Still Waters

Friday was another successful ENA golf tournament.  Our 8th annual produced 184 golfers, a record, as well some beautiful weather to raise money for a great cause.  My job was fairly simple.........help set up the proxy holes along with the hole sponsorship signs, take pictures of each foursome as they prepared to tee off the first hole, and spend money.  I did all three very well, especially the last part winning the highest silent auction bid on an Ardent C400 Fishouflage Walleye bait casting reel.  Although I had never heard of this brand, I was assured by the donor that not only it was a good reel but my winning bid was quite bargain.  Looking it up on the Internet that night proved to be an eye opener.  Made in the USA,  the reel is a high end product worth about $230.00.  Although my winning bid was about half that, I will probably have to throw in a few extra bucks to clear my conscience!  Saturday and Sunday morning was spent tearing out all of my landscaping which is 18 years old and about 5 years past due for being replaced.  Sunday afternoon was Mille Lacs time with my neighbor Tom Olson. 

My strategy for this weeks trip was to allow Tom a chance to call the shots for the first 3 hours then transfer the decisions to myself.  Tom wanted to try for smallmouth bass so we launched at Cove Bay Landing and fished the shallow reefs on the south side of the lake.  The rather large reef at the end of the Cove Bay outlet is a great place to start.  Really any part of the lake marked by hazard buoys spell smallmouth bass.  The water was somewhat stirred up from the previous days wind however what remained was quickly dying down.  There were a few active bass chasing minnows on the surface yet they were more interested in the real thing than the menagerie of imitations we threw at them.  Seeing a number of fish cruising the bottom, a 4 inch tube proved just as uninteresting to them.  After hitting a different reef we simply gave up on the smallies as I suggested we head to Sloppy Joe's, a deep gravel bar about 2 1/2 miles off shore.  I had done pretty good on this spot a few weeks ago and it was worth a try.  Rigging up a bobber and leech it took about 5 minutes before this very nice 24 inch walleye took the float down.  With such a quick hit, I figured we hit pay dirt.  Ah, the joys of premature thinking.  Marking a ton of fish on my depth finder we only ended up with 3 more fish, all on Tom's line as I could only just sit and watch.  We kept one and released the other 2 as they were pretty small.  After trying a spot my friend Bill Lundeen was parked on, we headed to Anderson Reef to finish the night trolling Shad Raps.  Once again all I could do is sit and watch while Tom caught 2 more smallies, including this beautiful 19.5 incher as well as a nice 17.5" keeper walleye.  It's interesting that fishing 3 hours for smallmouth produced nothing yet post sunset trolling seems to be the ticket.  I have caught a surprising amount of smallies after dark, something that would have been unheard of 5 years ago.  In all it was a great time as I had not been fishing with Tom since prior to my surgery. 

We got a later start on Sunday as Tom's son had scheduled a phone call to him from Afghanistan.  A Captain in the Air Force, he is in charge of building infrastructure such as schools and roads.  It is a dangerous job, one that has Tom isn't particularly fond of yet he is tremendously proud of him and all the men serving in harms way.  Sending pictures of our weekend trip  to him was a nice finish to another successful fishing trip. This was the third time in a row that I had glass like conditions on Mille Lacs, a tough situation when everyone is saying that the bite is hot when the wind blows.   I leave you with another picture of the gorgeous sunsets on Mille Lacs.  Like snowflakes they are all unique and represent a welcome finish to a wonderful day.  It truly is a beautiful world.