Merry Christmas....

From Matt, my friend and fishing buddy!

With Christmas falling on a Friday and the ice conditions still iffy in northern Minnesota, I decided to go to my Mom's Christmas Eve and our niece wanted to get together on Saturday to see her as it's been a while and she has 2 beautiful kids, Kaylee and Zack, it gave us a chance to run back down to Eleva and see Kevin who like clockwork had Lefse for Lyn and I, his Christmas gift to us (The best ever).  We did watch the Packer/Arizona game at his house, not a very good game but it's tough to lose any sleep over it.  In the meantime my friend Mark went back up to Red Lake on Saturday and is expected to come home on Wednesday night, in time for New Years.  I have been coughing terribly and  maybe will wait to Friday to go back up to Red, we will have to see who wants to go with me. I did call Mark on Tuesday morning and he claims that they are making ice fast with at least 11 inches and the fishing has been good.   Certainly am getting anxious to go!  I did decide to come into work today (Tuesday Dec 29th) and to my surprise my friend and fishing buddy Matt Davis sent me a Christmas Present, a commemorative bottle of my favorite whiskey in the world TX number 2713,  along with some glasses for my ice house, a hat, T Shirt that says basically Texas Made.  WOW do I have good friends or what!!! first Lefsa and now TX.  I am not sure a guy could ask for anything more for Christmas, that's for sure!!!  Just having friends like Matt Davis, or Joe Stanfield is more than anyone could wish for or want! I am going to get them both up ice fishing some day, as I know they'll never experience this kind of fishing in Texas.  Although I enjoyed Red fishing in March much better in Louisiana than sitting on the cold ice, you have to play the cards your dealt and having the Salem Ice Cabin stocked with TX is almost as good!

Ezee Steps on a Ranger

This week I ordered my Ezee steps for my Ranger Boat.  This new boat I have is quite a bit larger than my old 620T and takes more finesse to get it properly loaded onto the trailer.   It is too heavy to simply pull up that last 4 inches and you have to make sure you drive it on until it hits the front bow support.  Then it takes some acrobatics to get off the bow and onto the trailer to hook the winch rope and snugg it up while there is still some floating going on.  Well Last July I loaded the boat then went over the bow onto the step that is on the winch post but somehow slipped and fell back first onto the ramp.  Luckily I fell towards the water side and hit a foot of water to break my fall instead of breaking my back.  It spooked me and made me much more careful however I ran across these Ezee steps and after looking at the videos and testimonials I decided that I'm not gettting any younger and ordered a set.  It was quite the ordeal for sure as the owner of Ezee Steps, Mark actually called me to make sure I got all the right dimensions needed for a proper fit.  He was really thorough and impressed me. Because of the fact that the water will be hard for at least 3 more months I told him I wasn't in any particular hurry but he insisted that I would have them by February.  Getting old isn't so bad if you have the right stuff!  These should really help getting in and out of the boat safely.

My friend Mark is at Red Lake and claims he has been doing really good.  Today he decided to go trout fishing on the Red Lake Reservation on a guided trip.  I am anxious to see how that goes as he wants the trout for pickling.  Mark makes by far the best home made pickled fish I have ever had and I gave him some trout that Bill and I had gotten this fall to pickle and boy, did they turn out fabulous!!  Anyway he said that he might be willing to go with me to Red Lake on Friday, which sounded great.  He will be home on Wednesday and we should have everything resolved by then as I am getting anxious to get out.  Apparently you still can't drive on Red Lake but JR claims to be ready to take care of us!