Getting Caught Up

Kou's huge 45" northern pike

After a hectic fishing schedule for both the Minnesota Fishing Opener and then immediately off to Lac Seul, it's been time to get caught up on a lot of things around the house.  Besides, the weather has not been very good with wind and rain so I don't feel too bad.  Of course that doesn't stop anyone else from fishing and one of the things I really enjoy is when one of our employees comes up and shares one of their fishing experiences, I am fortunate that they feel comfortable doing that. Last week one of the gentlemen, Kou (pronounced Koo) that works on our manufacturing floor stopped by to show me a picture of a huge 45 inch northern he caught on Devil's Lake, North Dakota.  What a beautiful fish!  Definitely worth posting on my blog seeings I didn't catch anything last week! A lot of the guys that work on our floor are great fisherman and one of these days we need to have an informal contest, maybe fishing rough fish on the river.  Kou caught this while fishing from shore by a submerged road.  Using sucker minnows and a bobber, it proves that you don't need a boat to get the big ones!  It also is a good reminder that I need to get out and fish Devil's Lake this year, maybe in July when we normally go out to Oahe, it would be a great change in pace. I checked the water levels at Devil's lake and it looks like it is down almost 4 feet from it's peak.  I do remember going out ice fishing one year, maybe 10 years ago or so and the lake had come up enough to flood into Stump Lake.  Stump Lake was previously so salty that only brine shrimp would live in it's waters however the influx of fresh water from the rising levels of Devil's lake made it habitable for perch, and we really hammered them.  I remember fishing next to trees sticking out of the ice with heron's nest within reach.  That was pretty incredible.

High Water in Austin Texas and Unwelcomed Guests

So getting caught up means a lot of things, getting the boat cleaned from the last trip, planting the garden, and helping my brother Steve, which is what I did on Saturday.  To date everything is planted and coming up.  The potatoes are growing like crazy but so are the potato bugs.  We are going to have a bumper crop of raspberries this year as the plants are loaded with them and the bees have been doing their job.  I sent my old Lowrance Sonic Hub to Steve and he was having a hard time getting it working so I had the opportunity to be in the area on Saturday and decided to drive down to Onalaska and get it working.  Upon arriving at his house, he had the boat in the garage, ready to be worked on.  I was concerned about the NMEA 2000 network and how it was being powered however we ended up assuming a certain way would work, which it did.  After 2 hours of looking at it I noticed there was a fuse missing.  A quick trip to the automotive store for 15A mini fuses and once installed, VOILA, music!!!  I connected my extra Ipod and we were in business.  We had everything simply laid out on the floor and Steve would put it all together another day.  In addition to the sound system I fixed his 24 volt battery setup for his trolling motor, which was really hosed up.  I guess this is what brothers are for!  I did get a picture from a friend of mine in Austin, Texas where they've had a crazy amount of rain this spring.  2 years ago the reservoir, Lake Travis, was down 70 feet below normal. Now the lake is flooding many of the houses around it.  He sent me this picture of a boat docked at the lake with the back end full of Water Moccasins, a poisonous water snake that luckily doesn't survive our winters!  That certainly doesn't look like an appropriate welcoming committee!  With a little luck I would like to get to Mille Lacs this weekend as the fishing reports have been outstanding and no one is on the lake because of the stupid regulations.  Hopefully the weather will decide to cooperate as this is prime time for sure!