This waiting for ice is Killing me!

Mark's Red Lake catch

Well my friend Mark made it to Red Lake last friday and it turned out to be quite an adventure.  I would have gone with him however I had some tests scheduled, I get to that later.  Mark left Thursday night an ended up staying in Deer River in his wheel house because of the weather and arrived at JR's Friday morning.  The first thing he did was bury his wheel house in the mud, enough to have to be pulled out by a cat.  Uffda, that didn't sound like fun.  He did do pretty well although they were relegated to walking out on the ice as it wasn't safe enough to drive.  They walked out about a mile and really got into them, here is Mark, Russ, and Randy's supper for Saturday night.  Apparently the ice was 6 inches thick and where they drilled they caught fish. Back at JR's they had them for supper and came home on Sunday.  Both Mark, I, my brother Steve and a friend from Chippewa Falls are heading up on Friday, I talked to JR and they should be allowing ATV's to run on the ice, much nicer traveling although we still need to stay on shore.  I am looking forward to getting out on the ice, normally by December 1 Red Lake is frozen enough to drive on but not this year.  Oh well haven't shovelled any snow yet either so it isn't all bad.  Mark was using his Electric Auger with a quick coupler I had got him unfortunately the coupler came uncoupled and the entire auger drill when right down the hole to the bottom.  I rigged a powerful magnet to see if we can find and retrieve it, that would be real sweet if it happens.  I am looking forward to a fresh walleye dinner at JR's soon as he really does fish nice.  Go catch them and bring them into his bar/restaurant to clean them, give them to him and for $5 a person he will deep fry them for you.  With a boxful of french fries, you can't go wrong! Hopefully I'll have better stories about me fishing next week than having to rely on my other experiences or someone else's fishing adventures!

An 8 inch needle into my spinal cord

As stated Friday was test day for me and I had a TEE (trans esophageal echo) which is an echo cardiogram taken from down your throat and then at 2:00 I had a Lumbar puncture which they use to refer it as a spinal tap.  Either way neither was too much fun although they put you under before the shove this huge probe down your throat, and the spinal tap...........well just say that I'm no looking forward to any more of those!  Uffda!  The worse thing was the novacaine that they injected into my spine before the put the 8 inch needle in. As my title indicates, waiting for fishable ice is still more painful but this came close!  I got the test results and they don't look too bad. Admittedly my doctors have been pretty good although one made a referral for me and they called me notifying me of an appointment they set up for me, Oct 18th.  I asked what year? They didn't think that was too funny however I didn't think the earliest one could get in was in 10 months, too funny either!  I would like to thank everyone who has sent their well wishes and of course all of the prayer's that my friends have said for me, it's truly appreciated.  I am doing really well and I have great care between my wife, doctors, and friends plus I have a  lot of fishing to do yet, two months of ice fishing,  I just got the invitation to Leech Lake for Minnesota opener and we are already talking about Canadian opener at Lac Suel as well a trip next December fishing grouper in Naples Florida. Geez, I am just learning how to fish out of my new boat!  Oh well, I am lucky to have such a great support system.  Here's hoping we get some fish.