Happy Thanksgiving!

Nice walleye from Kieth

Thanksgiving is finally here and it will be the first that I will be without either parents.  The old house in Eleva is sold so where we have celebrated for the last 50 years is no longer in the picture.  As the old saying goes, nothing ever stays the same and definitely is a true statement.  Although most of the small lakes are ice covered the weather has turned somewhat mild in the last few days and the hard freeze of an inch a day will not return until Monday.  This is OK as after going to Eau Claire to have Thanksgiving with my wife's uncle Andrew and his family, Friday and saturday look to be relatively nice out, enough to get the boat cleaned up for it's voyage to Frankie's and get some last minute warranty work done before the spring rush.  My good friend Bruce has offered me a space in one of his heated rental units where he keeps his boat and I am definitely going to take advantage of his generous offer.  I need to work on my electronics before next year's opener and this will give me an excellent opportunity to take care of that.  The mild weather on Friday will also give me a chance to pull off my mower deck and mount the snowblower and cab.  Not a job I am looking forward to, never the less it needs to be done.  My friend Kieth is back from Alaska for his winter getaway in Brainerd!  His home is on North Long Lake and the early ice has him out fishing.  This afternoon he sent me a picture of his first walleye through the ice, not bad!!!  Makes me want to head north yet the next two weeks has me quite busy.  I know that my other friends Russ and Mark may be heading to Red to walk out for the first years fishing, probably leaving their wheel houses up at JR's.  Speaking of wheel houses our illustrious Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has decided that a Portable Ice House on wheels are no longer classified as portable therefore you need an Ice House License even if you just pull it out for the day and remove it from the ice at night.  Interesting because you did not haven't had to do this for the last 5 years and the fact is that this announcement was on Monday, 10 days before the "winter" season begins.  See the announcement HERE.  I guess I really don't expect any better for our Minnesota DNR....It's all about the money.  I have informed all of my friends that own wheel houses of this new requirement and I even called my friend Bill Lundeen to see if he can sell me one.  Yes, he has them, they are just the standard shelter license.

December 1 - 3

Monday will start a frantic week with as stated, dropping my boat off at Frankie's.  Although it seems that this boat has had more issues, which is true, it has more stuff.  I seldom had to bring my 2 previous Rangers back to the shop but I really don't mind as I enjoy seeing Frankie, Deb, Lisa, and Joe, they really take care of me well! On Wednesday of next week I fly to Scottsdale, Arizona for a 3 day convention of The Transformer Association.  It is a group of transformer manufacturers and suppliers and we discuss industry trends, the future, and learn about a number of new things.  Last year the meeting was in Naples so a bunch of us usually try to go fishing afterwards.  There is not much water in Arizona so hopefully I will get back in time to attend the St. Paul Ice Fishing Show which usually falls on the same weekend as our conference (This year it's December 1 - 3).  It's a pretty good show with a lot of good products and information but to be quite honest, I'd rather be pulling grouper out of the Gulf of Mexico like we did last year in Naples Florida. I do enjoy the conference however, even if it is with my competitors, they are truly my friends.   With my hectic schedule it looks as though I may be able to pull up the wheel house to JR's at Red Lake around December 8th,  there should be enough ice to drive on the lake by then, at least according to Intellicast!  I already have purchased some wild rice for my friend JR who really likes the stuff and keeps him smiling that he will have this year's harvest.  The fishing reports published about  Red Lake from the guys walking out to the first break are pretty good as the water clarity is stated to be around 28 inches which is excellent for this time of year.  Red Lake is quite windblown and the water get's pretty stirred up just before ice over.  Of course the clearer the water, the better the walleye bite on Red.   Have a great Thanksgiving and hopefully I will get a chance to post from Scottsdale, or at least while I am waiting for a plane somewhere!