Back In Business

Brindley's Harbor Resort

Last week was the firm cancellation of our 47th Annual Team Walleye Leech Lake opener.  It has been officially moved to the first weekend in October, 6 months from now.  Hopefully this state will get back to normal!  Because I am an admitted cynic of this situation and will not comment, and as well really enjoy fishing Leech Lake in May, my brother Steve, friend Kevin Aiona, his son Ben and grandson Jared have confirmed a reservation at Brindley's Harbor Resort starting May 8th and leaving on Monday morning, May 11.  Because of the current situation, the resort cabins and slips will be open however the lodge is closed plus there are some minor changes like we have to bring our own sleeping bags, pillows.......just like we do in Canada.  Also strict social distancing is required however I believe we will be fishing most of the time so that should not be an issue.  As of this post, the ice is still covering Leech Lake however with temperatures in the 50's and 60's we should be ice free by May 8th.  As for Leech and it's official ice out, the trend for the last 10 years has been later where we tend to deal with colder water temperatures.  Late ice out tends to mean that the walleyes are in the early post spawn period and tend to be very shallow, usually in the 6 - 10 foot range.  They haven't spread out much from their traditional spawning areas such as wind swept rock shores and points along the lake, which there are many.  It will be hard to say what the water temperature will be however last year it was relatively cold, around 47 degrees.  To find active walleyes one had to search for warmer water such as Steamboat Bay or a shoreline where the wind was blowing the surface water into.  This proved to be a great strategy, enough to win the majority of the prizes for our Team Walleye annual event.  Another excellent strategy is early evening trolling shad raps along those rocky shores.  This technique is deadly and as discussed last week, these new UV colored patterns seem to be hot.  There is always a few spawned out females swimming around which definitely gives the opportunity to catch a nice fish in the 27 to 28 inch range.  Fishing on Leech should be good again this year as the limit is 4 walleyes each, everything between 20 and 26 must be released, generally we let all the walleyes go over 20.  With the current situation it could go either way, the lake's fisherman could be few and far between or it could be the opposite as people are anxious to get out.  Either way my prediction is for a great opener!

Diawa Low Profile Line counter Reel

Although a labor of love, the last week has required getting the boat prepared for the opener.  Telling Steve that he doesn't need to bring any tackle or equipment, forces one to re-evaluate everything.  Of course the lure selections are quite easy as the boat tackle storage is quite modular with jig boxes, trolling baits, bobber rig box, live bait rig box, along with some panfish style baits and a good selection of various crankbaits to try out.  I can leave the deep runner boxes as home as we don't need them.  Basically there are 4 types of equipment that will be required.  On Friday the plan is to go crappie fishing up in Sucker Bay, the tackle strategy of choice is the slip bobber....2 of those rigs in the rod locker.  Next is a couple of jigging rods with regular monofilament for the standard 1/8 ounce Fireball Jig plus 2 jigging rods that are stiffer, and loaded with braid which can handle a new technique that we are going to try, jigging a Jiggin Rap or Rippin Rap's.  There has been a lot of talk about these types of baits in colder water and Ben is an expert at these types of baits so we will give them a try.  The forth type of rod is a longer live bait rod for pulling Lindy type rigs, 2 of them in the rod locker.  Last but not least are 2 baitcaster's with standard sized low profile reels that have line counters on them.  The line counters are not really necessary but add an element of options if a specific length behind the boat becomes needed.  I might throw in a couple of light panfish rods in case those crappies are active with small plastic jigs. While putting away the snowblower attachments in the shed, it gave me a great opportunity to start both motors on the boat.  As usual the big Evinrude starts like it never slept a wink over the winter and is ready to go on a moments notice.  It is of course Electronic Fuel Injected (EFI) so there is not hesitation as she sat there and idled till it warmed up.  The 9.8 kicker is another story as she is as cold blooded as they come.  Maybe it's my fault (of course it is!) but this is a carbureted engine and it takes a while for the gas to get everywhere it needs to fire up.  As well I am always concerned about the ethanol blend that I run as the kicker is a 4 stroke but is fed by the main gas tank.  The winterization process requires some stabilizer in the gas to help but last year I could not even get the kicker started on Opener.  After about 30 seconds of cranking over it finally started running, good enough to get her up to operating temperature as well to fire up the iTroll system, which BTW is a great way to control a kicker motor.  Everything seems to work fine and we should be ready to go with the only thing left is to clean the carpeting.  All the electronics are up to date and on Friday I plan on restarting my 6 month subscription to Sirius/XM Weather service which runs till the end of October.  This is a great feature that allows one to set a lightning warning, if lightning is within 6 miles of your current location, even in Canada, a warning goes off.  You then can overlay the weather onto your chart and go back 3 hours to see where the storm is heading.  That and Willy's Roadhouse makes it worth every penny!

Shad Rap

Shad Rap in an Exclusive Fleet Farm color, Hot Flash

In one's fishing lifetime baits come and go.  In my early 20's Kevin and I would fish a Johnson Silver Minnow or a Moss Boss for bass in the mats of pond weed above the Alma, WI dam.We'd tie our own jigs to fish walleyes on the wing dams or in the sloughs. Smithwick Rattlin' Rouges were on the top of that list as it was a go to bait for trolling 3 Mile Reef on Mille Lacs, and did we get some dandy's.  Well the last 20 years or so, the number 1 artificial bait in the boat for catching walleyes is Rapala's Shad Rap.  There are plenty imitations and admittedly I have a few of them yet there is something about a Shad Rap that is irresistible to a walleye.   They run true out of the box, maybe it's that wobble, they do not have a sound chamber for internal rattles, about the only thing that I have figured out is often the color makes the difference.  Of course this is what they say about color, they are meant to catch the fisherman, not fish.  My obsession with these baits is sort of a testament to that theory, however over the years some proven patterns work better than others, and of course how would one ever know if a new color worked or not if one never tried it!  Being a guy that say's one never knows, in the boat is quite a menagerie of #5 and #7 Shad Raps of various colors.  Always on the prowl for the latest and greatest, Fleet Farm's ad this week featured Shad Raps on sale for $5.99 and included was some of their exclusive color schemes, unique to Fleet Farm.  Being deemed an Essential Business, essentially I was driven to check out what they had, knowing my collection needed an update!  It was once told to me that Fleet Farm sold more Rapala's than any other retailer.  I have no proof however last year Fleet Farm sold to a larger retail firm.  At that time their Shad Raps

A new twist called Frosted

were priced at $4.99 for a #5 and they would go on sale for $3.99, a real bargain.  After the new owners took over the price jumped to $6.99/$5.99 on sale.  They are still a little cheaper than most places however it is good that the majority of my inventory was bought before last year!   Seeking out their exclusive colors two really caught my eye.  The first is a derivative of a perch pattern called Hot Flash.  I have had good luck with the latest neon versions of  the perch pattern as they really stand out, especially at night.  Add to the fact that any orange seems to do well, it was a simply a had to have color and in the cart it went.  One of my thoughts for opener was a light colored crankbait, in a white, like what was posted a few weeks ago, a Wonder Bead pattern, this Shad Rap with an iridescent whit top and mirror chrome sides appeared called Frosted.  A great name, how on earth could one pass that up so it joined the other in the cart.  There were some other neat colors yet not enough to catch my interest, maybe later.  There is a trend in custom bait colors, similar to those first offered on deep diving Reef Runners , colors with funky names like Cheap Sun Glasses or Heat Stroke.  This trend has reached into the Shad Raps with a company called Viper Custom Tackle which offers various colors including ones that you might have developed, which has products in Cabela's.  They are not cheap but interesting as these weird colors are popular for fishing walleyes in clear water.  If in the future there is a have to have color maybe I'll pull the trigger but for now the tackle box marked Shad Rap's is pretty loaded to the gills!  Sorry for the pun.

Neon Green Tiger UV

Trolling Shad Raps at night during our Annual Minnesota Fishing Opener with Team Walleye has been my go to methodology, good for about 8 - 10 walleyes in the boat during that 90 minutes of time between sunset and completely dark.  With 7 boats in our team, the other guys seem reluctant to troll, whether they are uncomfortable trolling, don't have the equipment, I am not sure but it is a deadly technique, especially in the shallows ( 5 - 7 feet) in the spring.  While the tried and true method is a jig and minnow on Leech Lake, one can cover more ground looking for active fish via trolling a Shad Rap.  A #5 Shad Rap runs about 5 - 7 feet with about 75 feet of line out and is perfect.  As stated earlier these new colors offer new opportunities and last year this Green Tiger UV (Also a Pink Tiger UV) were on fire.  I would have to say that my number one color is the crawdad but that's changing and the reason that first color, Hot Flash is so appealing, a cross between a crawdad color and the tiger pattern, how could it miss!  A favorite memory is fishing Sunday night on Leech a number of years back.  With Mark Mayerich and his son Adam in the boat, we stopped at 8:30 and it was announced.....we are going to troll.  Not exactly the style they were used to and eventually I had to rig them up as it made no sense trolling with spinning rigs and 8 pound test, those shad raps were too expensive to leave on the bottom of the lake.  I carry bait casting rigs specifically for these situations so attached a different colored Shad Rap to each rod and told them to simply let out so many passes of line on the spool.  In 90 minutes we had netted 18 walleyes, one every 5 minutes, with Mark catching the majority.  Of course this is the problem with having so many colors to chose from, if one is hot you'd better have a second one for yourself, dang another reason to shop!  In truth my theory is all crankbait strikes are reaction strikes.  This thing coming through the water is creating a pressure wave that the fish can feel, it goes to investigates and notices this thing trying to flee..........bang, it hits the lure out of instinct, hit first, taste later.  Having said that, it's both the vibration and profile that are the true triggers, and believe that color just helps add to that profile, how visible is it in the waters you are trolling?  Over the years I have had identical baits both in size and color yet one seems to hammer the fish while the other is left alone.  The thought is that the good bait has a better vibration pattern, something it is difficult to quantify, much more attractive to fish than just the same bait.  Maybe the lip is off, or is perfect, it's hard to tell except for the teeth marks or the battered edge of the diving lip on the bait that really works well.

Crawdad Color, Currently My #1 Color Success

So waiting for opener has been decided.  It seems like it's the first of November, will there be enough ice by Thanksgiving or will we have to wait till after Christmas?  Mother Nature has decided that we need to cancel our traditional opener scheduled for May 9th and move it to the first weekend in October.  It is looking more like our two trips to Lac Seul, one in May and the other in June don't look like they are happening either.  So much for all the new strategies for this year! The good news is that October should be an ideal time to troll walleyes on Leech Lake and I have some perfect spots where no one in my group has fished, some shallower mid lake reefs as well as Rocky points.  My brother Steve and I are working on Plan C, maybe just a couple of us will head up to Leech, assuming it's open, and we can stay in a small group. It might take till the end of the month to decide.  Either way Fleet Farm's sale ends on Saturday, maybe another excuse!

April Snow and Other Issues

Our Mid April Snow Storm

It would be nice to say that everything is back to normal but trying to figure out what is normal these days is a mystery in itself!  Because of the current Corona Virus situation, our illustrious Governor has extended the Stay in Place order until May 4th and there is talk that he might extend it till June. Our 47th annual Minnesota Fishing Opener is looking more like a delayed event than something that even a later than usual Ice Out in 2013 could not diminish.  Even if all the restrictions are lifted by the May 9th fishing opener there are quite a few that may opt to stay home or in my nephews case, simply cannot fly from Portland, Oregon to MSP.  We do have Plan B, which is to move our annual event to the first of October.  Given the situation it seems like it would be a good time to reschedule, especially as one of my favorite ways to fish walleyes is trolling shad raps, it would be a great time of the year for doing that!  We should know shortly but I am not putting any money that it will happen in May.  This issue drags into our trips planned for Lac Seul this spring which was scheduled for May 16th, Ontario's walleye opener, as well as the usual trip in June.  It may be too soon to predict the outcome but it may not be until July before this thing settles down.  To top it off Mille Lacs Lake is only catch and release this year with the entire lake closing down for the month of July.  There are tons of walleyes to catch in Mille Lacs so this will probably be the Goto destination for May and June, we'll have to see.  The great weather the last couple of weeks inspired me to get the dethatcher/bagger system on my lawn tractor (more on that below) which required the snowblower and cab to be removed and put away.  Well you know what that means, if you do this before April 15, it's going to snow!  After getting the blower cleaned off and with the help of the neighbors, the cab properly stored, we got 3 - 4 inches of snow on Saturday night/Easter Sunday.  Luckily we were on the northwest corner of the storm and to our southeast got the brunt of it yet it goes without saying that the curse is still in existence!  The good thing is the concrete surfaces were warm enough so nothing stuck and the snowblower wasn't needed yet it seems as though someone was saying....don't
try that again!

Dethatcher hitch

So after getting the hitch attachment for the dethatcher on the lawn tractor, it finally got mounted and admittedly it works pretty slick.  There were a couple of snafu's to deal with including the frame was a little warped so the click in pins didn't click in, the mounting holes through the main mounting were hand drilled and not exactly perpendicular to the mounting holes, plus the green paint was not John Deere green so it's close but not the same!  After mounting the attachment to the quick hitch, with a hammer attempted to make a mark by the hole to see where it needed adjustment but instead it clicked in, good enough!  Next the holes that mounted the dethatcher to the hitch were off so using an 11/64th drill and a mild reaming, the bolts now went through the tube so they could be tightened up.  As far as the green paint, Fleet Farm had John Deere Green spray paint and after the season it will be repainted in the right color.  After a few issues of my own like hooking the hydraulic lines to the wrong place it finally is working and it is certainly a lot better than trying to lift it via the pull bar that came with the unit originally.  Unfortunately the snow has put a damper on any year activities for a few days however the forecast is for the 60's to return next weekend.  There are a number of neighbors that I let use this system as it really works great yet maybe there could be an opportunity to make some cash as it makes the lawn look great and along with an application of Scott's Truf Builder, one is set through the summer.  Then again, that would be work!

Pink Clown Rippin' Rap

So this isn't Yard Maintenance with Dave so I did get some things done on the fishing front.  Deciding that the tackle boxes need better organization as there were 3 separate boxes that stored Rapala Shad Raps, they got organized into a single box.  Another box was assorted Rapala lures with another box of Flick'r Shads, Smash Shads, and other shad style walleye crankbaits and it's starting to look good.  Last fall we did really well with jigging raps on Long Lake in Wisconsin, as well Ben Aiona caught his share of nice walleyes using Slab Raps and Rippin' Raps through the ice yet a search of YouTube videos shows some interesting open water catches on these types of jerk baits.  I separated a box of these types of jigging lures and was excited to experiment with them on both the Minnesota and especially the Ontario fishing opener.   Lac Seul's water is a dark tea color and the rattle aspect of this lure might hold some real promise as we mostly vertical jig fish walleyes.  We'll see what becomes of our season but there will be a time to experiment!  There is a lot to do before any official Fishing Opener so stay tuned!

Crazy Weekend

One of Vic's Favorite fish, Channel Catfish

The events of this weekend have delayed (as good excuse as I could come up with!) my posts but things are settling down enough to put some thoughts online.  The weekend started Friday morning when I missed a call from Paul Wenaas, my friend from Chippewa Falls.  Having to drive to Eau Claire that morning, I promised him a call on the way as it was more convenient but really contemplated the conversation.  Unfortunately I was right, although not unexpected, my first real boss, Vic Wenaas, Paul's father died Friday morning.  He was 92 so it was no surprise.  When asked to give a presentation while I was working often the introduction involved where I attended school when having needed a background of my "stature" as President of Precision.  My go to answer would say that I have an Associate's  Degree in Electronic Technology and my MBA from the Victor Wenaas School of Business Management.  That went well with those guys who had degrees from MIT and MBA's from Harvard! Vic owned the gas station that was once owned by my grandfather.   I started working at 15 and at that time I had 2 jobs, half the nights was loading chickens in a truck for the local chicken processing factory and half being a gas station attendant, the kind that would pump your gas and wash the windshield.  In the fall Vic said I had to make a decision as he needed a full time guy, work for me or the chicken truck.  It was no use running to my dad for advice because he really didn't care but rather he gave me a lesson,  make up your own mind .  So at 15.5 I decided to be a grease monkey and work for Vic for 75 cents an hour.  This was in July of 1970 and I worked there until January 25th, 1976.  My favorite story is while working on car repairs on Saturday my job was to do the oil changes while he might be changing a water pump in the other bay.  He would always have WAXX, 104.5 FM Country on the radio.  This was the early 70's so I cut me teeth on Johnny Cash, Eddie Arnold, Porter Wagner, Hank Snow, Dolly Pardon and all the Older country stars.  I still can name damn near every song from 50 years ago.  Anyway Eddie Arnold's song, Cattle Call started playing and while changing oil which prompted me to start singing the part where he does the cattle call, I liked that part!.  Vic came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me and said........"You know something Davy, I can't sing either!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JX50rZae2M  Vic loved to catfish in the summer and often we'd go down by the buffalo bridge or for a real adventure, up to Eau Claire and fish NSP point where the Eau Claire River met the Chippewa River.  There were always a few guys along like my dad, Art Kelly, and Daniel Van Pelt.  Our favorite bait was chicken livers that we harvested out of the back of Doughboy Foods chicken processing plant in Eleva.  It is with regret that in my archives there are no pictures of Vic but I know where catfish stood!  

Tim Pulling Pork for his Annual Pig Roast

The second event was the passing of my good friend and neighbor Tim Kuntz.  Saturday night at around 7:00 pm my good neighbor Tim died at home from stage 4 urinary tract cancer.  He found out on Feb 2, and 8 weeks later we hauled him out of the den where his hospice bed was.  He was 63.  Tim was always the center of the neighborhood, had a separate garage always had a cold beer, simply drive by and if the light shined through the window, it was your indication that you were welcome.  A couple years ago he moved an enclosed trailer in front of the window enough so you could not see the light so a few of use complained that we no longer knew he was in the garage.  Enough so that he went out and bought a neon store sign saying OPEN, with it wired to his light switch, if he was in the garage, the sign was definitely lit with the connotation, come on in.  Anyway for the last 2 months I saw him as much as permitted and every time I left I gave him a hug and told him that I loved him.  Tim's nickname was Tool man Tim,  proper name as he seemed to either have every to tool known to man or he could make something do.  Tim was the center of the neighborhood as he hosted the annual Superbowl Party to watch the Super bowl in his heated garage/man cave.  In the early fall Tim would get a 230 pound whole hog and have a pig roast, he was quite a BBQ chef as well he really enjoyed being the host.  The stories could go on but the reality is that it is over and after visiting Tim last Friday night, he was ready to say goodbye.  My grandmother Myrtle had a picture in her kitchen of a man praying and the prayer was...God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  Rest in peace my friend.

The last thing is a project involving my friend Greg Kinblom's idea to make a bracket for my John Deere Lawn tractor to change the way the dethatcher attachment connects to the front end of it.  Basically has made a bracket, adapting it to the hydraulic quick hitch which controls the lift from the drivers seat.  The quick hitch came with the snowblower attachment and works quite well.  It is very nice however not without some issues.  Although not related to his work, I did have to accommodate some of his holes by enlarging them somewhat.  The bigger issues dealt with once I attached the mower deck the front bracket of the deck hit the hitch.   Also when reattached the hitch would not lift, 15 minutes later it was discovered that the black hose was attached to the grey connector, after switching it worked great again.  Focusing on getting the lawn thatched and ready for fertilizing, things should go better this week.  Maybe there will be some pictures next post.  The original plan was to head to Lake Erie today however their is a 14 day quarantine for new arrivals so the Mississippi River is plan B.  The problem is the river is at flood stage and the peak will happen early this week.  I'm am sure we'll think of something!