Fishing With Charlie

$59.95, 16 ounce musky bait

This thing called retirement, one truly has to wonder where you found the time to do everything while still working!  On the other hand there is no more excuses why you can't do anything.  On Sunday, July 21st we where invited to a memorial service for our good friend Chuck Teasley's wife Karla who passed away a few weeks ago from cancer.  Charlie has been a long time friend and met him in the early 80's while we lived in Osseo, MN.  He was a banker for Northwestern National Bank, which became Norwest, and is now Wells Fargo.  We had a lot of the same interests including fishing.  Eventually he moved out of the apartment building but we stayed in touch.  Deciding to move back to Duluth he sold his 1984 Lund Pro Angler to me and bought a 1986 Lund Nisswa Guide, a fiberglass tiller.  Chuck got married to Karla, who did work for Minnesota Power, a utility company in Duluth, MN.  Eventually she got transferred to on of their companies in Orlando, so Charlie decided that the Nisswa Guide boat was not going to work in Florida so I ended up buying that.  We kept in touch the entire time as Charlie and his now family would spend a week every July at Mount Carmel Ministries in Alexandria, MN and we usually found time to spend a nice day of fishing on Mille Lacs.  The memorial service was at Mount Carmel and after a day of remembrance, it was decided that I'd bring my boat back up on Monday and stay with Charlie the night and fish Muskies on Tuesday.  Charlie lives in Glen Carbon, Illinois just east of St. Louis, Missouri where Karla was last relocated.  There all his good stuff including an impressive collection of Musky fishing equipment was stolen.  On his way to Alexandria he called and asked where the best place to buy musky equipment in the cities, as he had an insurance check.  Thorne Brothers of course!  Meeting him on Saturday he had his daughter Morgan with him and I am sure he made the store's day with walking out with about $2000 worth of new baits, rod/reel, tackle box, you name it.  Arriving on Monday we decided to fish Lake Miltona, a known musky lake 5 miles from us.  All these lakes in the Alexandria area have zebra mussels and are incredibly clear.  Arriving at the landing which wasn't very good, we finally got out and surveyed the area.  A sunken island topping out at around 8 - 10 feet surrounded by deeper water looked to be a great place to start and with the wind blowing gently across it, a perfect place to start

Not huge but the action was great

casting.  These new musky baits are quite interesting and some can be very heavy, which is why I don't fish them much, getting too old and it's hard on one's self.  Never the less we drifted across the area, me throwing a large Mepp's and Charlie throwing literally the kitchen sink.  He had a nice follow but failed to get a hook up.  On one cast he lifted his line up only to see his $60 Beaver tail bait slide to the bottom, the clasp had either come unhooked or something.  It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, oh well with the wind it was lost forever!  To be honest it wasn't the perfect day for muskies anyway, a bright sky, cold front had just passed through, crystal clear water, we decided to head to the calmer side of the lake and fish for bass along the reeds.  Admittedly since my time in Texas with my friends Matt and Joe, wacky worming for bass has found a place in my strategies.  The reed beds were well developed on the west end of the lake and the wind was perfect for following the edges.  We'd land our plastic worms right at the edge and if there was a bass it would slam the lure and take off with it.  Within 5 casts we had our first bass.  Not big but a lot better then watching our big baits come back to the boat empty!  Wacky worming is a lot of fun.  The worm is hooked in the middle and with no weight it slowly falls in the weeds.  Even with slack in the line you can still feel the hit, often you see the line heading off across the water.  Ending the day with over 15 bass it turned out to be an interesting day on the water.  Deciding that I didn't like the landing, Charlie drove my truck to the east side landing which was much deeper and easier to load onto the trailer.  A quick bite to eat at a bar in Miltona then on to Carlos Creek Winery and see if it is possible to pick up a wine club order, no it's too early however we did end up getting some wine anyway.  Back to camp, it was decided that because we have a lot of lost time to make up for, I would stay the night and fish a half a day on Wednesday.  Mount Carmel is on Lake Carlos so we stayed there as there are 4 lakes accessible from Lake Carlos.  In the morning we attended another service at the chapel before heading out.  These lakes are crazy, full of structure and clear.  Even in 5 feet of water it seemed as though one would hit bottom.  Crossing into Lake Darling it was interesting to see how much current was flowing between the lakes.  The Long Prairie Rive runs through this chain and with all the rain, it was really moving.  Again our strategy was the same, hit the edge of the reeds and fish for bass.   Admittedly the action was great and in 5 hours we had at least 15 fish.  It was time to leave so I left Charlie with a bunch of baits, said our goodbyes and will look for the next opportunity to fish with one of my dearest friends!

New cracks in the splashwell area.

This year has not been very good to my Ranger boat.  Hitting the rock while heading into camp on Lac Seul put a huge crimp in pretty much everything.  While getting the boat ready to take to Alexandria, I noticed a bunch of cracks in the back by the splash well. Thinking it be damage from the hit on Lac Seul in May, on Thursday it went back up to Frankie's.  As well a couple of weeks ago when we were on a maiden run after the lower unit was repaired, an attempt to open the motor up with the trim full up met with an unsettling result, the engine lost all steering feel almost losing control.  The same scenario was attempted last week with the same results.  Anything over 4800 RPM's and 50% till caused the handling of the boat to be very scary.  Dropping it off last Thursday and discussing the issues, Joe grabbed the motor and twisted it, seems there is air in the steering lines.  The fiberglass cranks would need to be looked at by their guy. Asking that they water test the boat to be sure, my next big trip is back to Lac Seul and there is no desire to have any issues.  A call this morning confirmed a couple of things. First the steering issue was air, they bled out the system then tried it with success.  Also the cracks did not look like they were related to the hit, so they called Ranger who offered to fix them however the boat had to be sent back to Arkansas, otherwise I could use Frankie's and they would pick up half of the cost.  This seemed reasonable so another 2 weeks in the shop!  Oh well, it will give me plenty of time to hit the river as this is the prime time to be fishing smallies and catfish.  Not that I need an excuse but it certainly  better than waiting!  In the meantime the garden is exploding with cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, beans, you name it.  The onions and peppers look great as we have been making about 2 gallons of "Bernie Konter's Fall Feast Pickles" every other day, and they are delicious.  Plan on getting out on the river in the next day or so...too much to write, so little time!

New Safety Addition to the Ranger

Fell Marine MOB Wireless Safety Switch

The incident on Lac Seul last may got me thinking about a number of safety issues.  One of the issues is the safety shutoff tether that every boat has, it is supposed to connect to your self, maybe to your life vest so if one got thrown out of the boat, it would shut the outboard motor off preventing the so called circle of death.  This occurs when no one has control of the motor and the natural torque of the motor forces the boat to make circles in one direction, eventually running the operator over with little one can do.  Hooking up the tether has it's own problem as it really only allows movement withing a couple of feet of the drivers position and does not allow any movement in the boat without pulling the tether out and shutting the motor off.  After researching this I discovered a wireless MOB (Man Over Board) device that will allow one to walk around the boat without stopping the engine, however once the red fob hits the water of get's 50 feet from the device the engine will shut off.  The problem is that often I forget to attach the tether to the life vest, however I can simple put the fob around my neck or attach it to the life vest and VIOLA, I am connected wireless to the emergency shut off.  The boat motor will not start unless one pushes the center button on the fob to connect to the base unit shown here in black.  Once connected the green light comes on and you can start your motor, a nice fail safe feature. If you end up overboard and have someone in the boat, or something goes wrong with the red fob, one can press the center button on the main unit and override the system to start the boat.  Also one can stop the motor by simply pressing the button on the red fob or the main unit.  It also serves as a theft preventative device as not many people are familiar with this system.  Except for finding a good place to mount it the installation went pretty smooth and it looks good in the boat.  Last weeks post dealt with our trip to Mille Lacs and this device was operational during that time and work very well.  Truth is I hope I never have to rely on it however it seemed like a great idea as I am not getting any younger and the emergency cutoff tether is there for a reason!  One might as well take advantage of the current technology.

Ben and his family with a nice catch of fish

So last week my Godchild, Ben Aiona went out on Lake Michigan trolling for Salmon and trout.  He called asking me some questions and I stayed in touch with him as it reminded me of the time in 1986 when his dad Kevin and I went with another friend, Gary Barneson, who lived in Appleton, WI and would troll with his 14 foot Lund with a 25 hp motor.  We weren't much better as I ran a 16 foot Lund Pro Angler with a 50 hp motor.  In Wisconsin you can use 3 lines trolling so we rigged up 2 downriggers, ran 2 Dipsy Divers, and I had made 2 planer boards to fish off the side of the boat 50 - 75 feet.  We caught all sorts of fish however Gary eventually moved back to Eleva and the fishing changed on Lake Michigan so we stopped going there.  Well Ben decided to try it and did OK, getting a load of salmon and a few Lake trout at 150 feet. I still have all the equipment and lures so it would be fun to try it again.  Actually the last time I was on Lake Michigan fishing was maybe in 1987 with my brother Steve and my dad, we did pretty well then but I can't find any pictures. Informing Ben that I still have some stuff and it's been sitting in my garage for 30 years he might as well put it to good use, so we decided that we need to get together soon and get him set up.   Now that I am retired and I have a young buck to wait on me maybe I will have to join him some day as my boat would be perfect for this kind of fishing.  I know we are going to try and get to Lake Erie next spring.

This week my goal was to get out on the river but is was awfully hot.  I did help my neighbor Brian with his friends  Lowrance HDS 9, Gen 3, as they were going to Lac Seul.  We were successful in getting his map to the level he wanted it as well, I was able to show him some tricks that would make his experience on Lac Seul much more enjoyable.  Being quite knowledgeable with these electronics it was fun to help out and I am anxious to talk with him when they get back to see if it helped.  It's supposed to finally cool down this weekend, it will be a nice change of pace to the hot and humid weather we have had.

Great Bite on Mille Lacs Lake

Jack with a beautiful Walleye

Well, after over a month in the shop, the Ranger was finally ready for it's maiden voyage, the first of the year, to Mille Lacs Lake.  Because of the current political situation, the ability to keep any walleyes ended on June 1, therefore it is strictly catch and release on the lake.  These last few years of let's just call them, restrictions, have resulted in a huge population of large fish over 22 inches in the lake and they are hungry!   Monday I was joined by 2 retired electrician friends, Jack Taylor and Pete Mlinar with the goal of confirming if the great bite was still on. After meeting near Elk River we headed north.  In the past it would be pretty easy, we would stop at my friend Bill Lundeen's Tackle Castle and load up on all that was needed, however since he retired from the business and the shop remains closed, we had to do something I haven't done in over 30 years, buy bait somewhere's else, this time it was Prince's Bait just north of Milaca,  getting only 2 dozen Jumbo Leeches and 3 dozen crawlers, we felt that we were stocked up pretty good....little did we know!  Arriving at the old Cash's Landing things continued to plague each outing with the boat as when it came off the trailer something happened and it ripped the side cover from the front trolling motor.  Only cosmetic yet another thing to fix.   With a howling south wind, previous suggestions stated to simply head out to 7 Mile Flat right away.  Anyone knowing me is aware that I really like Sherman's flat and one has to drive over it to get to 7 mile.  OK boy's, let just check this out!  We were marking fish like crazy so naturally we had to stop!  With 3 in the boat and the fact is that I still haven't gotten that proficient in the proper boat control for following a break in 2 foot waves, I decided to simply input a route on my chart screen then tell the

It was bigger than it looks!

trolling motor to follow it.  It works pretty slick as we followed the break to the end of the route then reversed it.  It was easy to do because there wasn't anyone in our way.  Pulling crawler harnesses we were able to land 6 walleyes, all over 22 inches.  With the wind ever so growing stronger it was time to head to 7 mile where we could directly drift and edge by simply letting the wind power us and then use the trolling motor for the finer points of steering.  As we came by this fully wrapped Ranger with a single guy, we watched him land 2 fish as we slowly passed.  To us it looked like a tournament guy pre-fishing for an upcoming event and was just trying to establish a pattern as he didn't stay long.  Well, it didn't take us long to see what the deal was about that spot.  Immediately we were marking fish and a lot of them.  Enough to drop the trolling motor, engage the anchor mode and get out our slip bobber rods.  Sitting in the same spot for 3 hours, we went through the 2 dozen leeches, catching at least one walleye a leech and sometimes 2.  Exhausting all of our leeches, we decided to go exploring a little and headed for a similar spot on 9 Mile Flat.  With no leeches we simply hung a full crawler on our hook and caught another 4 walleyes.  By 4:00 the wind had begun to take it's toll so suggesting we long line troll the top of the flat with deep diving baits and lead core line.  The experience of using the kicker motor as the main source of power while using the main motor as a steering keel worked pretty well as I used my iTroll system to dial in the speed (2 mph) and my big motor to keep us straight.  The problem is that doing this in 2 foot waves takes a lot of effort and after 2 passes and nothing to show for it it was time to head back.  if the water would have been calmer it would be easier to assess where your baits were running.  This is something that we'll have to try later this month as it can be a lot of fun for sure.

Walleyes on the bottom

One forgets how much of a beating one takes when it's windy like that.  Getting older doesn't help it either!  The one thing that this trip showed is the importance of understanding your electronics as we had fish on the screen constantly.  I would shout to the guys, the walleyes are right under us and like clockwork, they would drop their bobbers next to the boat and withing seconds it would be down and a quick set of the hook and we were reeling up walleyes, for a total of 30. The picture on the left says it all as you can clearly see the fish hanging just off the bottom in 25 feet of water. The system in the boat allows me to scroll back in time to a group of marks like this, put the cursor on those fish then tell the trolling motor to go to that spot, it starts the autopilot and takes you right back to there and goes into anchor mode the minute it arrives.  In some of those spots one can see 5 or 6 fish stacked up.  As stated, while on Sherman's it was decided to try and pull spinner rigs up the "Cut".  Rather than struggle with boat control I simply engaged the route function then plotted a route on the screen before saving it and engaging.  Pretty slick as the trolling motor followed the route marked on the screen and once finished you could reverse it.  What was interesting is like on fishing opener, the Lowrance kept warning that it was running out of memory and I needed to delete something.  Not unlike at Leech I spent a lot of time searching duplicate way points, non critical routes and deleting them then purging the memory. Everything I did seemed to only free up small amounts of memory as way points take little space, there was still only about 2 mb of memory left.  This trip I had noticed on the warning to try and delete any alarms.  Searching for the alarm log, it was there, full of stuff like "Not in Neutral".  Nothing too important so figuring it out the Alarm log and deleting it, all of a sudden there was 128 mb of memory, more than enough!  With that said, it is still a struggle to figure everything out on these electronics as I have only scratched the surface.  That and the fact is any update can force one to relearn everything, most of it is intuitive once you start thinking about it, but admittedly it can be hard to keep up.

So it was a very successful day, we ended up with 30 walleyes, I would say that 24 of them were over 22 inches with the largest being 26, 27 and a 28 incher.  Leeches were the ticket and with the wind, slip bobber fishing turned out to be the most successful as well as tolerable!  I still have to get the jon boat out on the river although the river is up again.  My friend Bill's mom Phyllis is not doing so well so say a prayer for her, she is such a sweetheart! I could go on and on but there is work to be done.  next week I need to talk about my Fell MOB system, a very nice addition to the boat.

Back at Full Strength

Evinrude RX4 Stainless Steel Propeller

Well, after a month of waiting the power aspect of both the Ranger and the 14 foot River boat have been resolved.  Last Thursday both Jack Taylor and his son Ben accompanied myself back to Frankie's to pick up the final pieces to my summer adventures, the prop to the Evinrude 250HO that just had the lower unit redone as well the new 25 hp outboard for the river boat.  First was the RX4 propeller, truly a work of art. this is a highly polished, 4 bladed stainless steel propeller and is an amazing piece of hardware.  The Ranger came from the factory with an RX4, 22 pitch prop but there was some concerns with the top full throttle RPM at 5400.  Although this is within the proper specifications of the engine it was on the low end as the horsepower range is stated at 5400 - 6000 RPM's and I felt it needed a lower pitch to get the RPM's up towards the maximum.  The dealer let me try a 3 bladed Rebel 21 pitch stainless prop and to be honest it did raise my RPM's a bit, it was also like putting racing slick tires on your truck in the winter, it was pretty interesting.  The 3 bladed prop would blow out in the corners, blow out at half the trim of the 4 bladed, off it came and ended up putting back on the RX$ in a 20 pitch.  It raised the RPM's around 400 or 5800 which was predictable as each 1" in propeller pitch change results in a 200 RPM change in engine speed.  The top speed was not affected however the boat had a much better hole shot with a load and seemed more responsive.  At cruising speed of around 3400 RPM's or about 32 mph, the 22 pitch does get better gas mileage, an important thing when going into Lac Seul, when we are back to a normal load but it struggles a bit when we first come in with a full load.  When replacing the lower unit the prop was damaged, the plan it to take the damaged prop and see if it can be fixed and reworked to a 21 pitch prop, maybe a nice compromise between power and speed as these props only come in even pitch sizes from the factory.  They are also quite expensive so at $700 each, it can get a little pricey trying to figure out what is best.  I agree with my friend Bill Lundeen, I am probably chasing a problem that doesn't need fixing however having a 20 pitch on the engine, a 22 pitch as my spare, as long as I have to repair the bent up prop they took off my boat anyway, maybe just seeing what a 21 will do sparks some curiosity.  Oh well!

25 hp 4 stroke Mercury

 the second thing we picked up was a new Mercury 25 hp short shaft Tiller outboard with electric start.  Originally I was looking for tilt and trim however it was impossible to find a short shaft motor with this feature.  Apparently few motors are short (15 inch) shaft and most boats these days are built for long shaft (20 inch) outboards.  After the last trip to Lac Seul and using a camp boat which had a 30 hp motor, it was probably a good choice anyway as a motor with tilt and trim does not "Kick" up like a standard motor so it is better that the motor does kick up when traversing the shallower areas of the Mississippi River which are full of rocks.  It is a heavy motor, a 3 cylinder, 4 stroke and it took all both of us to mount it on the jon boat.  We got it in place and tightened down the mounting bolts which are now hex head instead of the swivel lever, as well they recommend adding 2 more bolts to secure it, which seems like a good idea.  I don't think I will do that until I take it for an initial run to see if the motor needs to be higher on the transom.  Taking off my rock guard on the wore out 25 hp that was on the boat, I got that mounted as well.  it works pretty well as if you hit a rock it tends to protect the lower unit and propeller from damage which I seem to be prone at!  Looking at the specs of this motor verses the old one, they both have the same RPM range, lower unit gear ration yet the new motor has a 9.5 diameter x 11 pitch prop but the older motor had a 10.38 diam by 13 pitch, oh well here we go again!  The other big difference is the older and wore out motor was a 2 cylinder and came in at 112 pounds where as this new one is over 150 pounds, a big difference.

The plan is sometime this week to get both boats out for a trial run.  The walleyes are still hitting like mad at Mille Lacs and the River is almost back to normal so the smallies should be going.  We've had a lot of rain the last few days and the garden is coming along pretty well.  Even though I am retired it seems like there just isn't enough time in the day.  Oh well, along with that comes other stuff, like I just received from Amazon a 3000 yard spool of P-Line CX fishing line, 15 pound test, moss green.  I really like P-Line CX as it is quite supple, strong, with little memory and it is about one size thinner than most lines.  The 8 pound I use on my spinning reels is a strong as 10#, the same diameter as 6#, and is perfect for walleye fishing.  I bought the 15# for my baitcaster's as I like something more beefy.  One of the rods that I had in Canada needed the line replaced and after receiving the spool and pulling off the line from the reel, I set the spool in a box which provided the perfect tension for re-spooling the reel.  A couple hours later, and cleaning up the work area I grabbed the boxes to burn them.  Noticing the "different" smell coming from the burn area, thinking nothing of it until a few hours later looking for that new spool of fishing line and not finding it..................forgot to remove it from the box............that explains the different smell!  Luckily I could order another one but that wasn't very smart, CRS I guess!