2019 in Review

Cold day on the lake

Last Sunday the 2019 walleye fishing season is officially closed in Minnesota except for the border waters of the Mississippi River as well as Lake of the Woods.  A this time the Mississippi River stays open season all year however the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods will close in early April.  Minnesota's 2020 fishing opener is Saturday, May 9th and Ontario's walleye opener is the following Saturday, May 16th which starts the whole process again. 2019 certainly wasn't may most productive walleye season but who's complaining.  These days I seem to spend more time fishing Ontario than Minnesota as last summer included 3 days on opener fishing Leech Lake and 1 day fishing on Mille Lacs Lake.  It certainly didn't help that my boat was in the shop for over 9 weeks getting repaired from hitting the reef on Lac Seul, sounds like a good excuse huh!  It was also a pathetic year for ice fishing walleyes as there were 3 days at Red Lake, 3 days on Lake of the Woods and 1 day on Mille Lacs. Meanwhile I fished 10 days on Lac Seul this year, not a record however it can be looked at as fishing 1 day a week for 10 weeks on Mille Lacs, sounds reasonable doesn't it!  I did fish 4 days of largemouth bass in the Alexandria area as well about 4 trips on the Mississippi River behind the house in my jon boat, when you add it all up it comes to about a fishing trip every 12 days or so.  I guess that makes it sound better and I am not getting any younger.  Of course a day fishing in Naples l at the dealer getting a number of little things taken care of and hopefully it will be ready this week as it's been there since the first of December and I'm getting a little anxious about storage, the batteries, and other stuff.  I did go help my  friend Bill Lundeen this Monday as he had a large corporate group out ice fishing and we scouted some areas.  A large heave developed a few miles out from the landing and prevented us from getting to some of the better areas but according to Bill it went alright.  The first picture is one of my favorites from 2019.  We were on Red Lake last January 27th and a rattle reel went off early in the morning.  Getting up and catching the fish I wondered what time it was as it was still pretty dark.  The clock said 4:20 AM but it seemed cold and no wonder, it was -28.5 outside the ice house.  Certainly this winter has had it's days below zero but nothing like last winter.  I leave it at that!

Record crowd at the Perch Extravaganza

Last Saturday was the annual Johnson Portside Perch Extravaganza.  Usually a few of us get together and pull our wheel houses up to Mille Lacs, park them together and spend the weekend.  The Perch Extravaganza at Hunter's Point Resort is based on a perch fishing contest with the largest perch getting $500 however there are so few perch in the lake anymore, it has really morphed into a huge button drawing, you buy a button with a number and if they draw it you could win quite a number of good prizes including new ATV's, Generators's, coolers stuffed with fishing gear, and this year they had 3 new wheel houses.  The weather was fabulous and because of the cancellation of a few event's around the area, there were thousands of people attending.  Rumor has it they sold over 16,000 tickets so one's chances of winning were slim this year.  Never the less the anticipation is fun and as they say, you'll never win if you don't enter!  Also our group was worried about the ice conditions on Mille Lacs as the early snow and slush put a damper on things as the first year I attended we were flooded. Mark Applen has a small place just south of Hunter's and I met him there about 8:30.  We headed to Malmo to have breakfast then gathered our gear and headed out onto the lake.  I was surprised that one could dang near drive where ever you wanted, as well the ice was at least 30  inches thick.  We had never seen so many wheel houses on the lake, we estimated around 8000 houses.  It was a zoo as every piece of structure had a number of houses parked on top, literally there was few places to fish.  We did fish for a couple of hours, attended the drawing and headed back home.

One of the fishing shows I like is In Depth Outdoors as they have a new show every week.  A few weeks ago they were fishing in Pool 2 on the Mississippi River, just south of St. Paul. It is prompting me to get the jon boat ready as I remember fishing that area in the late winter with my friend Pete. It certainly might be worth a try. 

Big Walleyes But Not Mine!

Jared's 28 inch LOTW Walleye!

Last week we celebrated the fact that time does not stop, the problem is trying to make sure one is not left behind.  This year seems that there has been a little bit of this, especially for ice fishing.  Maybe it's just getting too difficult to trudge through the snow and slush, I don't know, it seems like I have a ton of excuses!  One problem is trying to figure out who to go with as I get older, it's always nice to have another person with to help in case one has any issues.  In the meantime it is fortunate that my friends share their fishing experiences and this week was no exception. The first picture is of my best friend, Kevin Aiona's grandson Jared.  His dad, Ben left his ice house at Springsteel Island Resort from our January 9th trip.  He has been back there 2 times since, once on Superbowl and last weekend.  Admittedly fishing has been slow on Lake of the Woods. They have been fortunate not to have the deep snow as well the ice thickness is approaching 30 inches.  Arriving last weekend, Friday was slow however on Saturday a big mark appeared above Jared's jig on his Vexilar.  Ben told him to lift it up and the fish, almost on script the walleye followed it up and smacked his lure.  Getting it up the fish was about 28 inches, a very nice walleye.  Of course Jarred struck a nice pose, I am glad he will be around when I get really old!  They really didn't get many fish this trip however Ben did head out to 16 Mile Reef, an area we fished years ago with Toby out of Arneson's resort.  Ben was able to get out there via his Polaris Ranger that has tracks instead of wheels.  I suppose he could have dragged his house out there, a good 10 miles, yet Kevin was with and they decided to stay closer to the known roads.  the story is that in another month the fish will move closer to the reefs and fishing will improve.  With Red Lake being a slush fest, Lake of the Woods has taken a lot of the pressure this year and maybe that pressure has had an effect on the slow fishing but it's hard to say.  There is talk about planning a trip after the first of March.  My friend Adam Mayerich is up with a bunch of guys fishing the Southwest side and am looking forward to talking to him when he gets back.

Kevin's nice Winnipeg Green Back Walleye

Another very interesting walleye picture is on from a fellow Team Walleyer, Kevin Jayson.  Kevin has fished a bucket list destination of mine, Lake Winnipeg, home of the giant "Green Back" walleyes.  Here is a giant that Kevin caught so I poached it from his Facebook post as this fish is quite amazing for sure.  Hopefully I will get to discuss with him the technique, location and details of heading to Canada to catch one of these beautiful fish as it certainly is impressive.  It would really be nice if one could haul a wheel house out and stay for a few days on the ice. Hopefully we'll have some interesting information by next week.  In the meantime one can only wish!  The bulk of my time is getting things cleaned up in the pole shed as getting the fishing equipment organized and waiting for my boat to finally get finished.  Also the weather continues on a roller coaster script.  In the 40's a couple of days, 4 inches of snow the next couple of days, -15 the next couple of days.  Thank the Lord we are not like Alaska where my friends report record cold (after a record hot summer) with temperatures dropping to -59... Uffda!!

FG Knot

So one of the things I am guilty of is once I get an idea in my head about a new technique for fishing, the tendency is to jump in with both feet.  I have never been much of a braided line user for jig fishing other than for ice fishing.  One of the advantages of braid while jigging is it doesn't exhibit the line twist like monofilament lines do. The negatives are it takes more finesse when setting the hook as braid has virtually no stretch and one can pull the jig right out of the fishes mouth very fast.  Also the braid is very visible and it can be difficult to tie new jigs to braid.  The standard way to overcome this is to tie a fluorocarbon leader to the braid.  This can be done with a simple swivel to make the braid/fluorocarbon connection or a more acceptable way is to tie the braid and fluorocarbon together as there are a couple of knots like the Alberto knot, or double Uni Knot however it is well acknowledged that the FG knot is the strongest knot as well as the smallest diameter knot to tie however after looking at the YouTube video's, it also looks like it's also the most difficult.  I am very focused on learning this knot and maybe heading down this path will make jigging for walleyes on Lac Seul a lot easier with less line twist.

Life's Milestones

My new 3 Insurance Cards!

Well this week I had the pleasure of celebrating my 65th birthday.  I remember when my grandpa Roy turned 65 then my dad, now me!  Certainly did not bring it in with a lot of fanfare as the last month, in between a couple of fishing trips, was filled with what seemed to be an endless task of applying for Medicare, cancelling my regular health insurance, signing up for Plan B so I can get an aftermarket Medicare Advantage policy as well as Part D, Drug coverage.  Now instead of 1 medical insurance card, I have 3 of them....one for Medicare Part's A and B, one for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Advantage policy, and one for BCBS's Part D drug plan.  Just more stuff to lose!  Admittedly I was surprised that my current total Medicare cost is quite a bit higher than my standard Medical insurance but that's another story.  It's quite a feat just to make sure everything is paid for so there is no lapse in coverage.  Also the US Government is not very forgiving on the sign up dates.  I did it on line and although it was easy, I got a call to verify my information.  A little research shows that according to the records their are 6,500,000 social security numbers being used who's age is 112 or older.  Well documented organizations state that there are only 42 people in the world older than 112 so there is definitely some fraud happening here and it's certainly costing all of us our rightful monies that both ourselves and our employers have paid in over our lifetimes.  You wonder why they say Social Security is going broke!...Ok, enough of the soapbox however it is a good reminder that if you have yet to turn 65 do your research as it will pay off, or call me, I got a lot of experience!  Either way the worst thing is the need to switch pharmacy's as my current one does not have a contract with BCBS...ugh!!  Oh well, I have all this time right!  I'd rather be fishing.

Keeping it looking good!

Speaking of Fishing I got a call from Lake Area Canvas, the canvas place that originally made my Bimini top for my boat.  Back around December 3rd I dropped it off as it seemed like the zipper areas were coming undone and wanted them fixed.  It was ready so seeing it's on the way to my dealer Frankie's I decided to stop by, pay the bill a huge $21, and pick it up. Loading into the truck the next step was to head to Frankie's and drop it off but also to check the status of my boat.  Well, everything is done except to replace the bait well aerator switch control, and that should be done by early next week.  When I do get the boat back it will have a new front axle, all new 17 inch black chrome mag rims, all new tires, a new Minnkota 460 battery charger, all broken plastic trim pieces in the interior replaced, some outside cosmetic work done on some dock rash as well as cleaning up some previous repairs, a new console installed because the HDS 12 live would not fit into my existing console, The bait well switch fixed, she should be just like new.  Having paid for our annual 47th annual Leech Lake Opener, I am anxious to get things ready and going.  I am also anxious to try a few new techniques this year for walleyes, especially using the rattle type baits and swim baits like we did last October on Long Lake in Wisconsin.  It's sometimes difficult to give up something that is an almost guaranteed however catching walleyes with a new technique can be very fun and rewarding for sure and my goal is to give it an honest effort. these include Rapala's Rippin Rap ,  Jigging Rap, and Slab Rap, Salmo's Chubby Darter, and Lindy Glow Streak along with a few others.  We are only about 2 months away from open water and because of the early snows the ice thickness is minimal so Ice out could be early!