Mid Week Adventure

My First Mille Lacs Walleye, about 16 Inches

Being retired no longer requires that all fishing trips are either on days off or weekends.  With Red Lake being such a mess this year and the Salem has been parked by the pole shed, my friend Jack Taylor suggested we try Mille Lacs on a mid week, a lot less pressure on the lake might make for a good outing.  On Wednesday we headed up to Mille Lacs with my wheel house with the intent on staying the night and coming home on Thursday.  Another friend Pete Mlinar met us at Rocky Reef Resort where we decided it was a place to get on the ice.  Ice conditions on Mille Lacs this year have been sketchy, especially with the amount of snow that has fallen.  Last weekend the ice conditions changed for the good and there were many resorts getting out to some of the more popular fishing spots.  Mille Lacs Lake is full of walleyes however the current situation hasn't improved much therefore the limit is 1 walleye and it must be between 21 and 23 inches, what remains of the great 2013 year class.  There are plenty of fish in Mille Lacs but let's not get into that!  Anyway our first stop was at the resort to get a road pass for the 24 hours we were going to be out on the ice.  We had a chance to discuss the "good" spots with their road guy, Dewey.  After talking to him a while it dawned on me that he looked awfully familiar.  "Didn't you used to run a road out of Vineland a few years back?"  Yes was the response as I reminded him of the time a number of years back when I went on his road but the heave messed up his bridge and while he was trying to fix it the ice was moving too much so Dewey, his helper, and myself stood around drinking his home made Apple Pie.  Uffda and after 1 too many I decided to stay on the safe side of the heave and fish the sunset.  He remembered that day and it was enough to secure some good information like where his shack was, what the fishing has been, and how to get there.  Once on the ice we headed straight east

Jacks second walleye

for Spirit Island and came across the first road to the left (North) which looked like it went to Indian Point, our destination.  About a mile up it dead ended by Rocky Reef so back down to the main road then we found the right road headed north and got to our spot without much fanfare.  Locating Dewey's house we set up about 50 yards from him in 27 feet of water, and area of scattered rocks on

the bottom.  In about an hour we were set up and fishing.  I was surprised how well the ice was and it was about 22 inches thick.  Mille Lacs is very clear and when we started to mark fish I put my camera down and at 10 feet I could see the bottom already.  It was definitely scattered rock and everyone was covered with zebra mussels.  The fish we were marking were small perch, a good sign as where there are small perch there are walleyes!  It wasn't until the late afternoon before we hooked a walleye, Jack had a nice fish, got it up and it went about 20 inches, just an inch shy of the minimum length.  I gave it to Jack so I could get a picture but he let it slip out of his hands and back in the hole it went.  The picture on the right is his next walleye, about 13 inches.  It was funny as he was reminded which fish was going to be put on the blog!  I hooked a nice 16 incher on my flutter spoon and got that picture.  In the end we had 6 fish, the one 20 incher, a couple of 16's and another couple 12 - 13's with a small walleye under 10.  We certainly didn't light them on fire but it was a good shot trip, enough to get away for the night and enjoy my friends.  Actually it was a perfect spot, no heaves in the ice, the road had to be 80 feet wide, the ice was solid and one never knows what will swim by these days as a couple of friends were out there last weekend and caught a few over 27.  I'd take that any day as I have plenty of walleyes in the freezer.  I am sure that there is alot of good fishing left on Mille Lacs and I am not sure if this is good news or not but even though we have about 22 inches of Ice it should be almost 3 feet by now.  Maybe ice out will be early this year, I guess time will tell.

Last spring my friend from work, Mike Scheunke  bought a wheel house and we were talking about various things to have and I showed him my generator box I had bought at Red Lake.  The box really helps to keep what little noise there is down, and in sub zero weather prevents the carburetor freeze ups and come in very handy.  He asked if he could use the box as a pattern, I said of course but you need to buy enough materials for 2 as mine is made with chipboard and it's both heavy and not very good to hold the screws for the hinges, in fact I have replaced mine this year already.  Anyway he called on Tuesday stating my box is done and he'd like to drop it off.  It is a work of art, made with strong plywood, full hinges, self closing hinges, and painted up in the perfect colors, it is absolutely perfect!  I asked what I owed and instead of money he wanted some lures and maybe a good walleye rod.  Taking one of my better rod/reel combo's off my rack, I found a tackle box then I gave him some of my best lures, seemed like I got the better of the deal however.  It is definitely a work of art and certainly one can see the care he put into making this!  Thanks Mike.  Went to the boat show last week and didn't get a single answer to a few questions I have with my Minnkota Charger, Lowrance/Evinrude NEMA 2000 communications however the big Sportshow is coming in the first of April and I will definitely have time to get some real discussions going as I should be working Frankie's booth the entire show.  What does the future look like, well maybe another trip to Mille Lacs, maybe back to Lake of the Woods in March, chasing some crappies with Bill Lundeen.  Winter is far from over!

BTW tomorrow I officially join the old man group as on February 1st I begin Medicare.........damn where did the time go?

Summer Sausage Time

Although deer hunting was not as productive as I would have liked, a couple of events gave me the needed venison that I was looking for to get a couple of homemade sausages made.  First was my neighbor Jake.  Jake found a freshly killed doe on the road in front of our neighborhood so he called the police, gutted it out and quartered it up.  Volunteering to help him we did the 2 front quarters and my reward was some trimmings.  Second, my friend Kevin and his son Ben did pretty well this year and had some leftover trimmings, about 25 pounds worth and gave them to me.  The first project was to try and make some venison summer sausage.  After ordering the seasonings from Psseasoning, a good source for sausage seasonings in Iron Ridge, Wisconsin the intent was to make 25 pounds of Summer Sausage using 1/2 venison and 1/2 70% lean pork trimmings.  One of my big complaints about Minnesota made summer sausage is it's pretty plain.  Locals like it but if you ever had Pat's Summer Sausage from Arcadia, Wisconsin you would know what I am referring to!  Most Wisconsin based summer sausage has a distinct tang to it cause by using bacterial starter cultures to change natural and added sugars in the meat to lactic acid which adds that tang to the flavor.  Because the curing takes a few days in a moist and warm environment, there is a product called Fermento, a dried whey/protein mix (essentially dried buttermilk) that can be mixed with your sausage meat prior to stuffing and smoking and it gives the same effect without having to cure the meat first.  So last Saturday my neighbor Lory and I tried our luck at our first batch of summer sausage.  I got 13 pounds of  70/30 (70% lean/30% fat) pork trimmings at the meat market in Rogers, MN.  Using a premixed Psseasoning's Blue Ribbon Summer Sausage seasoning, 12 pounds of venison trimmings and some sausage casings from Cabela's Lory had ground the meat before I arrived and we were ready to go.  Because I like mustard seed and garlic in the sausage, we split up the meat into 12.5 pound batches as I have a meet mixer that does a great job of mixing the pork, venison, seasonings, the fermento,

Fermento

together.  The seasoning mix comes with maple cure which give the sausage the right amount of salt and sodium nitrite to assure the right flavor and food safety while smoking.  Although I have an old fashioned sausage stuffer, Lory had his grinder/stuffer set up in place so we decided to use that.  Mixing all the ingredients together we ended up with a nice tube of meat ready to be stuffed in the casings.  It took longer than we expected because the grinder/stuffer set up wasn't exactly the ideal situation as the meat being re pushed into the auger, then another auger to push the meat down the stuffing tube, it tended to mush up the meat somewhat.  Never the less we were able to get all 20 smaller casings stuffed and thanks to out neighbor Tim, it was easy to seal the ends with his hog ring pliers.   Because it was easier to track the progress of the smoke from his family room overlooking the patio, we brought my electric Cookshack insulated smoker over and set it up where we could easily see it.  As well, I had ordered a Bluetooth Smokehouse temperature probe that has 2 separate sensors, we could monitor the progress right on our cell phones.  The first part was to preheat the smoker to 100 degrees F then put the meat in the smoker for about an hour.  What this does is slowly heat up the meat so the outside stays moist and doesn't have a tendency to dry out.  The next 3 hours, we turned the temperature up to about 175 degrees and put some apple wood in the wood drawer and induced a heavy smoke for about 3 hours.  After the smoke had done it's job it was simply a waiting game until the meat got to 146 degrees F, about 4 total hours in the smoke house.  Once the correct temperature was obtained we removed the meat from the smoker and put them in the sink with ice water, for about 2 minutes.  The first sample tasted fabulous but the casings stuck to the meat and it needed to sit for a while to dry out somewhat.  As stated before the texture of the finished product was not very coarse and was quite fine, as stated a product of the stuffing method.  Both Lory and I agreed that we need to use the old fashioned stuffer the next time.  The flavor was pretty good however, just the right amount of smoke and the fermento did it's job.  As well some time in the refrigerator has helped to firm it up somewhat.  We have decided it is good enough to try again as both Lory and I have plenty of venison scraps.  We've ordered more seasoning, fermento, casings, and did get some high temperature cheese to see how that works.  Our goal is to make another batch sometime in late February depending on how long our current supply lasts.

Jared and Ben with a nice walleye on Lake of the Woods

The weather forecast for last weekend was snow on Friday and Saturday.  Although we did not get the predicted 8 - 12 inches, it still made for a wintery weekend, a good one for making Summer Sausage.  On the other hand my good friend Ben went with his wife and son Jared back to Springsteel Island Resort to fish the weekend.  We stayed in touch as he arrived on Thursday night as they planned on staying in the heated ice house for the weekend.  Our new friend Dave was going up as well.  Ben kept me updated throughout the weekend as they said Thursday was slow, Friday picked up quite a bit, proof is in this picture, while Saturday was slow again.  They were supposed to get a good dumping of snow up north but it sort of fizzled out before they had to leave.  Ben left his skid house up there which presents a great opportunity for me to drag my wheel house up there for a weekend of fishing on the ice.  Normally Mark Applen, Russ Praught and a few others would be on Red Lake this weekend however the significant amount of snow has really dampened the opportunities on Red as they are only getting out 2 - 3 miles.  As well they have a layer of slush under the snow and on top of the ice that makes getting out and back in a problem.  Red closes at the end of February but Lake of the Woods is open till April 15th, so there might be more opportunities to fish and Springsteel Island is only about an hour further north than JR's is.  I feel sorry for JR's but it's pretty hard to fight Mother Nature.  Anyway the winter is far from over!  The next few weeks may determine what is the next ice fishing strategy as Bill Lundeen and I have made some definite plans to fish closer lakes.

  

Back from Lake of the Woods

Ben's nice northern

Our January 9 trip to Lake of the Woods finally arrived.  Originally the plan was to leave my wheel house at JR's a couple of weeks ago then pick it up on the way and use it.  Unfortunately the snow storm at Red Lake changed our plans but definitely not for the worse as Dave Johnson, our host had plan B.  Our destination was Springsteel Island Resort just north of Warroad, MN.  Dave knew the resort very well and got us a cabin almost next to his, and with his hard side portable fish houses we were all set.  Dave Johnson is a person I met at Dick's Bar in Osseo.  A great place to have our necessary fishing board meetings, I had the pleasure of being invited along for an ice fishing adventure last week.  Along with Dave, the others included Bruce Wiley, Pete Sipe, Dan Sadler, (all Lac Seul veterans), my friends from Eleva....Kevin Aiona and his son Ben, as well as myself.  Ben and Kevin are not afraid to try anything as Ben built his own wheel house, took the wheels off and made it a skid house.  Bought an toy hauler RV trailer and gutted it to haul his tracked Ranger UTV and his skid house.  He had some issues but finally got it to he could at least pull his skid house in it, as he met us at the resort.  Although the snow was not that deep, Dave had the resort pull his houses out along with a road leading to them as well as a turn around for Ben's skid house.  It worked out very well as we were able to get set up and fish that Thursday night.  Fishing wasn't exactly on fire that first night but it was good to get settled in and get a feel for the lay of the lake where we would spend the next 2 days.  The resort is very nice and a place that I have always been curious about.  Many years ago we had a sales rep in Minneapolis by the name of Bob Fieck.  Bob had a place on Springsteel Island and in the summers would hitch a ride to Warroad with Marvin Window's corporate plane.  It seems as though it was only $25 if they had an empty seat and Marvin's would simply donate any moneys to local charities as they had to fly anyway.   The Warroad Airport is about 1 mile from the resort so it was very convenient.  Bob passed away about 15 years ago, however I asked on of the owners if they remembered him.  Oh Bob, he had that light brown cabin just over there!!  It was interesting for sure as Bob had always invited me because of my love for fishing, but like a lot of things in life, never made it.  This trip was sort of a never to late trip, one that makes me think about what I have missed not taking up Bob on his offer.  Well, I now have another friend who is up there and will definitely have to not let this one slip by!  Ben and his dad were planning on going up the weekend after Christmas but Ben had trouble with his trailer and ended up at Devil's Lake, North Dakota, so it was good to get them up.  Being we were all from Eleva, Ben, Kevin, and I stayed in the rented cabin.

Kevin's nice 22 inch walleye

Our first full day of fishing was on Friday, it was definitely cold like it always is as Springsteel Island is on the west end of Lake of the Woods, 6 hours north of Minneapolis as we were within just a mile or so from the Canadian Border.  Getting our holes re-drilled, cleaned out, heaters turned on, we were fishing in a half hour.  Bruce and I took on shack, Pete and Dan in another, Kevin and Ben were in their larger skid house, while the ever so humble host, Dave moved around from his single house to make sure everything was going well.  Lot's of small fish as the action was pretty steady.  Our fish included smaller (< 13 inch) saugers, walleyes, a few real nice eelpout, an occasional northern pike, and some larger tulibees (Cisco's).  It seems like the fish would come in spurts, hammer the baits well for 15 minutes then go silent for 15 before another school came by.  Kevin and Ben did get some big fish including a couple of real nice eelpout that we kept as they are excellent boiled, served with melted butter...known as "Poor Man's Lobster".  The eelpout we got were at least 10 pounds each and ended up with 4 for the 2 days we fished.  The picture above was a 22 inch walleye that Kevin caught.  He released it as the regulations are 6 fish, no more than 4 can be walleyes and the walleyes between 19.5 and 28 need to be released.  We each ended up with plenty of fish, all smaller walleyes and saugers so it was a good trip.  Thursday night we ate down at the restaurant at the resort as we dropped off our fish and they cooked them up and served them along with coleslaw, beans, American Fries, an excellent shore lunch as we were quite full.

As stated it was great to spend a few days with a new friend, Dave Johnson.  He grew up on a pig farm in Iowa and his stories as a young teenager were fabulous.  Certainly a lot of things hit home for all of us as we also grew up having to work for what we had, often there was no choice!!!  Either way I have told my friends about Springsteel Island Resort as it's only about an hour further than Red Lake and I would not say the fishing is better, maybe the catching is as we had action all day.  I am hoping to get up their a few more times, maybe bring my house up as Lake of the Woods is open until April 14th, 1 1/2 months more than inland waters.  The resort is very wheelhouse friendly and very accommodating so we'll have to see.  Usually I spend the month of January at JR's on Red but they are still digging out from the end of December's storm as the amount of snow is limiting how far they get out, which is only about 3 miles now.  LOTW (Lake of the Woods) didn't have much snow at all and it looked like one could go almost anywhere reasonable, however that can change fast.  We will have to see what develops again in the next couple of weeks.  I know there are still big issues on Mille Lacs with the amount of snow and lack of good strong ice, and there is another 7 inches predicted for this week!  It should be interesting!

Stuck on Red

My largest walleye, about 22 inches

As stated before, with Christmas being in the middle of the week, it was difficult to coordinate family schedules.  We had one on the weekend before and there was another scheduled the 28th or the 29th which ruled out the weekend after Christmas but then a reprieve!  The last celebration was now scheduled for New Years Day, leaving the weekend to pull the wheel house to Red and fish Thursday through Sunday, plenty of time to get some ice fishing in!  Although a lot of people want to go, coordinating their schedules can be frustrating as often it's simply I am leaving, do you want to go?  My friend Jack and his son Ben we off till January 6th, brother Steve had some work priorities in January, my friend Greg wanted to go real bad but he was going to Pasadena to watch the Rose Bowl so when the opening came up I took the first people available.....Jack, Ben, and my brother Steve decided to drive up from LaCrosse.  It would be a little crowded but what the heck, we were all friends and more importantly Ben had some good deodorant with!  Meeting at the pole shed we were off by 9 AM as we had to drop some stuff off at Bill Lundeen's, that took about 30 minutes then we headed up through Garrison, took 6 to Deer River then 46 to Northome and on to Red.  It is always a pretty drive and there was snow on the ground the whole 4 1/2 hour drive.  Arriving at JR's at about 2:30 we said our greetings then Adam warned up about the ocming storm...........What Storm, we hadn't heard anything about a storm.  He put us out about 3 miles, just west of the 2 1/2 mile turn to the left.  We looked for a larger unoccupied area as we we expecting Russ Praught, his brother Randy and a couple of friends to join us.  There wasn't that much snow on the ice so we headed off the road then found an area where we got turned around so we would face the road, just in case.  It takes about an hour to set up as one forgets about rusty pins, the nuances of setting up but we finally got settled in, which included setting up our satellite TV antenna and getting the DirecTV working.  Russ showed up and his brother probably wouldn't be here till Saturday.  The fishing wasn't very good the first few hours leaving us to have Tator Tot hot dish for Thursday night's meal.  We started picking up a few fish with Russ, just a hundred feet away, doing quite well, enough to go into JR's and have fish for Friday night.  Although not jumping through the holes, we did get enough to go back in on Saturday for fish.  In the meantime we were able to get some weather reports on the television as well coordinate any of these reports with Adam at the resort.  The word was, it's a bad one coming, make sure you have plenty of food, water, and propane because when it does happen, we cannot guarantee when you will be able to get out.  The Salem has two 30# propane tanks with an automatic valve that switches tanks for you when one goes empty.  Knowing we were using the last of on tank, it switched over on Friday so we had JR fill it. We were ready for the storm as the snow started falling on Saturday night.

Sunday Morning on Red

Waking up on Sunday brought reality to the situation.  Although it didn't snow that much, probably less than 8 inches, the winds were howling at 30 mph with gusts over 40.  The snow had drifted everything shut, one could not see more than 100 yards and there was no way we were getting out of our situation.  Russ was trying to move his truck so we went over, here his house was starting to flood.  Although there was plenty of ice, it isn't like you have 3 feet below you.  The weight of his truck and house puts pressure on the area he parked and the ice tends to bow causing water to come up through the holes and spread out on the ice.  The drifting snow piles up around the house and truck adding additional weight to the situation.  Russ was flooding, the water almost over his floors, he had to move.  We suspect he might have been on a low spot to begin with. We finally got his house lifted off the ice and he moved about 70 feet, enough to stay out of trouble then parked his truck away from the house to minimize the weight.  In the meantime our house had started to slush up around it meaning we were also flooding.  Luckily my house is about 6 inches above the ice and we were fine, but it was a situation worth monitoring.  Snug in our house we sat back with the realization that we'd be stuck till at least Monday morning.  The picture above was taken Sunday showing the drifts around the house as well as the tracks in the snow which at this time was slush from all the water coming up through the holes.   A quick call into JR's confirmed that no plowing was going to happen until Monday morning when the wind stops.  It is sort if nice having the satellite TV in the house as we watched all the games on Sunday and Sunday night, stayed up on the latest forecasts and it certainly helps when the fish aren't cooperating very well.  There were some nice fish caught on Sunday, the first picture was the second I caught on my jigging pole, a nice 22 incher.  Meanwhile in Randy's shack one of the boys caught a 28 inch walleye.  We went to bed with 4 walleyes in the pail with another one coming on the rattle reel just before we left.

Just enough width for the wheel house!

Waking up Monday morning meant it was time to get our outside clothes on and start getting ready to leave.  Deciding at about 8:00 to start shutting it down, we packed up everything and lifted the house off the ice.  Getting the truck in position was going to be the challenge.  Even with crappy tire chains, it wasn't easy.  By 10:00 the plow truck had gone on the main road and began reaching out to everyone on the side an escape route.  More digging and we finally got the wheel house on a path to the main road.  Once on a stable path we went to help Russ and his group which finally were free. What plowed roads they did have were only meant for one way traffic but at least we were on a road.  About a half mile down from our starting location was a plow truck facing us and blocking the way.  To our left was a plowed road that came into the one we were on at a 45 degree angle.  The guy in the truck stated, turn left and "Follow the Yellow Brick Road".  I told him he was crazy which he replied, 'Don't you have 4 wheel drive".  Okay but your going to have to push to get me out and then I buried it.  Okay Mr. Intelligent, let's get to work.  Here he wasn't even a plow truck from JR's but the neighboring resort and had made a path connecting his people to JR's road.  Apparently he sheared a pin in his plow and was fixing it.  As we pushed my truck back onto the road, there were 4 trucks coming down where he wanted me to turn.  The guy was an idiot and as well, blocking the road.  Pretty soon there were about 20 vehicles waiting for him to clear so we could get by.  I think he got the hint..either move your truck or the forty guys standing around will do it for you.  We even offered to help fix the plow but he was stubborn.   Quickly he pulled off the road clearing our path as we made it around a number of big slush areas that were plowed before finally arriving at JR's by 11:30.  The original plan was to leave my house up there but was told there were no parking spots plowed, we quickly cleaned our fish and headed south.  Because there was more snow predicted for Monday, we headed more west going through Bemidji, Walker, Brainerd, and St. Cloud as these are connected by main highways that would definitely be cleared.

Not eating anything we finally stopped in Hackensack at the Birchwood Char House, a really nice place to eat.  As I was going back out to the truck some lady stopped by and started giving me crap that me and my friends were parked on a road leading to where she lives.  I explained that the road wasn't marked, the other trucks there were not my friends, then showed her on my phone that there were other roads she could take........and we will be out of here in 30 minutes.  Although she wasn't very happy, I had enough crap for the day! Finally arriving home at 5:30 we parked the wheel house and everyone left with a package of walleye and memories of a great adventure!