Uffda, What Just Happened the Last Week!

An appropriate Farewell

The last few weeks have been crazy busy.  The largest challenge was that on Friday, May 31st, I officially retired.  After 43 1/2 years in the business it finally came to an end.  It is sort of bittersweet but as we all know life marches on regardless what we think. one thing that is for certain, I was blessed with some of the greatest employee and they insisted on holding a retirement party for me in the lunch room with fishing as the main theme.  Apparently after all this time it is pretty hard to hide your passion, I suppose having all those mounted fish on the walls was a dead give away!  It was great, I walked into work and immediately noticed everyone was wearing black mustaches!  In my younger days my mustache was quite dark so they did a tribute to me by imitation, which is said is the best tribute.  They catered Famous Dave's for lunch and had made this huge card, a caricature of myself on the front a with everyone signing inside.  Of course I had to make a speech and usually I am pretty good at this however it was hard not to break down.  Some of these people have been with me for well over 25 years, work did become my second family.  Know this day would come about a year ago, I prepared myself for the inevitable.  Convincing myself that it is just like graduating from High School, you can't stay there forever, time to move on, all those people, well one may never see them again, that's just part of life. Of course everyone thinks that I am retired, there is something missing in my life now..........quite contraire!!! Because of the cold spring I finished the last of planting the garden this weekend.  Friday was our 17th Annual (and last) ENA Charity golf tournament, which I was fortunate enough to purchase a half day guided bass fishing trip on Lake Minnetonka, something I bought for Mark Applen and myself to enjoy.  The house needs a good power wash, the weeds are thick this year, the shed needs to be cleaned out, hopefully just in time to see my boat fully repaired!  Speaking of the boat, there was a week delay in the handling of the paper work but it finally got done.  Last Thursday was the day to get the oil changed on my truck.  Dropping it off at Pete's, I called Bruce to see if I could buy him lunch.  He agreed if he could

Goher trap

pick the place and without any transportation there wasn't much choice.  He picked me up, drove to his hanger at Crystal Airport then we took off and had lunch at the restaurant at the Eau Claire Airport, Hanger 54.  It was quite good and as well an interesting 3 hours.  Wednesday was spent in New York Mills at the funeral of my friend Lory Brasel's brother Lyle.  It was very nice and we had a great time after at Lory's homestead where he grew up.  New York Mills reminds me a lot like Eleva, a small town, farming community that sticks together.   While walking through the barn there was about 50 of these wire type pocket gopher traps which reminded me of of over 50 years ago when I trapped gophers with these traps.  Apparently Lyle, Lory's brother did a lot of trapping for his fellow farmer friends.  Seeing all the old equipment and tractors put a smile on my face.  He even had a Massey Ferguson 35, the tractor that is almost just like mine, it is the same thing except the name reflects the evolution from Massey Harris, Massey Harris Ferguson, to Massey Ferguson.  I promised Lory I'd give him some operating instructions!

Steve's Friend with a 49" Muskie

So my brother Steve ended up going to Lac Seul last week with some guys from LaCrosse.  They did a fly in to one of Anderson's outpost camps just northeast of where we stay, in Pickerel Narrows.  This is probably 8 miles from Lac Seul Outposts and because it was a fly in they used the camp boats.  The discussion about lower units came up and the camp doesn't provide depth finders but does tell you that if you ruin a lower unit it's $2200.  He sent me this picture of a nice 49 inch muskie as well stated they caught a 51 and Steve had one clamp onto his walleye for about a minute.  Often north of camp is noted for their muskie fishing but honestly in 6 years of going and fishing that area myself or anyone else I know has caught one of these.  Asking "Were you fishing for them then?" the answer was nope, all caught while fishing for walleyes.  Interesting for sure.  Oh well, it was definitely a nice addition to the trip.  Speaking of Lac Seul I got invited to go this Friday back up for a few days.  Last week the insurance information for my lower unit was resolved so we will see if it will be done by Thursday.  It would be nice but not having it, we'll just get a boat from the resort.  All my tackle is in the boat so the plan is to drive up and get an idea of when it will be done...........just one more thing to do!  Hopefully it works out well as it could be a good report for next week!  Another note, I did arrange for my Friend Paul Wenaas to get my Lorwance HDS Carbon for his houseboat trip that he is on right now, he is parked just south of Chamberlain Narrows.  Our conversation was mostly around where I hit the rock so I gave him all the details.  Maybe I will get to see him on his way home!