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!