Drought Continues

Rainbow Trout Sculpture

August and now the first part of September finds both myself and the weather in drought conditions.  For the weather, it has stopped raining over 6 weeks ago and everything is getting burnt to a crisp.  One travels 60 miles north of here and it's a completely different story.  It seems like the moisture Gods have chosen Minnesota Highway 23 as their punishment line for all of us in the Minneapolis Metropolitan Area.  Even the trees have begun to shed their leaves in an attempt to conserve what little moisture there is.  With the latest heat wave pushing the air conditioner to it's limit added to the constant watering around the house, it seems like I am single handedly supporting Excel Energy's executive salaries each month.  The hot and dry weather did little to spoil our 24th annual Kramer Open Sporting Clays shoot at Wild Marsh Gun Club.  Dave Kramer hosts this event as a fund raiser for the family of a good friend that passed away as many years ago.  My friend Tom Emmons had gotten me involved as it was something we enjoyed together every year.  It was the Kramer Open that forced me to buy a nice Browning Citori over/under, a terrible thing to spend money on, as I really needed to compete with my friend Tom, who was a very good shot.  Although Tom isn't with us these days, I have made a lot of friends at the Kramer and it was great to see them all again.  After hitting 83 out of 100 birds the program included heading back to Dave's house for a meal, beer, and the infamous "Crap Auction".  I scored big!  Between the auction and drawings I ended up with a Kurakyn Grand Tour bag, worth about $200, for $50.  Second item was a Ducks Unlimited Rainbow Trout Sculpture, a great addition to my office, a very nice piece.  A nice pocket knife rounded out my total take, some very nice items and the money went to a great cause.

Lac Seul, Ontario

With my upcoming trip to Lac Seul with Pete Next Wednesday I have been busy getting ready for the next adventure.  Sunday I met Paul Wenaas at the Rogers MN Cabela's for some marked up maps of the area we are fishing.  It was good to see him as we don't get together as much as we should.  Not that I don't trust Pete on the great spots to fish but doing a little research never hurts.  His best advice was to use gold colored jig heads and mono line is much easier to break the line when the jig gets snagged, both confirmed by Pete later in the week.  His best this spring broke the 30 inch mark and I got the location! The lake is over 150 miles long, is a reservoir with  the water flowing to the west, I guess we fish in this current where the walleyes stack up.  The refreshment of choice is Crown Royal, I got to practice a little bit with my friend Rick Shermer, as stated it never hurts to be prepared.  We leave at 5:00 on Wednesday morning and been told that the resort has internet, maybe I can post from there. 

My fishing drought continues as I really haven't been that successful in the last 5 weeks.  Writing this in Denver, they are at the other extreme, 6 - 10 inches of rain that has already fallen in the foothills of Boulder and the surrounding area.  There are flash flood warnings running across the television screen, the cell phone keeps going off with public service announcements, and the customer I was calling on closed early as the water was rushing through their parking lot like a river.  Calling it a 100 year flood, it's pretty much a mess anywhere you go that has a river running out of the front range to the east.  Whereas rain in Dayton would be absorbed very quickly, here in Colorado the soil is mostly clay and the water simply just runs off.  Here's hoping I can get home tomorrow.  With my class reunion on Saturday, fishing will just have to wait till Thursday.  Here's hoping all those stories are true.