Back in Business

Finally! Working till noon on Saturday I headed to Chisago City and picked up my boat at Frankies. Although the hood was not in yet, she would run just as fine with the damaged old cover. Arriving home the first thing I needed to do was getting her looking respectable again. Vacuuming out 2 1/2 weeks of tree seed accumulation, washing off the rain dirt, and getting the road film off with Armor All she looked like new. My Ranger is a 2001 model. I take much pride in taking care of my boat as it usually pays off dividends when it's time to upgrade. I had arranged to head to Mille Lacs on Sunday with my friend and neighbor Lory Brasel. We also were asked to provide a test drive for a gentlemen who met us at the landing to take a short ride.

Before we went out on Sunday I agreed to help Lory take his boat out for a test run. In order to minimize our time we went to Diamond Lake. Lory's boat is a mid 1990 Lund 1800 Pro V with a 110 HP Johnson 90 degree V engine. Diamond Lake is located on the western edge of Dayton and is a small shallow prairie type lake. Being surrounded by farm country, the water is clear yet clumps of bright green algae has taken over the majority of the water volume. On the northwest end of the lake we were surprised to see a rather large flock of white pelicans taking residence on a small island. I estimate there were over 50 of them. I have seen them migrating through in the spring with a stop over yet this is the first time they have hung around. They are magnificent birds and a fascinating to watch.

We finally turned our attention to the north and headed in that direction. The day was absolutely beautiful with the lake being as smooth as glass. I had a typical strategy for this time of year; hit the 16 foot hump by Sherman's Point, head to the flats with a stop at the Cut and 7 mile. I marked a ton of fish on the rocks but no takers. The Cut prove just as productive and a complete circle around 7 mile produce just a few marks on the graph, but that was it. I decided to head back to the rocks and we nailed a smallie (pretty odd for this deep, this time of year). Heading south we went to Rolland's Flat, stopped at Rainbow Island an casted for smallies, ran to a deep gravel spot for another fruitless half hour of crawler drowning before finishing up with a few trolling runs up and down Indian Point. Not for lack of effort, we ended the day with 4 smallies and 2 walleyes pushing 11 inches each. Although fishing was not the greatest, it was a relief to finally get out.

This time of year reminds me of 2002 when the walleyes were going crazy. My nephew Kevin, stopped by work yesterday on his way to a job interview. In 2002 we teamed up on Mille Lacs to put on a walleye catching demonstration. The walleyes were hitting anything from crawlers, plastic worms, leeches and I suspect bare hooks if we tried long enough. Between Kevin and I we caught 55 walleyes that day, my personal best on Mille Lacs. I am hoping that Kevin gets the job as it will give me another great fishing partner. He has been to Alaska a couple of times with his dad (my brother Steve) and myself provide us with the pleasure of seeing a young man experience something we had to wait 45 years for.