Edge of Winter

Autumn Blaze Maple

Well it looks like there will be no Indian Summer this fall.  Indian Summer is often referred to the time after the first killing frost where the temperatures climb into the mid 50's to as high a 70 before the real cold weather starts to settle in.  Well this fall our first killing frost was quite late so we have jumped right into our pre-winter climate with lows in the lower 20's and highs in the mid 30's.   The first of October was quite nice so we'll just call that our Indian Summer!  With all the rain this fall, the Mississippi River behind the house is flowing as though it is late April.  Every lake up north is full to the brim, it should bring an interesting spring for sure.  All the wet weather has resulted in what the meteorologist refer to as a perfect fall for colors.  I don't disagree however this year with the late first frost has delayed, the trees seem to be doing their own independent thing.  Pictured here is one of about 4 Autumn Blaze Maples that I have on the property.  True to their name, these trees definitely put on a show in the fall and this year was no exception.  Each of the trees exhibited an beautiful blend of red, orange and yellow to give the tree it's name like a tree on fire, a blaze of colors for sure.  Unfortunately it doesn't last long, maybe a week before the wind and cold weather forces the tree to drop it's leaves.........leaving me with more work! The ash trees have already shed their leaves a month ago and some of my Norway Maples still have green leaves on them, they will not turn but simply fall off.  Never the less it is a labor of love as my John Deere X734 with a 60 inch deck does a great job of chopping up the leave eventually one has to put the vacuum attachment on to finish the job right.  The waning warm weather has allowed the installation of some new shelving in the pole shed as the intent is to get my fishing stuff organized a little better.  We'll see about that!  With a tempurture of 23 last night, pretty much everything is done for the year, even the grass looks done as the lawn tractor marks from the other night are permanently etched into the lawn until next April!  Deer hunting season is going to be late this year and this cold weather might just freeze the swamp and make travel to the stands a lot less complicated!

A nice flock of wild turkey's

This week is turning out to be a whirlwind of activity.  I brought my Salem Ice Cabin in last Monday the 21st but a drive through the lot on Saturday showed that nothing had been done.  Yesterday was a  doctors appointment to make sure I can still drive, a factor concerning the seizure I experienced last year at this time.  Coming out of the office at around 5:30 meant the traffic going west on 94 was going to be stop and go for at least 40 minutes, I decided to drive over to a good friends house, Mike Shields to see how he was doing.  Mike lives just about 3 blocks south of I94 and about 3 blocks east of the Mississippi River, definitely a mature neighborhood but well within the city.  Driving down his street there was a flock of about 30 young wild turkeys crossing the street.  Although this is not necessarily in the heart of the city, certainly the last thing one would expect is a flock of wild turkeys, never the less they were there.  Mike confirmed that there is a local flock around, I suspect that they traveled up the river edge from the south.  I certainly made for an interesting site.  Tomorrow the boat trailer goes in for repair, then up to Frankie's to mount new tires.  Frankie got Ranger to replace my black chrome rims as they were peeling.  It is recommended that one replace trailer tires every 5 years and this is the 5th year of use so I decided to bite the bullet and make sure that the tires under the boat are not a source of problems as we drive to Lac Seul.  Looking back those tires have about 30,000 miles on them already.   Hopefully this will be all taken care of before Thanksgiving.  Although retired, this year will find me doing a presentation at our annual TTA meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida then we head to Naples to charter a grouper fishing trip on December 7th.  This is the same guy we fished with 2 years ago when I caught the 200# Goliath Grouper.  With this cold weather it would not be surprising if Red Lake is froze over and thick enough to drive just after Thanksgiving, like it was a few years ago.

Annual Trout Fishing trip

Dad's Gift, Panther Martin's Deadly Dozen

Well, we were able to get in our annual October trout fishing trip to an old mine pit that we have been going to for a number of years.  With Bill Lundeen as my guide we met at his house last Thursday and he was ready to go.  My father died in 2011 however he knew how much I loved fishing and a few years before he passed away he gave me a box of Panther Martin trout spinners called the Deadly Dozen.  Knowing my dad he probably ordered them from a Field and Stream or Outdoor Life magazine but wherever, he presented me with this kit of 12 spinners for trout fishing.  He had that look on his face when he gave them to me that I would never forget, that look of....Geez, I finally got something you don't have!  He was correct and I put them away for safe keeping.  Well last year I told Bill I am going to catch a trout with the spinners my Dad gave me but after 8 or so years, I simply didn't remember where they were.  I had a Mepps Spinner and decided to use that but it wasn't the same and I only caught one fish.  Sort of a stubborn streak in me but I was bound and determined.  Well 6 months went buy and one day I found the box of the Deadly Dozen, probably right where I left them earlier.  Not to be shut out again putting them in an obvious place where they would not be forgotten, when Bill set the date last week, it was the first thing I packed!  Our strategy was simple, launch the canoe, attach the trolling motor, fire up the electronics and troll down anywhere from 10 - 30 feet with a small spinner rig, or in my case a Panther Martin.  Although I was determined last year, this time I was serious!! We headed up the shore in 30 to 40 feet of water as the fish marks were numerous on the depthfinder.  With a small trailer of a nightcrawler,  I was getting bumped but Bill caught the first trout.  Trust me, sitting in the front of a canoe has it's limitations, luckily this year I had settled down somewhat and got my sea legs quite quickly.  Having the bucket

Beatiful Day, Beautiful Lake

up front, Bill threw the trout under my seat, not the greatest idea with my limited ability to bend over these days! Finally getting the nice trout in the bucket, Bill was  getting hit quite a bit and had a number of them get away, I was getting nice hit but not hooking any.  Finally deciding to switch to a spinner with a larger hook, it paid off as my first trout came to the surface.  In the meantime Bill and I worked out a better system for moving the caught fish from back to front, use the nets each of us had.  With that problem solved there was another one on the line. Admittedly Bill caught more fish however my goal had been accomplished and Dad's Deadly Dozen proved to be a winner.   I wish he was here to be able to brag about the fish we had caught, he would have liked that, never the less I guess in the grand scheme of things, he wanted me to enjoy these baits and we finally got a chance to prove they worked pretty well.  Next time the strategy will to go to the next larger size as one upping Bill is now the goal!

A Pan Full of Trout.

We cleaned the trout like we used to back home in Eleva, cut the heads off, slit the belly and pull out the entrails then finally removing the blood line under the backbone.  These fish are all about 10 - 12 inches after being cleaned.   They are excellent on the grill, smoked, or delicious pickled by my good friend Mark Applen.  I have plenty to try all these methods for sure.  We know these trout are planted into the lake, similar to what the trout back in the Eleva pond were.  Planted trout usually have a pale white color to their flesh but as they feed on more natural food their flesh becomes more pinkish orange in color, which these all exhibited. They taste a lot better as well this way.  This is one of my favorite trips of the year and of course as you see in the above picture, it is also one of the most beautiful times of the year.  Trout fishing ends on October 31st and although it would be nice to get out again, the weather appears to be heading for a cold and wet period so we'll have to see.

I have been working on my Ranger boat, dressing it up a bit seeings how it wasn't used much this year.  One of the first things was to put some disc brake caliper covers on to dress up the wheels.  In the process of doing this by taking the tires off, the front axle, inner tire was wore down to the point of having no tread left.  Last year the front tire exhibited some wear while the back tire was almost perfect, I discounted it to the fact that dual axle trailers create some drag and wear on the tires and rotated front to back.  Well the limited amount of mile since the rotation put almost double the wear in about a year verses the previous 4 seasons.  Well, maybe Ontario Hwy 502 finally got it's revenge as the axle may need replacing and using the recommendation that trailer tires should be replaced every 5 years as well as the wear, it will be getting a new set of tires as well.  My appointment with the alignment shop is on October 31st, here;s hoping we skip the Halloween Blizzard this year.  There are also a few minor issues to clean up so the plan is to get these taken care of before the boat is put away for the winter.

Long Lake In Wisconsin and Lac Seul, part 2 (that should be enough!)

George with a nice walleye

So while the boat was still wet from Lac Seul, I had the chance to fish with a couple of my favorite people, Andrew Rombalski, my wife's uncle, Jason Rombalski, her cousin, and George Wimmer, their in law and a friend of mine.  Jason's wife's parents have a cabin on the channel between Birch Lake and Lake Chetac, in Birchwood, Wisconsin, just Northeast of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.  We usually try and get a fall trip in each year looking for some nice crappies or a walleye or two.  Just west of them is Long Lake, a larger lake in the area known for it's walleyes.  Because of previous commitments the plan was to join them at the landing on Long Lake around 3 in the afternoon on Saturday, fish for the day, then stop and have supper at a Supper Club on the lake.  Wisconsin is famous for their rural or lakeside restaurants that are referred to as Supper Clubs.  Dinner in Wisconsin was always at noon!  We had fished that lake a few time however the forecast of the rain stopping by noon did not materialize and at 3 it was still drizzling.  We launched anyway and headed south to a few areas that we had been before.  While looking at the lake map on my preloaded maps on the Lowrance HDS, there was a spot marked:  Fall walleyes can be found along the drop off fishing with live bait rigs or jigs and minnows.  It wasn't that far away and with such an understanding audience in the boat we approached the region where I began marking fish immediately.  With the Motorguide in deployed and in anchor mode we started jogging around the area looking for fish.  Once on a pod of fish Jason pulled out a #7 Jigging Rap, a popular ice fishing bait however it is becoming popular using the lure as an open water jig and within 2 minutes he had a nice 16 inch walleye, however with the minimum length of 18 back in the water it went without even getting a picture!  All of a sudden we were on the fish as George catches a nice 17 incher.  I did get him to pose for this nice example of how our late afternoon was going.  In less than 2 hours we landed 10 walleyes and a nice 16 inch smallie that took my Jigging Rap. It was a significant improvement

Andy's nice 19 inch Smallie

over the last couple of times we fished Long Lake so it was decided that on Sunday we would hope to repeat the same as Saturday.  It really didn't stop raining till we left as we stopped by the Reel Em Inn Supper Club on the west side of the lake, just down from the boat landing.  There we enjoyed a few cocktails and ordered the Saturday night special, a 16 ounce prime rib with all the fixings.  It was very relaxing with the locals enjoying supper and us 4 patting ourselves on the back for having a quite successful couple of hours of fishing.  George went back to his cabin in Chetek, Wisconsin to attend to his dogs while the rest of us heading back to Jason's in laws house on the lake.  After a couple of glasses of fine whiskey, including a nice 21 year old scotch, we got up in the morning to have breakfast and head back out again.  Not knowing if George would rejoin us that question was answered the minute we pulled in the landing, yes he was there!  Of course we headed back to the scene of yesterdays success however the sky's turn a beautiful blue as the front went by a few hours earlier.  Not that we minded but you know what happens right after a cold front moves through.  Well it still wasn't that bad of fishing as we did get a couple of walleyes and Andy landed this very nice 19 inch smallmouth fishing a small sucker minnow.  We were marking a school of suspended crappies on the screen but wasn't very successful to see exactly what was stacked up in 25 feet of water (It was crappies, I know it!).  Never the less we did get a few more hits then decided to look for other identical looking area on the lake to expand our outlook on fish location.  We we should have just stayed were we were!  Never the less it was nice to fish with these guys and I hope that we may be able to get out ice fishing on that lake this year.

Jerry and his giant 16 inch walleye!

So finishing up the Lac Seul trip was pretty exciting.  Our favorite spot on the lake was Craig's Corner, named after a friend, Craig Biegert who fished with us a few years back. Sort of a nice place close to camp that always seems to have fish on it, it is now our go to spot if we need to fill out for the day, or for the trip if needed.  With 4 guys in the boat including Barry, Jerry, Ricky and myself, it was a good place to stay organized and catch fish.  Jerry had a 500 series spinning reel on a nice St. Croix Avid, sort of like walking around in a tuxedo with old dirty tennis shoes on!  At least it was something to give him some harmless ribbing.  Jerry did get some nice fish and I did get some pictures but not before correcting him on the proper way to display a fish for the camera.  Of course his response was...Do you think I am stupid?...Well here.  So this is a nice 16 inch walleye that is presented in the correct way for a photograph and he does deserve some credit.  The hand hidden to take away any reference for size, hide you arm holing the fish with the fish, and stick it out as far as you can.  Of course this fish looks a lot bigger than it is, in fact Jerry looks puny compared to this gigantic fish!  Never the less it is a great example of the fun we had in my boat with these 3 guys. Looking back we didn't kill them but our daily catch was acceptable with 60 - 70 walleyes a day in the boat.  My biggest mistake was to try and teach them how to tie a improved clinch knot ti tie the jigs onto the line.  Making it look super easy it resulted in me tying most of their jigs onto their lines, I guess it's nice to be thought of as useful.  All in all it was a great trip, having fun with my friends from Eleva including my brother Steve, and friends Kevin and Paul.  It was also nice to be able to show Jerry and Ricky a good time as this was their first time to Lac Seul.  We are already discussing next year!

With snow in the forecast it's probably time to put the boat away for the winter as my wheel house is scheduled to get the roof and door leak fixed as well as some electrical issues.  Hopefully next week will find myself with Bill Lundeen fishing our secret trout lake!  He sent me a picture of a dandy he got a couple of days ago.