Finally........Back on the River

Evening on the River

This is the time of the year I usually get my jon boat ready to go and head to fish the Mississippi River behind my house.  the neighbor has an adequate boat launch and is kind enough to let me use, which is very convenient.   This year I had some things to accomplish before heading out.  I had a HDS7 that I used on the boat however I had sold it to my friend Bruce Wiley last September.  during that last trip on the river I floated into a rock that busted my transducer off the bracket and rendered it useless.  Besides replacing the transducer I noticed last Sunday that the battery on my Polaris Razor was dead so I hooked up a charger to it in hopes that it would fix the issue.  Figuring I'd try to get out on Monday and I need the Razor to pull the boat to the landing, it still wouldn't start.  A quick feel of the battery and I was hot, the battery is cooked.  I noticed that the date engraved on the top was 8-1-15, a year and 7 days ago.  The warranty has a 12 month free replacement, crap.  Pulling it out of the vehicle and putting the battery in a pail of cold water, I headed to Fleet Farm to beg for mercy.  So much for my plan to get out Monday night.  Arriving at Fleet Farm I was directed to the back of the store in the automotive section.  There I was greeted by a young man who was just wrapping up another deal, the guy asked what he could help me with.  I looked at him and said "You want to hear my sob story?" to which he replied, "do I need to take notes?"  We both laughed as I explained the events of the last week.  I acknowledged that I understand I don't have a leg to stand on however in the end he gave me a full adjustment!  One does win some every once in a while!  Saving me over $100 I headed home and ut the battery in, it worked as the Razor fired right up.  Being too late I decided that fishing would have to wait till tomorrow night.  On Tuesday I cleaned up everything and pulled the boat out, hooked it up to the Razor and withing 15 minutes I was on the water.  Unfortunately when launching I let the winch handle fly and smack me right across my left hand, I was getting to believe it had broke a few bones in my hand.  Heading up river I had about 90 minutes to fish so I decided to head up to the Stevens Farm area and drift down.  The river is still higher than normal however it did make for nice fishing as the water was right up to the bank and flowing well.  On my second cast I had a smallie but it got off right away.  After getting a pretty good birds nest in the reel I was using I switch rods and it was much stiffer and easier to control the lure placement.  I did get hung up a few times and one of those times the lure was just sitting on the surface, a big bass took a swipe at it and missed.  I kept having trouble with my snap at the end of the line opening up, it had a double locking feature as well but at least 4 times my lure fell off and I had to retrieve it, luckily the lure floats.  Eventually I ended up biting off the snap and tieing the lure directly to the line.  Without lights on the boat and it was getting dark I decided to head back with my mission accomplished, get the boat out and make sure everything worked.  The only thing I caught was this nice picture of the sunset looking up river.  It was very peaceful as the river is interesting and fun to be on.  I drifted past a tree that had wild turkey's just roosting on the high branches.   Fish seemed everywhere as they were surfacing, maybe they were just carp but it still is a lot of fun.  In the next 4 weeks I suspect that there will be more trips, now that I have everything running!

Sunset on Round Lake, MN

Last Saturday my wife and I headed north to Round Lake by Garrison Minnesota to help my friend Bruce celebrate his 60th birthday.  It really felt like a reunion of all the guys I have been to Canada with including Pete, Dan, Wayne, Tom and Bruce's father -in-law and brother-in-law as well as his 2 boys.  It was a gorgeous night, not too hot and the lake is quite beautiful.  Bruce decided to get the pontoon started and we all took a very leisurely cruise around the lake where like where I do a lot, snapped this picture of the sunset.  This picture is a great example of the proper way to take a picture of stuff like this, divide your scene into thirds.  Here you see I put the horizon on the bottom "third" line of the picture and then the remnants of the sun on the right third, where it intersects the bottom.  I think that following thee guidelines give much better depth to the scene as well as balance.  OK, it's fishing with Dave, not picture taking with Dave but as you see since June's trip to Lac Seul, it's been pretty light on the catching side.  That will change hopefully as I plan on hitting the river pretty hard in the next 3 weeks and it's a fairly easy task as it takes me about 5 minutes to get the boat in the River and the bite should be pretty good.

The countdown to Lac Seul is happening as one of the things I gave Bruce for his birthday was some Berkley Powerbait Walleye twister tail grubs and the appropriate jig heads.  He claims to want to learn how to fish plastics but in reality it's pretty easy up there as the fish are plentiful and hungry.  Next Friday Lory Brasel and I are once again invited up to BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) for an afternoon of relaxation and enjoying the NHRA sanctioned event.  Our friend Kevin Sonsalla does some work for Tony Schumacher and we get to ride along on his tails!  It is pretty awesome to watch them rebuild the cars before each race then see them go 1000 feet in 5 seconds, getting to over 300 mph.   Along with this we will definitely get to see my neighbor Tim who is frantically getting his school bus converted to an RV for the week, I have to admit, it looks pretty nice.