Merry Christmas

A Tree Full of Goodies

It just seems like a few days ago when we were in Naples fishing but I have been back to reality for 3 weeks now!  Christmas as well as this goofy weather has put a damper on ice fishing this start of the season.  With Christmas on Wednesday, it seems to break up the typical schedules as last Saturday I spent time with my family so that weekend was shot, and the weekend after Christmas was supposedly to be with my wife's family but now it's changed to New Years Day so there is some time to sneak up to Red on Thursday and try my luck.  This year I have been inundated with requests to join me as my usual first trip includes my brother Steve and friend Keith Holtan, however things are getting crunched and with little time to plan it looks like a full house this weekend.   My brother Steve lives in Onalaska, Wisconsin and the Gander Mountain store is closing there.  Like a good brother should he called me with some of the deals (up to 80% off) so I had him pick up a few rods, and he said there was a ton of the Northland Tackle Long Shanked Fireball Jigs there as few people use the Canadian style of baiting the jig with a minnow, and at $1.00 for 4, that is $3.00 cheaper than the usual $3.99 for 4.......pick up as many as you can!!!  Well, on Saturday he brought them with along with a few other nice lures hung nicely on a  small Christmas Tree, it was pretty nice.  There must be at least 20 packages of jigs, some traditional hair jigs and a few perfect sized crankbaits for trolling walleyes on Leech Lake this opener.  My plan is to take this to Lac Seul this year and sell the jig packs for $5.00 each and there are plenty of Gold plated ones which seem to be a favorite in Canada.  I am also now determined to try the white hair jig on the top and get a walleye as these were the preferred jig pattern 50 years ago, I know as I used to tie our own for the walleyes in Catfish Slough up from Alma on the Mississippi River.  Actually I caught a keeper grouper on a white haired jig in Naples so I am excited to try it.  The early Christmas was the first time my family got together since my mother died in 2017, it was nice to get together as none of us are getting any younger.

Jerry and 2 nice walleyes from Mille Lacs

So it's exciting to finally get the wheel house out on the ice as Red Lake is reporting a good 17 - 18 inches of ice extending out at least 10 miles from the landing.  Mille Lacs has been in quite a predicament this year regarding ice.  Yes, we did get a nice below zero cold snap right after deer hunting which normally puts a good layer of ice, which it did on Mille Lacs however we got 2 significant snowstorms right after the cold which dumped almost 16 inches in the area.  That much weight on the ice causes the water to seep up through the cracks and flooding the top of the ice, which combined with the snow makes slush.  Also the snow insulates the ice from the freezing temperatures and further delays the ice forming.  Along with the warm weather we have experience in the last week, there is a lot of variance in the thickness of the ice on Mille Lacs from 2 inches to 8 inches, but it's hard to tell how thick the ice is over the layer of snow so venture at your own risk.  On Monday night we had 2 great things happen, first it was Jerry Kiffmeyer's annual Christmas fish fry.  Jerry fished with me in my boat last September at Lac Seul.  He is a great guy and happened to be in Naples fishing the weekend before I was there.  His fish fry included most of the fish he brought back, snapper and grouper.  I am allergic to wheat and need a corned based fish coating but by the time I got there all the fish had been breaded already........but wait, here came Jerry with some grouper fillets, perfect as they coated them first with my stuff and fried them up.  Absolutely delicious.  Jerry showed me his catch on Mille Lacs a couple of days ago when they dragged out their light weight shack with the snowmobiles, pretty nice.  It looks like a couple of keepers which have to be between 21 and 23 inches.  Jerry says that he was using my method of posing with fish as they do look bigger!  Hopefully I can post next week with a good report and some nice fish.  I am already planning for our Lake of the Woods trip for January 9th.  And by the way, the Ranger is still in the shop!  I did volunteer to work for Frankie at the Northwest Sportshow this year and he was happy as it is in the first of April, probably one of the worst times as boats are coming in and it is really busy.  It will be a fun time for sure!