Charlie's Back



Charlie in fine form, a 26" fish and a 6 inch cigar!



The first week in August usually means a call from my good friend Charles Teasley.  I meet Chuck almost 33 years ago when we lived in the same apartment building in Osseo, MN.  He was a young banker with Northwestern National Bank, in the Osseo Branch and I was just starting my career designing transformers.  From Duluth, he transferred down from the Silver Bay Branch in an effort to advance his career.  Being the same age, we spent a lot of time fishing together, hanging out, talking smart and being stupid.  Eventually Charlie met a young lady lawyer named Carla, fell in love, got married and moved back to Duluth.  In the meantime he had a one year old Lund Pro Angler with a 50 hp Mercury tiller he needed to get rid of and naturally I was in need of the same boat.  I sold my Lund S14 Deluxe and made my first significant move to a "real" fishing boat.  In the mean time Charlie bought a new Lund Nisswa guide with the now Classic 50 Merc tiller (now rated at 45 hp).  A  beautiful boat, it was

Chuck and Dan

Lund's only fiberglass boat among their famous aluminum line up.  2 years later Carla was transferred to Florida and once again Charlie was in need of a different boat as he did not want to take it south with him.  Darn, another opportunity to move up and I sold his old Pro Angler and bought the Nisswa, my first introduction to fiberglass, one that I have never looked back.  In August Carla's family meets in Alexandria MN to spend a week long family event.  By the middle of the week Charlie needs a real fishing experience, a day on Mille Lacs.  We have missed a few years where our timing didn't work, and last year he was rushed to the hospital with a 106 fever, so it was great to get back together.  More often than not we can get his friend Daniel Hoene to spend the day with us as well.  Dan was a high school buddy of Chuck's who is an excellent hockey player where he spent 4 years playing for the University of Michigan, one of the top programs in Division 1 hockey.  Dan is a great guy, very successful, and a lot of fun to be with.  Chuck and I love to leverage our "redneck" roots with Dan, sometimes we get over the top but he takes it pretty well.  Dan himself is an accomplished fisherman having fished all over the place including a trip into an outpost in Canada coming up in a few weeks.  I loaded him up with some special jig heads that should be perfect for his presentation. 



I finally caught one!



Both Chuck and Dan met me at the pole barn on Tuesday afternoon and after loading up with gas, ice, and refreshments we headed north to spend the night at my friend, Mark Applen's little paradise at the Fisherman's Wharf on the east side.  Getting the latest scoop from Bill we headed over and settled into a relaxing evening of chicken wings, ice cold beer, and a gourmet cigar compliments of Dan.  With the full moon gracing our presence, we stayed up long enough to know it wasn't going to be an early evening.  The wind blew pretty hard all night which usually isn't a good sign for the next day.  We woke up to a fierce south wind with 4 foot rollers hitting the shore.  Our plan was to fish the west side where the wind would be much kinder to us.  Breakfast in Isle, a stop at Bill's to get the final word plus some leeches and crawlers, we launched north of the Casino as I went back to a routine that had proven successful for the last 2 months.  First stop, Sherman's where they have still been catching fish.  We trolled with my 3 ways and crawlers but only hooked one nice walleye in an hour.  With the wind blowing hard I decided to get out the lead line and planar boards and troll no man's land, the flat basins between the flats.  The fish weren't jumping in the boat but we did manage to land 12 walleyes, a couple on a reef runner, and the rest on a #5 Rapala Flat Rap.  We ended the day back on Sherman's to do a little bobber fishing when Chuck landed the 26 inch walleye pictured.  For me, I did more work assuring these two go fish than actually catching on my own (good story, don't you thin!) and only ended up with 1 walleye.  All in all it was a pretty good day for the first of August, we had a great time and I look forward to our trip next year, God willing of course!

Alaska is coming up fast and it's tripping up my blog post schedule.  I will tell you more about our trip plans next week, hopefully before I leave.  I am pretty excited to say the least as there has been a lot of issues on the Kenai River this year that is affecting our trip.  Stay tuned!  And last but not least, yesterday was the one year anniversary of my father's passing.  Love you dad!