Stuck Inside!

Effective Adapter Plate for my HDS 9 Live 

It is probably no surprise what the current crisis is going on today as of tonight we have a Stay in Place order from our governor.   Oh well, I have plenty to do at home.  The apple trees need pruning, the garden needs cleaning up, and with the current warmer temperatures and rain forecast, it's probably a good time to put away the ice fishing equipment for the year.  There has been a lot of interesting things going on especially as opener is coming upon us fast.  First situation is that my boat has been at the dealer since December 4th as it had some warranty issues taken care of as well some cosmetic stuff that has been bothering me.  One of those issues was the mounting of my depthfinders as I needed a new console to fit my "New to Me" HDS 12 Live that I traded my friend Bill for.  In the process of mounting it into the console I requested that they make sure to drill the through hole on the top in a different place than it was, as is it will interfere with the HDS 9 live bracket mounting.  Well, after bringing it home I was disappointed to find that the thru hole was in the same place as the old one.  Now I can either make a huge fuss or simply solve the problem myself, which I decided to do.  Having an idea and walking next door to my neighbor Todd, a self employed mechanical design engineer, we discussed the issue and maybe having him print an adapter plate to accommodate the misalignment problem.  Instead he stated drawing a 3D print of what I had envisioned, we finalized the requirements and loaded it to an online site that offers machining services. In 2 minutes we had a quote and immediately ordered an aluminum plate that was machined to print, had the holes drilled with one tapped, a quick credit card entry and 2 weeks later it shows up via Federal Express.  After mounting the adapter plate on the console it looks quite nice and functional, everything is solid and it certainly is a better and faster solution than waiting for another console, which is 8 weeks out, and with last years disaster, I am not much in the mood for having the boat out of my shed for most the summer!  Besides this was a bunch of stuff including all new trailer tires to go with my new rims that were replaced under warranty, any of the plastic interior trim that was cracked, was replaced.  Of course last November the front axle on the trailer was replaced.  The boat is like new again and ready for both the Team Walleye 47th Annual Leech Lake opener as well as the Ontario fishing opener at Lac Seul a week later.  That is of course if our current problem seems to be deemed as under control, don't hold your breath!

Smash Shad in Wonder Bread Pattern

A couple of other interesting things, Cabela's (Now Bass Pro Shop) annual Spring Sale is going on and they have some fabulous deals on some crankbaits.  One that looked interesting is their fabulous deal on a Storm product called a Smash Shad.  These crankbaits are in the same category as Berkley's Flickr Shad, or a number of shad type baits primarily used for walleyes.  Trolling at sunset on Leech is a favorite technique of mine and we have been having a lot of success with funky colors so this Wonder Bread pattern has got to be good as the light color should be a real winner this opener.  Also at $1.49 each it's a little easier handing out these for my friends to use instead of my $7 Shad Raps and they should be just as effective.  Picking up about 20 or so in 7 different color patterns  and 2 different sizes, #5 and #7, it was a pretty good deal.  My brother Steve loaded me up with some Northland long shanked jigs last Christmas when the Gander Mountain Store closed by him so I am returning the favor.  My friend Kevin Aiona laughed at me because he said they don't run true out of the box, that might be but they are easy to tune.  I also picked up some square bill bass crankbaits for the smallmouth fishing on the river as the action of these baits are quite effective as well. 

Custom Whiskey aging Barrel

The other thing that is going is I have purchased  my own personal whiskey aging oak barrel from Amazon.  Basically you can buy a small oak barrel that has been charred on the inside, the same as the big distillers use to age whiskey in.  In large barrels it takes a lot of time to age whiskey because of the barrel surface area vs the liquid volume.  In these smaller barrels that ratio of wood to liquid is much more favorable to age whiskey significantly more quickly.  At a neighbors a few weeks ago he gave me a sample of some Crown Royal that had been in his small barrel 6 months and it was quite good.  When you buy these on  Amazon the option is to be able to personalize them to your own custom details as you can see here.  This one is filled with TX from Texas sent to me by my friend Matt Davis.  The barrel needs to be soaked in water to make sure the wood expands and seals which took about a week.  You can see where the water initially leaked out with the black color of the charring leaching out.  Once sealed it was filled with whiskey and I am figuring out it will be ready for our September trip to Lac Seul.  Also it can be used a couple of times and I have some nice scotch that could benefit from a couple months in the barrel.  There will definitely be an update when the barrel is tapped! Hopefully my patience will pay off.

Last Trip With the Wheel House

Kevin's size of choice!

Not much has been going on these last few weeks other than trying to find a roll of toilet paper in any store, my Lord this country has absolutely gone crazy, least I say more but I won't.  So in an effort to escape this madness on Friday my friends Kevin Aiona, Paul Wenaas, and I hooked up the Salem for what will probably it's last trip for the 2019/2020 ice fishing season.  Kevin's son Ben had left his ice house up at Springsteel Island Resort, where we fished this year on the week of January 9th and his plan was to go on up and fish the weekend, bringing his house home.  Arriving at 8:00 as planned we headed north to meet Ben at the resort, a 6 hour drive from home.  Both Paul and Kevin are retired so we were in no hurry to get home and the plan was to stay until Monday.  Arriving at the resort around 2:30 we ordered something to eat in the bar while we waited for Ben.  As the resort had stated you could go about anywhere around the resort and for the most part that was correct, if you stayed on the roads.  The snow was pretty hard off the roads but it was easy to spin down to the ice and you were stuck.  Our first stop was just east and right off what they called the DNR reef which came up to 16 feet however the surrounding area was about 22 feet.  Drilling the holes, I was reminded of my forgetfulness these days as I forgot to bring my cordless drill to run my Slushcopter, a wonderful device to push the slush down the holes once drilled as well as my slush scooper to finish what's left of what little ice there is.  Ben came to the rescue and let me use one of his.  We finally got settled in and started catching fish right away.  Admittedly many of them were quite small as though we were fishing sunfish.  I can't tell you how many walleyes we caught under 8 inches but I would say for every "keeper" fish we caught, we released at least 10 dinky ones.  It was surprising how aggressive these little fish could be.  They would rush up from the bottom and smack your lure, often dressed with a minnow head on the hook for some scent.  Sometimes they would come up almost 5 feet before hitting the lure, which is a lot of fun seeing it and having the anticipation of the fish slamming

Largest Walleye of the Trip, 21"

it, only to feel in the first second that it's another small fish.  We did catch a number of keepers, enough to take into the resort for a walleye dinner on Saturday night.  Ben was a little frustrated with the smaller fish that we caught by DNR reef so he decided on Saturday morning to move to deeper water.  He has chains on the truck so it was easier to go off road.  He was having some luck in deeper water out a few miles more so on Sunday morning we decided to move out as well.   As we lifted the house one of my pivoting axle's stuck and the axle spring shackle that secures the wheel to be able to drive was not moving.  Calling Ben, who had a propane torch, he drove over and as I suspect the grease around the axle was either too stiff to move or there might have been water in it because a minute of heating and the wheel started to slowly move down to allow us to secure it and move.  It was a good reminder of the next thing for the tool box.  Finally free we were able to get back on the road and head east a couple of miles.  Finding an old road we decided to back in so we had a clear path when we decided to leave, it was nice and flat so we set up.  It takes about an hour to properly set up the house, even with 3 guys but we were fishing by 9:30 in 25 feet of water.  No much deeper but different.

Paul with a nice 38 inch northern pike

We encounter about the same fishing as the last place.  I think right off the reef was a good morning/evening spot but the deeper water offered what might be a better day bite.  I thought we did better at the second place we setup, including the 21 inch walleye you see above.  The northern pike bite was better as both Paul and I caught 2 nicer northern's with Paul's being a respectable fish.  The fish did not come without inflicting a little revenge on all of us as before we got him up to the hole it had managed to swim around everyone of our lines and tangle them up beyond repair.  I guess we should have known better, when someone gets a nice fish, pull up the lines.  Oh well, the excitement overrides common sense and we spent the next 30 minutes cutting out lures, lines, retying our lines and lures.  To add insult to injury, we released the fish in Kevin's hole and it got stuck in his line, causing another problem of tangling up everything even more. It definitely was a mess but it did a couple of things for the good.  It made us retie fresh line on our rattle reels,

Tangled Mess!!

pull off the well used line on our existing poles and it was a great excuse to change lures.  In addition it provided some good entertainment as well as stories for the future.  I suppose we ended up with 7 keeper walleyes and a sauger, 1 nice perch, and a ton of smaller fish that we let go.  The DirecTV in the house made it nice and time sure flies when you are having fun.  We did watch the movie, Stand By Me, the 4 boys who head up the railroad tracks to find a dead body, it reminds me of growing up back home in Eleva.  We used to walk the tracks all the time and the trestle scene was right out of our memories crossing the trestle across the Buffalo River, especially when the train came roaring down the tracks.  That was over 55 years ago but it seems like it was just yesterday, time flies way to fast.  Well it was fun to spend the weekend with my 2 friends from back home, we had a blast and it was good to compare notes as to what each of us remembered what it used to be.  The last line in the movie Stand By Me says it all: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”   I guess I am am very blessed that those friends are still in my life!