Back to Red!

Our 6 walleyes for Lunch on Saturday

My friend Mark Applen decided to go with me up to Red last Friday so we headed up at 9:00 in the morning on friday and got to JR's Corner Access by 1:30.  Ice conditions have been changing on Red and although we were not allowed to pull our own houses out, JR promised he would take care of that so upon arriving we just got in line.  30 minutes later JR came in and stated that he was backed up to my house and to go hook it up!  The house has electric jacks to lift everything, which is really nice.  I put a master battery switch inside the house to shut all the power off so nobody can mess with them when I'm gone so I had to unlock my house and turn on the power in order to set the house onto his trailer hitch.  Although JR was in charge of pulling out the house, he allowed us to follow in my truck figuring we could pull it back off on Sunday.   It was nice to have that option as I have lot's of stuff for the house including my generator, food, clothes and it is sure better to not have to pull everything out with the ATV and sled that we brought up, just in case!   Mark wanted to go where he was just before Christmas and our friend Russ was parked there along with his brother.  So JR though we were in an unusual spot but come to find out it wasn't that bad.  We dropped the house on the ice in 14 feet of water, just off a rock reef and drilled through about 12 inches of ice.  it was about 3:00 by the time we got fully set up and I suppose I got my first walleye of the season by 5:00.  It was about 16.5 inches, on of the middle 2 in the picture and we were in bed by 10:00.  I have DirecTV in the ice house so we watched a number of stuff as the rattle reels kept going off, all the way till around 2:00AM before they stopped.  Mark did most of the catching and I would say we got 3 of our 6 fish limit and missed probably at least 4 walleyes before we were able to get some sleep.  By morning the wind had switched out of the northwest and the bite really shut down.

19.5 inch walleye.

We were able to bring our fish is along with Russ and have a fish dinner at JR's.  He had a couple so 8 walleyes between 6 guys, we were stuffed by the time we left.  It takes about 3 - 4 hours to complete the meal process, about an hour to ge
t in line to clean the fish and another at least 2 hours before your fish are done (at 3:00 in the afternoon).  Mark got a couple of nice walleyes as the limit on Red this year is 3 which only 1 can be over 17 inches.  We got 2 over 19 including this beautiful 19.5 inch fish.  I have to admit that we had a lot of fish to eat for sure and left JR's pretty full of walleyes, french fries, and .2 beer!  By the time we got back to the shack  it was around 4:30 and settled it felt like bed time and it was only 7:00 but that fishing takes a toll on a guy! Out by 8:00 both Mark and I had enough fun for the day.  The change in the weather really turned the fish off and we didn't get another fish the rest of the trip.  I marked them on my Vexilar but they just were't interested.  JR said it was OK if we pulled our own house off and by 8:30 Sunday morning we were ready to go.  Back at JR's we park the Salem and headed south for the 250 mile drive back home.  Admittedly it doesn't go too bad, a few gas stops and some breakfast and we were home by 1:30.    In time to put everything away and get ready for the Packer Viking game.  Uffda!!

Home Sweet Home on Red!

Anyway with below zero temperatures forecasted for Red Lake this weekend, it should finally start making some decent ice.  There is really only about 2 good weekends to go back up, the weekend of the 16th and the 30th, then my travel shedule kicks in as I have a show in February and March in California. We are trying to arrange a fishing trip for the March trip, the weekend before our conference but there's a lot of undecided locations as March fishing in California isn't that hot. Personally I don't care as I am more interested in trying something different as opposed to catching a ton of fish. The usual crowd is getting together, Joe Stanfield, Mike Schubert, Matt Davis, Jim Cox and maybe a few others. I thought I would include a picture of my house set up on Red.  I like to fly my flags and the pole has a Green blinking LED light, the flags make it easy to spot my house among the many houses and the light assists at night.  Either way when my friends come by it is easy for them to identify which house is mine!  Home Sweet Home, we have all the amenities a guy needs, food, Whiskey, a place to sleep and a TV.  By January 16th we should be able to drive wherever we want! A lot of my friends have been asking how well I am doing and to be honest not too bad.  I get tired easily but as far as my doctors go, they report that there seems to be nothing wrong with me (I'm sure some of you would argue!), which seems like good news but in reality they don't know what to treat.  Oh well, I have a number of upcoming appointments that should help answer a number of questions.  Either way I am trying to get more exercise by walking a mile every night.  Hopefully that will help my situation.