movies and conversation!  When we went to Red earlier last month we ended up watching Deliverance.  It was filmed in 1972 and I remember seeing it in a theatre yet watching it again was pretty interesting.  Deciding to play the director's comments, basically the movie reran with the director making comments about each scene, what was involved and trivia about the movie, it was quite interesting for sure.  Did I say the weather has been cold?? Usually I get to fish some local lakes but this year it hasn't happened, maybe because my portable ice house is behind the boat and too tough to get out.  My good friend Jack Taylor's son, Ben has been out a lot and maybe I just need to have him take me, just like I used to take out his grandfather, Earl Taylor.  At least he is young and could prove quite an asset!!

Speaking of Jack, we both got our money in for this year's 49th annual Leech Lake Fishing Opener.  Looks like most everyone is going to be back again, with the exception of Mason, who is in the Marines.  My two back pedestal's for the Ranger are wore out so I am going to replace them with the same type I have behind the console, WavePro's.  These are pedestal's with Fox Racing Shocks inside that are air adjustable.  My passengers will love me as they are quite nice.  A little more expensive but not much. 

Red Lake adventure!

 

Engel 19 qt bait cooler

Last Sunday my brother Steve and friend Mark Applen decided to head to Red Lake for a couple of days of fishing.  We weren't in any particular hurry to get there, getting set up before dark was the main criteria. Fishing the lake on Sunday thru Wednesday would virtually guarantee us a smaller crowd with less commotion on the ice.  Less activity on the ice should translate into a better more consistent bite.  The Salem was already at JR's from the last trip so we just had to take the truck, hook up at JR's and head out.  Like the previous time, we were surprised about all the houses being pulled back.  These houses were probably coming from Red Lake as the bite hasn't been that good with the weather changes we have had.  Never the less we arrived around 2:30, paid the storage and access fee's and headed out to Center Bar, about 7 miles from JR's.  I have to hand it to JR's as he had areas pre-plowed so it would be a lot easier to set up the house without getting stuck.  We found a plowed cut just west of the main road, on that headed towards the Reservation boundary.  Someone had been in there prior, we were able to get the trailer backed into a clean spot and set up.  There was no one around us at all, maybe the closest being a quarter mile away, perfect or so we thought.  Getting everything set up perfectly about the only thing wrong was I forgot to bring my Engel Bait 19 quart bait cooler.  We stopped at Fred's Bait in Deer River and had them put the minnows in an oxygen bag.  Luckily the aerator was still in the house so we just kept the minnows in the bag and dropped the aerator stone in it, they kept pretty good.  I have 2 of these and saw one in the shed before we left so assumed the other one was in the wheel house.  Unfortunately Jack took the minnows from the last time in that cooler and didn't return it but I didn't think about it.  Oh well, it worked out ok and turned out to be the least of our worries.

The last trip with Jack was delayed because the furnace in the Salem quit working on that Monday, the day before we were packing to leave on Tuesday.  Without the furnace working and below zero temperatures, we decided to have someone look at it and on Tuesday I got right in and $450 later I had a new control board in the furnace and it worked that night.  Well when we arrived at JR's on Sunday, the first thing was to heat up the house, the furnace started without an issue.  By the time we got the holes drilled and the house set on the ice, everything was working well.  The evening bite was nothing to write home about and we got a small walleye and a couple of small perch, nothing worth documenting!  Trying o get my DirecTV working didn't work so well and we were stuck with watching DVD's, The Blue Collar Comedy Tour and I was so impressed with the Director's Commentary of Deliverance we watched that as well.  Finally getting to bed around midnight we were sound asleep when Steve got up to answer one of the rattle reels.  Catching a keeper, he noticed it was cold so he reset the furnace and headed back to his sleeping bag.  When we finally got up the furnace had stopped again.  Resetting the thermostat didn't do it however we did have propane at the stove.  Cooking breakfast heated the house up however it wasn't too bad out but due to get colder that evening.  We decided to just hook the house up and head back the next day.  Disappointed there was little we could do.  Calling Minneapolis Trailer, they had me bring it in Tuesday morning.  After checking the gas flow it was on the low side so the mechanic tried to adjust the regulator however it was already at the max adjustment.  He suggested I get a new regulator/automatic tank switch and I agreed because there was something I didn't like about the one on the house.  After paying for the regulator and driving back home, the temperature was still nice enough to install it myself.  The furnace started right up and after leaving it run all night it was 12 degrees in the house the next morning.  In this whole process the front electric jack stopped working so we ordered a new one because nothing would happen without the jack installed.  The plan was to get the jack installed, run the furnace all night and try to get a default.  Got the jack on Thursday morning then  fiddling with the inside thermostat, the furnace started fine and Friday morning it was still 60 in the house.  Stopping at the trailer repair we decided to see if we could get a default then go from there.  At this writing, it is Sunday night and after installing a new thermostat that Amazon delivered on Friday, things have been working well.  Was it the thermostat, I don't know but burning propane is cheaper than the shop rate to try and figure out the issue.  There may have been something in the intake, maybe a bad switch in the thermostat, but whatever it seems to be working well.  The plan is to monitor it daily then head to Lake of the Woods, Springsteel Island in a couple of weeks.  Ben Aiona and his family have been there this weekend, they haven't been doing that great but there has been a lot of weather fronts coming through the last month.  Packers lost last night so not having TV isn't such a big deal anymore!

Negative!

Covid Saliva Test

 As stated last week having 2 close friends pass from Covid is unnerving.  Certainly one needs to take a deep breathe and understand that this is not normal but it is real.  With last weeks revelation that 2 of the 6 people fishing on Red last week testing positive, it starts screwing with your head.  You begin searching for any clues that might indicate any issues.  Yep, I was real fatigued, I had a scratchy throat,  and started to get worried.  Using MyChart a quick message to my doctor was not very conclusive.  My primary care doctor is fabulous yet they are under a number restrictions and only like to deal with real issues, not fears.  Plan B was to get a free test available to anyone in Minnesota, unfortunately administrated by a company called Vault Health, I won't go into that but was unsuccessful in securing a free test.  Plan C was to go to Anoka and get a free test that was set up at the Anoka Amory.  Actually that went pretty well as they use the test pictured above.  After having to set up an account with Vault, which was already done, the log in process didn't go well but the National Guard soldier that helped me was incredible.  Whatever was done in the past probably screwed up my Plan B, this guy basically bypassed all of the BS and got me registered.  You scan the bar code on the small container then fill it with spit up to the line.  It felt like it was a quart but eventually it got to the line.  You take off the funnel and screw on the blue liquid top, it punctures the seal and deposits the liquid in the container then seals it.  The whole process took 15 minutes including any wait.  The last process was to give the sample to a Vault nurse.......she got my opinion of Vault only after I dropped the sample into the large bin.  It is obvious that there is a lot of money involved in this process.  Either way about 24 hours later the email informing that the test proved negative arrived.  I am fully vaccinated with a booster however not sure that is enough anymore.  Thankfully whatever my makeup is I seldom get sick enough to put me down so maybe we'll get through this.  On Saturday it was Matt's funeral, it was nice that they had a live feed from his church.  It really felt like I was there as listening to Matt's uncle explaining the Davis family, it did bring an acceptable closure to the loss of my friend.

New Minnkota MK460PCL (L for Lithium)

During our Leech Lake trip in October there was something weird going on with the new Ionic trolling motor batteries in the Ranger.  The batteries have a Bluetooth interface and although they were plugged in and charged each night, one battery did not seem to charge.  After getting home and looking at the charger, the bank associated with the uncharged battery was blinking intermittently.   Switching banks with another one, it charged normally overnight.  The bad bank still blinked funny.  Trying to find the blink codes the manual really didn't explain it however it state that in the event of an electrical storm it is advised to tilt the motor out of the water and unplug the charger.   On Friday night we had quite a thunderstorm with lightning very close to the cabin.  Well, lesson learned!  The now one bank down charger was not set up for Lithium however if you use the AGM charge setting, it will work just fine for charging these new batteries.  Having to replace it searching online brought some interesting results.  First no one had the new model in stock.  Second the pricing was confusing as on the Minnkota site the price was $549 yet on the mk.factoryoutletstore.com site it was only $419.  Doing some research didn't indicate any issues so it was ordered knowing it would take a couple of months to get it.  The charger arrived this week and after careful inspection, it is a genuine Minnkota product.  It's too cold out to install and as well the lithium's are discharged to their ideal storage state of charge, between 60 and 80% state of charge.  Oh well, just another thing on the list.  In the meantime if anyone needs a 3 bank, 15A onboard charger, I have one to donate.

Getting off my Butt

Matt with a largemouth on a wacky rig

OK, Bring retired often means you simply find it hard to keep up with everything.  Well a changing event happened on Sunday, my great friend and fishing buddy Matt Davis passed away from Covid complications.  I have survived over 18 months without having anyone close to me pass away yet now in the last month Matt was the second, with my past production Manager Rich Rebella being the first.  Of course it is devastating as Matt was only 54 years old, Rick was 57, both 10 years younger than I.  Matt and I shared a love for fishing that was deep. We fished together in Charleston South Carolina, Naples Florida, Cameron Louisiana, and at Joe's place east of Dallas.  Not only did we fish but Matt introduced me to TX Whiskey and never let me run out! Actually I think he was disappointed when I told him they finally had it here in Minnesota, as it was only available in Texas.  If you are interested, go down to the bottom left side and there is a section called Labels, there you will find any article that Matt was referenced in, and he was one of my favorite subjects.   One of the things this blog does it records memories, which was why I started it.  Matt's passing away reminded me that it is still important to document things as I have some great memories of him through this.  Matt and I had a lot in common as he was the president of NovaMagnetics, a transformer firm in Garland Texas.  I barely remember his father, Glen Davis who passed away a number of years ago and Matt stepped into his shoes.  Our good friend Joe Stanfield introduced us and it could not have been a better match as we had so much in common.  The only thing I didn't do that Matt loved was to chew Copenhagen!  Last March I took my good friend Bill Dull ice fishing on Lake of the Woods, we had a blast.  Well Matt made me promise I would take him ice fishing as driving out 15 miles onto a lake and staying in a specially made RV for a few days was something he wanted to experience.  I was really looking forward to giving my Texas friend a taste of the north this March.  Should have, would have, could have.  Unfortunately it's too late but you can be assured that the Northland Buckshot spoon I bought him will be hanging in the house....that and a bottle of TX.

Ricky Shermer's nice walleye

So what else is new since August?   Well in September we got back to Lac Seul with Bruce.  Having only 10 guys and 3 boats, a number of our past members did not come as either they had other plans or had problems with the Covid requirements.  I decided that I wasn't going to let that decide my fate in Canada so I got my vaccine in March.  Even though we had all of our requirements and testing in order, 6 of use were randomly selected to do a test.  Personally it was ridiculous.  One had to have a nurse view you doing the test online via your phone, assuming you still had signal from International Falls, then follow a number of confusing instructions then drop it off somewhere in Ft. Francis.  The whole process took almost 3 hours and was stupid because we were scheduled to return to Minnesota at least 2 days before the tests were done anyway.  I could go on but at this point there is no point.  We barely made it to camp with about 30 minutes of daylight left.  Fishing was somewhat slow the first 2 days.  I had 4 in the boat, Ricky Shermer, Barry Blasovic, Jerry Kiffemeyer, and their guide Me!  The first day we totalled 45 walleyes in the boat, pretty low.  The second day was better with 55 in the boat, still pretty slow.  The last day Jerry decided to go with Jack, so with 3 of use we ended up at Pecker Point and just hammered them with 85 in the boat including a number in the 26 inch range like the one Ricky is holding.  The walleyes must have turned on because everyone did pretty good that day.  We finally got across the border with little problems, usually we eat breakfast in Canada but decided to get back to the US first.  One of the things I purchased before we went was a Lowrance Active Target, a 3D type scanning device.  With a special transducer and a mount, i was able to quite accurately see how the fish were reacting to our baits and often could see all 3 of our presentations.  It really didn't do much to help catch fish but it made it more interesting to watch the fishes reactions to our lures.  

Ben's beautiful 8 pointer

In November Jack, his son Ben and I hunted Brett's land, once Rich Allen's place.  Brett has erected a number of fully enclosed stands, complete with heaters, and it makes for a comfortable hunt.  the visibility isn't the greatest but you certainly don't get cold!  Ben on the other hand is young and sat in a traditional ladder stand, which paid off as he shot a beautiful 8 pointer.  I have deer hunted for 50 years now and have never shot a nice buck like this. I am very proud of him and he is having it mounted, which he should!  We hunted a few omore times but I never saw a deer...was warm though!  Last year my Salem Ice Cabin had significant rusting through the frame, such that it needed repairs.  In September it was dropped off at Crystal Welding, known for their trailer repair.  It took a couple of months but right after deer hunting it was done, $9200 worth of iron, welding and repairs.  Although it seems like alot, new houses are ridiculously priced, if you can even get one.  It was worth repairing as it is a nice house and set up the perfectly.  Last Tuesday Jack and Ben were heading to Red with me, but on Monday the furnace stopped working.  With below zero temperatures, we decided to delay as the last thing we wanted was 3 guys found dead in their wheelhouse headlines.  Luckily the guys at Minneapolis Trailer in Rogers, MN got me in on Tuesday morning and by 1:00 it was running perfectly.  Meeting Andy Achman and his crew at JR's we got settled in for the night.  Fishing was slow as predicted a front came through and Red Lake is more affected by weather changes.  We left the house up there and headed back on Thursday with just enough fish to have a fish fry at JR's before we left.  My friend Ben Aiona and his family were on Lake of the Woods and on Wednesday did really well with 56 walleyes caught, with 3 limits between 16 and 18 inches.  the plan is to go up to Red in a week or two them haul it to Springsteel Island Resort till March before ending the season.  Unfortunately 2 of Andy's guest tested positive for Covid so I am trying to get into the doctor to get tested.  With 2 friends down, it's nothing to screw with.

When it's hot your not

Bernie Konter's Fall Feast Pickles

Wow, this hot weather seems never ending.  This is the time I am fishing the Mississippi River behind the house however the place where I usually launch the jon boat is just too shallow.  I'd love to launch at the Champlin landing and head upstream but I need to fix the lights on the trailer.....another thing on my list! The dry weather hasn't done my garden very well however the cucumbers have been coming in like crazy.  Actually it seems like they are almost done already, even though they are watered frequently, the plants look quite yellow.  Either way it's been a scramble to get something done with the cucumbers that are ready to go.  Every year I make 10 - 20 gallons of Bernie Konter's Fall Feast Pickles.  They are a refrigerator pickle made famous by a dear and deceased friend by the name of Bernie Konter.  He used to make these for the St. Peter and Paul Fall Festival which is coming up this weekend, with buckets of pickles all over the place.  His original recipe called out adding sugar, however I'm not a great fan of that so I just use the same recipe without the sugar.  Slice medium sized cucumbers in a 1 gallon pale adding fresh dill, sliced sweet onions, and fresh garlic.  Once the pail is full you take 8 cups of water (I used store bought water), 1 cup of white vinegar, and 1/2 cup of canning salt.  Add a tablespoon or 2 of pickling spice then pour over the cucumbers.  Put a cover on them and set in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks, they are absolutely delicious. Bernie passed away a number of years ago however I enjoy carrying on the legend for sure.  If you search this blog you will find a number of posts mentioning him, he was a great guy.  Anyway if you are around stop by and I will serve you some, they are truly delicious.  

Crock Pickles

I also have gotten into making fermented pickles.  They are basically done the same way sauerkraut is made, simply put cucumbers in a pickling crock, add a given amount of salt per cup of water, cover the cucumbers with the brine, of course I add pickling spice and dill to the brine.  Usually fermentation crocks have flat ceramic stones to help keep the cucumbers completely immersed in the brine.  The crock has a cover to keep out the bad things and in 3 to 4 weeks one has some of the most delicious tasting dill pickles you have ever tasted.  This is really the old fashioned way that pickles were made as they can stay in the brine for a long time and still be good.  Because it's been too warm in the pole shed for the proper fermentation, I have been keeping these in my Salem Ice Cabin for safe keeping.  I am figuring about 2 more weeks before they are done.  Speaking of my Salem, when we returned last March from Lake of the Woods ice fishing I noticed that my front frame on the Salem was rusted through.  Being nervous about this I have an appointment with Crystal Welding on September 14 to see if it can be repaired.  I really like my current wheel house and am hoping it can be fixed, certainly a lot cheaper than buying a new one!  I guess time will tell for sure.  In a previous post I talked about the new LiFePo batteries for my boat.  Forgetting to shut off the main battery switch, during this heat the parasitic currents fully discharged the battery.  In the meantime we got new phones on the 3rd of July.  The new Ionic battery app downloaded however when I tried to look I only seen 3 batteries, not 4.  Reading that there might be some issues with the new app I just sort of brushed it off.  Well after deciding to look into it, it was apparent something was quite wrong.  After investigating and recharging the suspect battery, now they all show up on the app and everything looks good.  I am still not convinced about a few things but I have time to think about it.  Everything is back to normal.  Canada is opening August 9th and Bruce is preparing for a possible trip in the middle of September, we'll see.  In the meantime I am installing Lowrance's new Active Target into the boat, it is a challenge but I think we can get it done.  It should be the ticket for locating walleyes in Canada as it is often we don't have to move very far and we are on to them. maybe this will help.

Finally some Fish

 

Beautiful 9 1/2 inch bluegill

OK, it's not been a very good start of summer.  Coupled that with being retired, quite honestly I am not sure where I found the time to get everything done before.  It seems like I get nothing done now, maybe I am just getting lazy, maybe less motivated, I sit back and think that when working everything got done on a regular basis.  This would be including fishing.  The last 6 weeks have been brutal regarding the hot and dry weather.  I did make it out to Mille Lacs in June but only caught 2 fish in the boat, a nice smallmouth and a sickly looking walleye.  Compare that to the last couple of years where we would catch 25 - 40 walleyes, I don't know, maybe just losing the touch.  Personally think that we went too early as the bug hatch was in full bloom but again that just sounds like a great excuse...one of many I have these days.  The garden is starting to look good and just a few days ago we had a much needed 3.2 inches of rain at the house.  Still not enough to get the river back to a navigable level, but it's something to work on.  Finally my friend Bill Lundeen must have sensed my frustration and invited me to fish with him on Thursday.  The catch would be that we use my truck, his was in the shop.  Looking back that should always be the case when we use his boat.  Meeting at his place on Mille Lacs we drove to what Bill calls the orphanage and hooked up his older Lund 16 foot boat with a 70 hp Johnson.  I really like fishing out of that boat, however as I get older it seems that backing down the boat ramp becomes a challenge these days.  Thank the Lord Bill has patience!!  We headed about 45 minutes away to a "secret" lake to try for panfish.   Fishing for bluegills and crappies is something I love to do but seldom target.  Well my first keeper bluegill was a huge 9 1/2 inch fish caught on a Flu Flu jig with a piece of Gulp 7 feet under a slip bobber.  The lake was crystal clear so we fished the weed edges in about 9 - 12 feet of water.  It was a blast, with ultralight tackle these fish put on a memorable fight for sure.  Half the time my assumption was that a bass had struck the bait.  This lake has special regulations of only 5 fish per angler and we stopped short of 10 but it sure was exciting, and a perfect day after the rain.

Bill with his nice Bluegill

After 3 hours of great panfishing we loaded the boat up and headed for a designated trout lake nearby.  Using 3/4 to 1 ounce bell sinkers we rigged up a small spinner, gulp combination and started trolling the deeper water, assuming we were down 20 - 40 feet.  This lake was an old iron mine pit in the early 1900's and is quite deep.  With steep sides, often over 30 feet deep at 20 feet from shore, the Minnesota DNR regularly stocks rainbow trout in these lakes around the area.  What was nice about this lake is one can launch a regular boat rather than hauling a canoe down to the lake, much easier for me!  Another interesting feature is the water is super clear, the Lake Finder app states about 30 foot clarity.  We trolled for about 2 hours with the electric trolling motor and I swore something hit my bait but in the end we caught nothing but a relaxing afternoon on a beautiful lake.  It is interesting as there a a number of open pit mines that when in use continually had to have the water pumped out of them to prevent flooding.  The Cuyuna Iron Range is on the southwest end of a rich vein of iron ore that stretched from just east of Brainerd Minnesota, up through the Mesabi (Eveleth, Hibbing, Virginia, MN) and under Lake Superior before ending in Ontario.  Because the iron ore was so rich and accessible, the Cuyuna area was easy to mine at the time.  It is certainly interesting to study the history of the area and it's mining past.  When the mines became depleted the pumping stopped and eventually these pits filled up with spring water making them exceptionally clear, cold, and deep.  In some cases these old mines are often over 300 feet deep.  Of course as the mines became devoid of their rich iron ore, the mining simply moved northeast and followed the rich vein of iron ore.  Thinking of our inability to really understand how deep we are fishing I am going to propose to Bill that we try using lead core line for the next trip.  Having Suffix 832 Advanced Lead Core line, it sinks like 7 foot per color.  Lead Core lines are color coded every 30 feet, so if you want to fish 35 feet down simply let out 5 colors of line (150 feet) and you control the depth much more accurately.  I'll have to see what he thinks of that idea.  

Among other things this covid crap has really put a damper on our Lac Seul fishing.  It was closed all of last year and we should have already been there twice this year.  Talk of opening on August 21st is simply that, talk.  Even if they open it it's doubtful that some camps lack the ability to find people to work for a month, there are a lot of issues to be solved.  Lac Seul has been the highlight of my summer fishing adventures and admittedly not being able to go has taken some wind out of my sails.  Bruce and I have flown a few places for lunch, but  that's about it.  Mille Lacs has been closed for a couple of weeks now, as I said the river is extremely low, but eventually things will get back into the swing of things.   Hopefully I will have a positive report soon into the future and won't take so long!

2021 Leech Lake Fishing Opener

26 inch Walley,good for 2/3rd place tie

 It is interesting that Google Blogger has changed my e-mail account verification.  Because of this I wasn't sure that everything was ok, so at Opener I had my nephew Kevin Anderson look at my settings and hopefully fixed what the problem is.  If you have received a notification of this post I would appreciate a comment after reading to confirm you received a notification so I can be sure it's working. With that out of the way, finally a fishing report from our 48th Annual Leech Lake Fishing Opener.  The weather was absolutely beautiful, sunshine every day and no wind.  Although this sounds great Leech Lake is a wind lake and usually one needs to fish the windswept points to catch anything.  It wasn't a total bust but it was far from normal that's for sure.  Saturday arrived with the lake pretty calm.  Using the trolling motor became the norm to stay moving.  Being a guy that likes to explore, if the fish weren't cooperating in one area we'd just go exploring.  Ottertail Point seemed to be the place were we caught the largest fish, in fact both first, second, and third place all came from that area.  Chad caught a 26.25 walleye on Saturday out of my boat.  On Sunday I managed to tie my nephew Kevin for 2nd place with each catching a 26 inch both from Ottertail Point.  That was about it for the big fish.  The bite was terrible, for 21 guys we ended up catching 47 walleyes total for 7 boats, 3 days, with 30 kept.  It is rare that we don't come home with our limit of 4 each, not this year.  Water temps were in the low 60's and we tried everything.  I fished every place we could from Steamboat Bay, Star Point, Little and Big Hardwoods Point, Pine Point, Big and Little Stony Point, Submarine Island, Ivan's, all with the same results.

Nice rock bass

Each night I would troll shad raps from 8:30 PM to about 10, it is usually productive.  Three nights of trolling produced 6 walleyes under 11 inches, a northern pike, a one keeper in the 18 inch range.  Like last fall we were trolling on Monday night along the shore when we approached this boat.  The guy yelled out to watch for his nets as he was netting whitefish, I'm sure!!  These were probably the same guys that had nets out last fall whereas we lost 3 crankbaits before realizing we were hung up in some nets.  I asked the guy if the ends were marked, which hi answer was no, but they are down 6 feet so they shouldn't bother you, but if you get hung up I will return your baits....again Right!!!  They set the last net then headed up Portage Bay without lights.  We should have done is find the first net he put down then check to see if any whitefish were in there, if walleyes we could definitely release them as they were targeting whitefish.  Deciding to let it go we just started trolling up the shore further which is where we caught our 1-18 inch fish but that was it.  It was beautiful traveling the lake as we could travel fast.  Heading back to Brindley's we noticed all the lights on Pine Point.  It looked as though everyone was anchored and bobber fishing.  Well apparently those that bobber fished at night did pretty well.  The fish fly hatch was terrible as there were flies all over everything, which might explain the leech bite.  Never the less we stuck to our old habits as we would have had to go to town and get lighted bobbers and leeches anyway.  We probably would have done better.  The northern bite was pretty good however the regulations was anything between 22 - 26 inches needed to be released and I swear every one was 24 inches, like they all came out of the same mold.  As well one of our group caught a nice eelpout and we did manage a few nicer perch and some pretty big rock bass.  Certainly that is not what we were looking for but catching something is better than nothing!

I am going to post this without pictures as Google says there is something wrong, try later.  Later tonight I'll see if it's still working or I'll have to call Kevin up to help fix it again.  Looks like it got fixed.

Technology

New LiFePo4 batteries in the Ranger

For the last 20 years technology has really influenced the fishing world.  In my collection of early 1980's In-fisherman magazines feature articles and ad's that seem prehistoric with flashers, Color C Lector, temperature probes, it's almost funny.  Over the years most of these devices were part of my arsenal as in the early 80's I built my first Heathkit flasher, followed up by a Humminbird Super 60, then their Super 30 model.  When the first paper graphs came out the first one on my boat was a King 1060, amazing detail.  This was replaced with a state of the art Lowrance X15B, a 4 inch paper graph that I still have remnants of some of the fish I graphed on Lake Mille Lacs.  I started working with a company called Genetron that made highly sophisticated video (CRT tube) graphs, adapted from the pacific northwest, even in the embedded software manual, it talked about it's ability to sense the air bladder of halibut.  I simply traded manufactured parts for new units and still have one on my shelf.  Even though there were LCD units out there, they paled in comparison to the detail shown on the Genetron's.  Eventually the color LCD technologies caught up with the resolution of video and with current microprocessor and memory capability the graphs today are quite sophisticated, even at the small screen level.  Well all this takes power and even with the largest AGM style batteries, it would often happen that the battery would not provide enough power and then have enough left to start my motor.  Luckily the Ranger has a battery switch in it to allow one to turn the power off and switch in a trolling motor battery giving enough power to essential jump the dead battery and start the outboard.  Well today's technology provides at least solution for this in the form of Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo4) batteries.  Like modern devices that have lithium ion batteries, unlike lead acid type batteries such as my AGM's, they should only be discharged to 40% or it will significantly affect the battery life, their 100AH rating is more like 60.  Also AH (Amp Hour) ratings are based on a 20 hour load, so the 100 AH is based on a 5 amp load.  Well if you take all the electronics in the boat they pull around 8 amps, which effectively drops the AH reading to about 60 - 65 so the real amount of power available is maybe 35AH before you cause any premature damage to the battery.  Li FePo4 batteries however can be discharge to 10% without damage and whether it be 5 amps of 10 amps, it doesn't degrade the power ratings of the battery.  Deciding to pull the trigger on replacing all of my batteries, the cost is higher but the benefits will outweigh those costs in the long run as these batteries will last the rest of my life.  The bonus is the LiFePo4 batteries are about 50% lighter and have an 8 year warranty.  In one single move I lost 150# out of the boat, which is significant.  As well I am not worried anymore about running out of power.  In addition each battery has a built in Bluetooth communications path to a downloadable app on my phone.  It's easy to simply see each batteries condition, state of charge, and anything related to the battery.  They received their first test on Lake Erie and were very effective.  The secret is their built in Battery Management System (BMS) which allows the battery to look like a standard battery to everything that is hooked to it.  I can use my existing onboard Minnkota MK460PC charger to charge them, no need for anything special.  The real test will be in two weeks when our 48th annual Leech Lake Opener takes place.

Lowrance HDS 7

This week I helped my friend Adam Mayerich install his Lowrance HDS7 into the dash of a new to him Ranger 1850 Reata, a nice boat.  He bought it from a fellow Team Walleye guy but there was a lot to do so I decided to help.  Last week I gave him a great deal on my good but not new Interstate Series 31 AGM's that I took out of my boat.  They are definitely better than what he had in it as they were pretty well done for.  We also finished our strategy on onboard chargers and installed them.   Installing the HDS7 was interesting for sure as there was an HDS5 in the dash and there was barely room for the 7.  Deciding to make a spacer so the unit would sit into the dash better, using a 1/4 inch ABS sheet, we cut out the appropriate spacer then used it to mark the dash, the cutting began.  Using a Dremel tool we were able to make the cut large enough to allow the depthfinder to set almost flush with the dash.  There were some concerns about cutting too much from the bottom however after Adam ran to the hardware store to get 1 1/2 inch #6 stainless steel screws it came together pretty good.  The vinyl on the dash that was loose tightened right up. The gap in the bottom of the dash became solid once secured by the depthfinder.  It looked pretty good. 

PENN 310GT2LC

One thing that I have been trying to do is replace the line counter reel that got stepped on in the boat when we were out on Erie.  The line counter broke off..  Having 2 set ups, these reels are used for lead line trolling.  The reel was a PENN 310GT2LC, one that my luck is unavailable these days.  The nice thing about this reel is that 1 complete spool of Suffix 832 lead line fits perfectly (all 10 Colors) on the reel, which is nice when having another guy in the boat, I can just tell him how much line and what color as they are both the same.  I know, you could simply just user the line counter but it is more illustrative with the exact setups.  So the manual says line capacity is 325 yards of 15# mono.  I picked up their new model that holds 320 yards of 15# mono yet it will only fit 8 colors.  I can make it work but it bothers me.  Having spook with PENN's Service department, they told me to send it in and they would take a look at it.  With a little luck they can fix it as the reel is just like new.  I guess time will tell, but it sure would be nice to be able to have matching reels again on my lead line setups.  I should know in a couple of weeks.  Leech Lake fishing opener is 2 weeks away and there is alot to do yet.  Clean the boat,  extract the carpeting, make sure all the live bait, jig, crankbaits for Leech are in the boat.  It's a busy couple of weeks for sure.

Lake Erie, Part 2

Steve First Fish, an nice walleye

The last post left off with my friend Kevin and his family leaving early Tuesday morning back to Wisconsin for his father-in-law's funeral.  In the meantime Steve, Mark, and I stayed to fish the rest of the time as we knew Ben was coming back Wednesday evening as he had left his boat behind the house.  Waking up on Tuesday the Aiona's were gone and the weather forecast  stated there predicting 25 mph by the afternoon, creating a difficult fishing situation.  We decided to head out and fish until the wind became uncomfortable.  After heading to the Muzurik Landing on Marblehead, we launched the boat and while Steve and Mark parked the car, I proceeded to input the waypoint Ben sent me via his phone, about 5 miles away through the channel between Marblehead and Kelley's Island.  We had fished a few miles north of that point on Monday so we were familiar with the location.  The wind had picked up a little but blowing from the Southeast so we positioned ourselves upwind from that waypoint and started setting up our trolling pattern.  As before we fished 3 planer boards on each side of the boat, using line counter reels to set the depths of the Bandits, we followed the advice, 70 feet back on the outside boards, 60 on the middle boards, 50 on the inside boards.  The strategy was to troll with the wind making the fishing experience easier.  Once a fish is hooked up, the real work begins, of course there is the guy fighting the fish, the second guy is responsible for the net and removing the planer board from the line.  In the meantime one guy has to stay on the steering wheel to make certain the boat stays on track so the remaining lines do not become tangled.  This was made much more difficult by two issues, first was the battery in the remote control for the kicker motor was dead.  This was checked out before we left but apparently it was just enough to work.  Secondly an attempt to engage the front electric trolling motor did not work either as the motor did not respond when deployed.  Therefore on Tuesday the only real source of steering was using the main outboard used as a rudder, steering by turning the steering wheel.. Mark had caught the first fish on Monday so it was Steve's turn and it wasn't long before one of the boards started dancing.  He reeled in our first fish of the day, a nice 24 inch walleye, into the livewell.  Resetting the boards it wasn't long before it was my turn to reel a fish in.  Steve on the motor, Mark successfully got the fish in the boat, 2 in the livewell. As the morning went on the wind shifted and as predicted started to increase.  After successfully landing 6 walleyes in the boat the waves continued to grow, enough to decide to call it quits.  It was a good move.  Although not that far from the landing the wind limited our speed to about 8 mph as we carefully negotiated the now 5 to 6 foot waves.  Finally getting back to the landing which is protected by a breaker wall, I dropped off Steve and Mark to get the truck and trailer.  There was a Coast Guard team that had just loaded their boat and once the Ranger was on the trailer they came over to do a boat inspection.  I welcomed the oportunity however the first question was to see my registration, something I never have!  Luckily Mark had come over before the trip and found it on a shelf and had me put it in the boat.  The inspection went well so we headed home to clean fish.  Admittedly it takes time to clean these big fish and Ben had brought his vacuum packer so we packaged the fish and sat down to reflect on the day.

Wednesday's catch, 14 walleyes at over 63 pounds

Wednesday proved to be a calmer day on the water.  Talking to Ben, he suggested I reset the trolling motor by disconnecting the power for 30 seconds.  I did that Tuesday afternoon and voila, the motor now responded.  As well we stopped at the Walmart to get a battery for the kicker remote steering, that now worked.  Third was a stop at Fisherman's Central, a wonderful sports shop on our way to the landing, and picked up some Bandits in blue/chrome, another Rotten Fruit pattern, an interesting blue green chrome Bandit called The Generator (later figured out you could add lighted glow stick in the bait), and an interesting color called Humble Bee ( a golden, perch type bait).  Once on the water and back to the spot the wind had changed 90 degrees from Tuesday so we did the same thing, went upwind from our previous point and started trolling downwind.  Tuesday gave us a chance to dial in our presentations and with some Bandits in new colors, we were determined to do better.  The wind was calmer, the kicker motor remote was working, the Motorguide was operating perfect, we were set up.  While Steve and Mark set up the lines, it was my job to get our navigation methodology set up.  Setting the kicker speed at 1.5 mph, I put the Motorguide down and engaged the heading lock to keep the boat on a specific track, then engaged the cruise control at 1.6 mph and amazingly the boat was now being completely controlled by the devices that should do their job.  No longer was it required to have someone always trying to steer the boat.   Looking at our tracks on the GPS, it was amazing how straight they were.  With the navigation system set we could now concentrate on fishing much more effectively.  With assuming we had 12 in the livewell, and 4 each (it was really 6 walleyes each), we  had lost 4 other fish in tangles or line failures, we finally caught one more deciding to let it go as the livewell was already ridiculously full.  Upon returning to the house, it was discovered we had 14 walleyes, still legal, but figuring the hookups and the one we released, we had 19 fish for the day.  Steve weighed the fish and it was over 63 pounds, and if you see the picture, not one was smaller than the 5 gallon pail was deep.  It took 3 trips with the pail to transfer these walleyes from the livewell to the cleaning shed.  Admittedly I've caught more walleye but never the average size as these.

From Wednesday's catch

After going to the Irish Pub downtown Port Clinton for supper, we headed back.  Ben, Heather, and Jared arrived earlier than we anticipated, about 11:30.  Thursday was supposed to be very windy with small craft warnings, so we decided to stay off the water.  Ben, on the other hand was anxious to get out after missing 2 days, they headed to the landing, noticed the waves coming over the breakwater but decided to try it anyway.  They got out about a mile before coming to their senses and headed back.  Sitting in the house drinking coffee, Ben came in admitting it was pretty rough.  After settling down, we decided to drive to the Bass Pro Shops in Toledo, 40 minutes away.  Once there Jared was looking for lure making stuff and the clerk commented that Jan's Netcraft was only 15 minutes away and they carry all sorts of these types of items.  Jan's Netcraft was around when we were kids and loved getting their catalog and buying lure making items to make our own lures.  It was interesting to find they were still in business so Jared loaded up on plastic worm and paddle tail molds along with molding plastic and an injector.  He was in business!  He really reminds me of my younger years with his grandpa.  On the way back there was a Costco so with my membership we stopped and bought some steaks for Thursday night's meal.  Friday was our last day, it actually was pretty nice but as we discussed that evening, lack of waves did not allow the baits the action that riding up and down creates.  It was pretty easy fishing as we mastered the trolling motor, lure setting functions well.  We  found an area were a number of fish that were fooled by our presentation.  We were marking fish however after reviewing the day we decided that the fish had moved.  Coming back to the landing, it was the first time in the week we were able to travel in the boat at a reasonable speed.  With 8 in the livewell we ended out trip with 29 kept walleyes, about 4.5 pounds average.  Things learned, these fish usually are staging to spawn as these fish were post spawn, and often they are in large schools of a mile or larger in diameter.  Slow down, 1.4 - 1.6 mph is a perfect speed as the water temp was never over 44 degrees.  Don't assume anything as 70 feet back with a Bandit is about 17 feet down in 40 feet of water.  These fish suspend and I believe will come up a long way to hit the slower moving, noisy and flashy bait.  I think it's also  important to have a wide spread on your planer boards to cover more area.  The charters use larger planer board tactics that put 18 lures over a 200 foot spread, that's alot of coverage.  Pay attention to where the charters are fishing as they are good at helping each other.  These fish can be fickle however once they turn on it's amazing.

Jared's 30 incher

As far as Ben and his family, they stayed through the weekend leaving Monday.  We left Saturday morning retracing our route that we followed on the way there.  Ben went fishing that day and throughout the day would phone us with updates.  They fished more east of where we fished on Friday and did well catching their limit of 18 walleyes.  I wanted to get a picture of Jared with his 30 inch fish.  I have had Jared fish with me in my wheel house earlier this year and he is definitely fishing crazy.  On Friday he caught this 30+ inch spawned out walleye, he was bound and determined to have it mounted.  I swore he was going to cry when his dad put a knife to it!  As well we got a nice spawned out female on Friday, signaling that the spawn was on.  It was a great trip, one that taught us a lot about trolling for walleyes, and one that we can only hope Ben will invite us again next spring.  Like stated earlier, unlike Canada where a good day is 80 walleyes in the boat for 3 guys, here 18 walleyes encompasses quite a bit of work and the average size is significantly larger, as we never caught a fish under 22 inches.  One definitely needs a boat to handle the water as the wind can come up pretty fast.  Also it is amazing how long it took to clean these large walleyes.  Definitely a trip of a lifetime and even if you take a charter, it was well worth it!!

Getting Caught Up, Lake Erie, Part 1

Mark with the first Lake Erie Walleye of our trip.

In January my good friend Kevin and his son Ben floated by going out to Lake Erie the end of March.  They had found a house near Port Clinton, Ohio that we could rent but they had to act upon it soon.  Our friend Gary Barneson was a district manager for Secura Insurance in Appleton Wisconsin years ago and he had an agent who's son was a Tournament Walleye fisherman.  Kevin and Gary met his son out there and the rest is history.  Ben was out last year with his Ranger 618T with a 90 hp (crazy) but now that he has purchased a new Ranger 620FS like mine, he was anxious to go.  I checked with my brother Steve and friend Mark Applen to see if they would be interested as we are all retired and have time.  Mark's first response was...."This is a bucket list trip, I'm in!!"  Steve didn't take long to commit as well so I told Ben to count on us, I'll bring my boat for us and will meet up with you and drive out.  After settling the rental property, we had our dates set, leave Saturday, March 28 and return the following Saturday, spending a week out there.  Ben stated that one needed a week as the likelihood of getting blown off the lake a couple of days was really high so staying a week would assure some quality fishing time.  He was correct as we arrived Saturday evening around 7:30, the forecast for Sunday was high winds and small craft warnings (that meant us!).  Sunday was spent going over the different landings, stopping to buy food for the week, and checking out the local sporting goods store called Fisherman's Central.  Port Clinton is definitely a tourist town as there are a great number of campgrounds and resorts to stay and enjoy the region.  We went out to Catawba Island to check out some things there and discovered a local winery.  Stopping in it was very nice and had a good process for trying their wines, unfortunately their tastes and mine didn't fit very well.  With Monday's weather looking better we got up and headed to Muzurik Public Boat Landing on Marblehead Point.  Just north of this is Kelley's Island were we intended to fish the area around there.  Although I have fished planer boards in the past on Lake Mille Lacs, because we can fish up to 3 lines each, our strategy was to fish 3 planer boars off of each side, each at varying depths to try and figure out a strategy.  The initial word is at that time of year the big females have yet to spawn and they are staged in certain areas getting ready to spawn.  The key is to find the area they are staging at then troll through these schools with deep diving crankbaits with the Bandit Walleye Deep being the bait of choice.  One soon learns why.  

Bandit Deep Walleye in Rotten Fruit color

Although we were normally fishing in 30 - 40 feet of water, these walleyes are generally suspended off the structures and these Bandits run pretty consistent.  Therefore using one type of bait, it becomes a lot easier to remember how deep you are running the lures and which ones are hot and which ones are not!  Also these baits have a nice rattle chamber in them and as they go through the water they are constantly making noise which attracts the wallleyes.  At 70 feet of line out they are running about 15 - 17 feet deep.  This one called Rotten Fruit was responsible for the first walleye caught in the boat, the largest walleye I had ever seen and because Mark had the first line, he brought in his personal best.  This walleye looked about 32 inches but it was really only about 29 and weighed over 9 pounds.  This was our only fish for the day and even though Ben had 8 for the day, we were never very far from him and kept true to what we were told, look for clear water, look for marks on you depth finder, But with only one fish, we hadn't really developed a pattern and as we soon found out, it is important to figure out where the walleyes were staging.  We also had 4 more days to go and even if we only caught one fish, that fish was absolutely the biggest walleye I'd ever seen! We figured it would take a few days to get things dialed in and that wasn't too far from reality.

Picture of my graph with all the fish

There are two interesting twists to the Lake Erie story.  The sad aspect was that Kevin's father-in-law, Richard Myren, was in put into Hospice before we left as at the age of 89 his cancer had finally taken over.  With hospice one never knows however as we drove down on Saturday Kevin received a call that Richard had died that morning.  Kevin, Ben, Heather and Jared were looking at options but in the end decided to drive home on Tuesday as the funeral was set for Wednesday.   He left his boat and they took off early Tuesday morning, an 8 hour drive back.  The second interesting aspect was in the house next door to us were a group of guys from North Dakota doing a segment for a show called Fish Addictions.  They gave us a lot of tips including a waypoint we should checkout as they stated they had found a school over a mile in length and did really well on Blue Chrome Bandits 50 - 70 feet back.  They also left Tuesday morning so Ben got the picture of the waypoint and sent it to me.  That's a great place to end part 1 and a great place to start the next post.  Fish Addictions has a website and posted this article on their blog which really says it all!  https://www.fishaddictions.com/post/5-tips-for-erie.  And here is the Fish Additions video that they shot a couple of days before they lefthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pauhRYLOl0&list=PLkmn3I-Vc-vpDhw-tAeX6962aDaOyroa5&index=12  it's definitely worth watching.  Next week you can see how we did after meeting these guys!

Getting caught up, part 1

Steve's First Nice Walleye

Well, you'd think one would have enough time to document everything however it seems that time just flies these days.  So I have 2 fishing trips under the belt and haven't reported on wither on  of them so better later than never!  On March 12th the plan was to have my brother Steve pick up my friend Bill from California, who was staying in a hotel near the airport then meet me at the p ole shed, transfer the stuff to my truck and head to Springsteel Island on Lake of the Woods for one last ice fishing trip with the wheelhouse before bringing it home.  Bill had never stayed on the ice while fishing so this was going to be a special trip, however on Thursday, March 11 Springsteel's Facebook page announced that due to the warm weather, they were no longer allowing wheel houses on the ice.  Well, I called Steve to figure out plan B, we would bring our portables with then stay in the wheelhouse that was parked in the driveway of my friend Dave Johnsons house on the resort.  Bill was OK with this so ahead we went.  Arriving at 2:30 we meet up with Mark Mayerich and his cousin Greg and brother-in-law Gary, the news about the ice made them reserve a room in Roseau.  In the meantime my friends from Eleva, Kevin, Ben, and Jared Aiona were out on the ice already so we paid the access fee and headed out.  Unlike a month ago there was no snow on the ice except for a few thin patches.  4 miles out there was a heave starting so we stayed on the west side of that.  Finding an area where it wouldn't be so slippery we drilled 6 holes and started fishing.  It was comfortable out, some wind but we sat behind the truck.  My brother Steve got the first nice fish, a 23 inch walleye, anything over 19.5 had to be let go so down the hole it went.  We got another few fish before sunset and overall it was a nice beginning to our trip.  Driving back that night to sleep in the wheel house, the ice didn't seem too bad yet the prediction was for temperatures to be in the mid 50's on Saturday and that could really cause issues on the ice.

Ben's Nice Northern

Saturday came and we decided to fish  the same area again, about as deep as we could find without going over the heave.  It was nice out so we decided to fish outside again.  Ben and Kevin had their Ranger so they were more mobile and tried a number of different spots closer in at around 18 feet.  Being a couple miles away it wasn't too easy to see them but we did get their coordinates.  Because they were closer to shore and shallower, this set up for the possibility to catch some nice northerns as there were many ice fisherman specifically targeting northern pike.  Ben hooked into this dandy jigging for walleyes.  In the mean time we stayed in that 24 feet of water and Bill caught a dandy perch, close to 14 inches.  As well my friend Bruce Wiley had planned on flying up Saturday morning.  Dave Johnson drove a truck up that he planned to leave at his cabin so Bruce volunteered to fly him back home on Sunday.  2 hours verses 6 1/2 hours driving.   Dave and Bruce found us on the ice to see what we had.  It was nothing to brag about so Dave decided to take some walleyes out of the freezer and we would have walleye at the bar later that night.  We had a couple, Ben and Kevin had a few but with 12 in our group it was good that he had some fish that he could contribute.  The resort does a great job of making a fish fry, deep fried walleye, cole slaw, beans, and fried potatoes, a regular shore lunch.  they were very accommodating for me using my gluten free fish coating, it was a lot of fun and a good experience for my friend Bill to see how we do it in Northern Minnesota. Sunday was colder and more wind so we set up out hub houses with a heater and fished inside.  It was nice and comfortable, not that it was bad outside, in the low 40's but the wind wasn't very nice.  In the meantime Mark, Gary, and Greg, who was right next to us made lunch including chili and marinated venison chops, exceptionally good.  At about 4 we packed up and headed to where Kevin and Ben were fishing in the shallower water.  Getting set up it took about an hour then the fish turned on.  bound and determined to catch a fish on a Slab Rap, my wish finally came true as I got 5 fish on that lure.  My goal is to become more proficient with it, hoping to try this type of bait on opener at Leech Lake this year.  By sundown the  bite died almost instantly so we packed up.  the plan in the morning was to hook up and head south.  Kevin and Ben decided to fish in the morning so we did not touch base before we left.  In hindsight I think they could have let houses out as the ice seemed pretty firm and even the high temperatures on Saturday had little effect on the ice.  Oh well we had fun.  with no DirecTV we watch a movie each night, Friday was The Big White, a Robin Williams movie, Saturday was The Founder, about Ray Kroch and McDonalds, a very good movie, then Sunday was The Man  Who Shot Liberty Valence, the first movie John Wayne called anyone Pilgrim (Jimmy Steward).  We enjoyed some great wine, some very nice scotch, Bill had an experience that he'll never forget and I got my wheel house home.  Lot's accomplished!  My next couple posts will be on my latest trip to Lake Erie, very interesting.  Also I installed 4 new Lithium batteries in my boat, that is another interesting story.

February 28th, it's here already!

Sunset on Lake of the Woods

 February 28th marks one of the more interesting days of my fishing past.  In  the state of Minnesota all permanent ice houses located south of Highway 2 (which runs from Duluth to East Grand Forks) must be off the lake, period.  My CRS does not allow me the exact year however it was probably in the late 1970's or early 1980's.  My good friend Mark Taylor introduced me to his brother-in-law Tim Guzek.  He had introduced us to fishing Lake John, just west of Annandale.  I would say that it was my go to lake for many years.  Well one year Mark, Tim, Mark's brother Jack, and I decided that we would build a relatively inexpensive "permanent" ice fishing house out of simple chip board, it was pretty simple.  We all pooled our money and bought 12 pcs of 4' x 8' x 1/2 inch panels plus a few 2 x 4's and 2 x 2's for strength and build a crude but effective fish house. I don't remember who got the small barrel stove for heating it with wood but either way we were in ice fish heaven at the time, as there were no portables at the time.  We had somehow befriended a home owner on the lake who let us access the lake through his land which was very nice as our fish house was straight off his shore.  That year we had a ton of snow.  Not being smart enough to lift the house up out of the slush, it was around February 14, just 2 weeks before we needed to remove the house from the lake, when we decided to start getting ready for this event.  The rumors of what would happen if you didn't get the house off the ice ranged from revoking your fishing license to huge fines that young guys like us couldn't pay, even prison sentencing!  Upon arriving at the fish house to our horror, the entire floor had about 4 inches of ice on top of it and was frozen solid.  Now what.  Well it didn't take too long before 4 of us had the perfect solution,  went into town and bought 2 bags of water softener salt pellets.   We dumped both bags on the floor and spread them evenly thinking that the salt would eventually melt the ice and free the ice house from the lake's grip.  Of course it needed time to work so we left, coming back on the 28th to see where we were.  Opening the door we were pleasantly surprised that the ice was completely gone from the top of the floor.  this was going to be a piece of cake!  Well after chipping ice for an hour it was apparent that the ice had gripped the bottom of the floor and wasn't going to yield to our wishes.  There were a few guys in our situation, trying to get their houses off, when one walked up to us, took a look and said that he could set our house free.....just go into town and buy a box of 30-06 shells.  While we continued to chip away one of us went into town and bought the shells.  Upon returning the guy had his hunting rifle in hand as we gave him the shells.  I don't even remember if he had hearing protection, never the less went inside and proceeded to shoot the bullets through the floor, all 20 of them.  Came out and said "There you go, good luck".  The purpose made sense, the bullets would hit the ice and shatter it causing it to release it's grip on our house.  Unfortunately it didn't work as planned and with only a few hours of light left we decided to simply take apart the house piece by piece.  Having an old snowmobile trailer we piled the pieces on the trailer as we disassembled it.  At last all we had was the stuck floor.  Using ice chisels and pry bars we finally got the floor off the ice however it was not recognizable after our efforts.  Ready to go we secured our now defunct ice house, stopping in Monticello where a friend had a house an 5 acres of field, he let us drop it off as none of use really had a place to put the pile of wood.  That was our last effort in having a permanent ice house as flip over portables became readily available.  It still was pretty funny as this date brings back those struggles as young and inexperienced guys often have.  Thanks Mark, Jack, and Tim for the memories! My first picture is sunset on Lake of the Woods from 2 weeks ago.  It had to be -25F however the moon and the colors were simply stunning!

Jared's Trophy Hogfish

So the plan was to go to Lake of the Woods this weekend but a few calls about the current bite status and I decided to wait till March 12th.  Mistakenly assumed that Ben Aiona would be back from Florida by now but I was off a week and he is still there absorbing the last of the beautiful sunshine.  Ben will be back in time for our mid March trip, assuming he needs to pull his shack home, as well my wheel house.  In our talks about Florida, the idea of going out on a charter was discussed.  Ben, his wife Heather, and son Jared were scheduled for earlier this week however the weather proved to force them to move it on Friday.  I was really excited to see how Jared did as he is one dedicated fisherman!  Well to my surprise I received a number of pictures of the trip including this one of the nice Hogfish he caught.  I can just imagine the craziness on the boat when he pull this fish in sight.  Pictures say a thousand words but in this case and knowing Jared, it doesn't even come close, and the picture says a lot!!!  Apparently the captain claims this is a pretty nice sized trophy hogfish, telling Ben he should get a graphite reproduction!  In another picture Jared pulled up an octopus that he hooked.  I just can't imagine!  It looks like they got a few nice grouper, some small snappers and a number of rockfish type fish that sometimes you just never know what you'll catch.  Like a lot of gulf charters I have been on they were out 30 miles and it's still relatively shallow.  It appears to be a nice day and the waves look tame enough, it makes me want to fly down.  Anyway I am looking forward to our next trip and discussing this adventure.  Ben is planning on going to Lake Erie at the end of April and has invited us with.  It's a dream trip for me and at this time am planning to go.  We are now about 10 1/2 weeks from Fishing Opener, I am already starting to get ready.   More on that next week!

Moved to Lake Of The Woods (LOTW)

Ben's nice 26.5" Walleye

Last Friday was the time to shift gears and retrieve the Salem wheel house from it's parked location at JR's and haul it up to Springsteel Island Resort on the southwest side of LOTW's.  Knowing Ben Aiona was going up there, his dad Kevin and Kevin's friend John Felix decided to join me.  The cold weather made a point to linger into the weekend with -35F predicted for Saturday night.  Meeting me at the pole shed we left by 8:00 AM on Friday with our intent on being at JR's by 12:30.  Arriving at JR's we backed the truck up to the wheel house only to see that my propane storage doors were wide open.  Damn, someone must have gotten in and took the 2-30 pound cylinders.  Kevin got to the doors and said Oh oh!  My heart sunk but he laughed and said he was sorry!  After hooking it up and securing the doors the plan was to start the furnace and let it run the 90 minutes to Warroad.  After bidding Adam at JR's a good bye till next year, I paid the storage fee and took off.  It never got warmer than -11 F and that was near Deerwood, MN and   by the time we hooked up it was back down to -15.  Our next stop was the Warroad Cenex station to get minnows, fill up the truck, and fill up the assumed now empty propane tank.  Part of the idea to start the furnace was to get it warm but also there was still propane left in the original tank and wanted to empty it.  Everyone said I should not run the furnace while pulling the house but it seemed to work out OK.  At the Cenex they are gracious enough to only charge you for what they put in it and to my surprise it still had 5 pounds left.  That was a lot of run time on that cylinder, 2.5 days on Red and at least an hour and a half of steady running on the road.  With the propane full, the minnow bucket running, the truck full of gas we were ready for a cold adventure.  After paying the road access we called Ben who had met us 6 miles out on the road and guided us near where he was settled in.  Kevin is getting pretty good at helping to get set up and did a great job as we were fishing within 20 minutes of arriving, just in time for the evening bite.  We managed a few keepers the rest of the day however the cold weather kept the bit to a minimum.  The next day, Saturday, would prove to be more eventful.  We caught a number of nicer 15 - 16 inch saugers and walleyes while Ben, just 20 yards from us managed to bring in a nice 26.5" walleye.  It was definitely chilly out but we managed to keep more than enough fish to go in for a fish fry at the resort.  It's a pretty good deal as one gets diced fried potatoes, cole slaw, beans, and they fried my fish in the gluten free batter for me.  It was a nice change not to have to make and clean up after eating!  After a filling supper we headed back 7 miles out on the ice to turn on the television and relax for the evening.

Sunday's catch

Ben got up and left Sunday morning while our plan was to stay and leave Monday morning.  It still never got above zero with Saturday night low was -34.  By the time we got up it was already up to -28!  We stayed the rest of Sunday getting a fish here and there.  I would not say that it was on fire but it certainly was better than Red Lake was 4 weeks ago and although the numbers were not as good as fishing Lake Winnebigoshish 2 weeks earlier, the number of keepers was significantly better, as we had fairly consistent action throughout the day.  We were surprised at the clarity of the water as LOTW tends to have dingy water.  This lead to a few rattle reels going off after dark.  AT midnight on Sunday one went off and no one got up to service the line so I got out of my warm sleeping bag and found the reel that had my line marker bobber underneath the water, felt it and set the hook.  It was a nice walleye and when I got her up I was impressed, nicest one of the trip in our house.  I put it in the fish pail, reset the rattle reel and hopped back into the sleeping bag.  After about 30 seconds the thought came to me, damn that was a nice walleye, but I failed to measure it.  On LOTW all walleyes over 19.5 inches have to be released.  So, back out of the sleeping bag and over to the fish bucket, pull her out and got the measuring tape that is on the slush dipper, 21 inches, back in the hole she went.  Luckily she swam right away.  No need to get the ice house confiscated over 1.5 inches of walleye.  Again we woke up to under -20 but decided to get packed up as Keven and John had at least an 8 hour trip ahead of them.  Stopping at the Springsteel Island fish cleaning house they had made some improvements such as running water to clean up everything.  We ended up parking the Salem at my friend Dave Johnson's place at the resort, ready for the next trip.  I suppose we caught around 30 - 40 fish total with 20 keepers that we either ate or brought home.  The plan is to leave it there till the middle of March when my good friend Bill Dull from Southern California is flying up to try ice fishing.  It's too bad he didn't come this time and experience what the real cold feels like!  I am trying to arrange a big group so he will have the full feel of an ice fishing adventure in Northern Minnesota.  As a side note the road we were on is the beginning of the ice road that runs across LOTW to the Northwest Angle, an isolated part of Minnesota the is usually only accessible by going through Canada either by highways or motoring across the lake via the portion that is in the United States.  The ice road has been important for the residents of the Northwest Angle as the Covid restrictions have limited their options to return to their properties.  It's a pretty good deal as the road provides easier access to those resorts in that area for guest to get there.  Snowmobiling is an option but it limits what  you can bring.  I know last week's weather sure made ice!