Top Fuel Dragster on a Green Light!

Between the weather and the garden, it's been pretty difficult finding time to get the jon boat out, actually a even a little embarrassing.  Last Friday was interesting as my good friend that I met at work, Kevin Sonsalla had tickets again to attend the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway.  It is always a fun event as Kevin has some connections with Don Schumacher Racing out of Illinois.  Schumacher is a famous name in both the welding and battery charger manufacturing in the US and Kevin used to represent certain products he would sell to them.  Eventually he would help out at their race events and today they still treat him pretty nice.  His tickets get us into the event, access to reserved seating, as well the hospitality tent where we can watch them rebuild the engine after each run, have a nice meal served, as well as free soft drinks.  It is a lot of fun as this was probably my 6th time going and it is quite amazing to see those cars go from a dead stop to 1000 feet in less than 3.8 seconds and over 330 mph.  That is moving! One of the things I found interesting was a display by a local General Motors dealer selling the latest in V8 motor configurations.  They had 6.2L (378 cu in) V8's that would turn out over 600 hp, and I often talk about the good old days of cars, those days are here!  Thanks Kevin for a great day again!

Fermentation Crock

So a couple of things, my fermented pickles are absolutely delicious.  They have cured into a great tasting deli style pickle and of course I think they are pretty good.  My neighbor Lynn Brasel took some of my cucumbers from the garden and made crock pickles as well, her's were pretty good, maybe more polished.  She used vinegar and I just used a salt brine so maybe in a contest she would have taken a blue ribbon, never the less, I reminded her that they were my cucumbers!  Both are still quite tasty although she did give me her recipe.  We are at the end of a nice month long harvesting season for the cucumbers and maybe I will have enough to make another batch soon as I expect to empty this fermentation crock within the next couple of days.  One has to daily skim off the white mold that forms on the top of the liquid, not the worst job and it gives one the opportunity to taste the brine, which is packed full of the new craze in dietary supplements called Probiotics,  a great boost to ones digestive health.  It's actually pretty good.  I bought some 1 gallon plastic square containers which work pretty well for the refrigerator however I have already ate a gallon.  With about 5 gallons of pickles fermenting in crocks now I should have enough to take me through ice fishing season, not even counting on trying Lynn's method.  Lynn's husband Lory stopped by last week and we picked 10 gallons of summer crisp pears which he will make into pear wine.  Our plan is to use our still and make pear brandy soon.  He

A Raccoon's Banquet!

has some chokecherry brandy that we tried and admittedly it's pretty good as well.  Cured in miniature charred oak barrels and blended with the right amount of flavorings and cut to a reasonable proof (80) I was very impressed and am looking forward to see how this will turn out.  It is also time to harvest the sweet corn however the raccoons have decided the same.  I wouldn't be so angry as not to share some of my corn with them however they tend to be real pigs about it and knock down the stalks, take a few bites out of a cob then move to the next one.  They took out an equivalent of a half a row of corn with most of the cobs having just a few bites out of then.  Frustrating for sure.  There is a live trap waiting for them with a nice can of tuna cat food, hardly something a nice raccoon cane pass up but no luck.  Maybe the corn wasn't quite ready and they have decided to come back in a week when it will be!  Either way I'll be waiting.  I did get a chance to fish on our neighbor John's dock on Sunday night with Limo Joe, his son Jake, his neighbor friend Aaron, Big Jake and his son Elijah.  Nobody was really set up very well so my job was to reconfigure each pole with the right hook and sinker, added some nightcrawlers to the hooks and in addition we tried a line with Doc's Catfish bait but it wasn't a good night for fishing.  The excuse might be that this was the first time fishing on John's dock so it might take a while to get to know the best place to cast.  Anyway it was fun hanging with the kids and teaching them not to stick one's finger in the Doc's Catfish goop, it is pretty gross!

Uffda!

All I can say is time sure does fly.  It seems as though I had just finished my last post and here it is, another week..............uffda.  For those who don't really understand what Uffda mean, click here and you can learn more about it!  So after 5 days of fishing in Canada, there has been plenty of things to do around the house, with the main objective of getting the jon boat out and running to fish the Mississippi River this summer.  Last Summer my Canadian fishing got in the way but have vowed to not let that happen again.  Last Friday was our annual trek to Brainerd International Raceway (BIR) to watch the NHRA drag races.  These are the big boys like John Force, Tony Schumacker, driving funny cars and top fuel dragsters that hit 320 mph and cross the finish line 1000 feet down the track in less than 4 seconds from a dead stop.  It's pretty incredible to watch as the round just shakes as the cars fly by.  As always we are guests of my good friend Kevin Sonsalla.  My neighbor Lory Brasel went with as it is always a good time with Kevin.  Friday is a qualifying day so the big boys start their first round at about 3:00, make a run then go back to their tents and tear down the motor completely and rebuild it, ready for the second round of the day at 6:00.  Kevin gets us into the Tony Schumacker tent where we can watch them rebuild the engine, have a nice dinner, refreshments before heading back to the track.  On one of the Funny Car runs I decided to record a video on the phone and in this case one of the cars blew an intake manifold, which in turns blew off the entire body.  I caught it on the video which is above, stop it at the 8 second make and you will see the resulting explosion and as the video ends you can see the body parts floating to the ground.  It was pretty amazing as I have been told that this is a potential failure so it is made to blow up safely, sure...... These engines run of Nitromethane which has 2.3 times more power than gasoline.  I have been told these engines at full throttle us 1 gallon a second.  Either way it was fun and quite amazing to see a car go that fast in that short of time.  Enjoy the video!

David Grant and a 22 pound King Salmon

So my second goal was to get my jon boat out and ready for fishing the river this weekend.  The
motor hasn't been run in 2 years and even though it has Non-oxygenated gas in it, it still isn't good to sit that long.  The other issue is one forgets about the nuances of the motor, like this 25 hp Mercury tends to flood easy and doesn't need to be choked very hard.  Once the water cuffs were put on, a few pulls with the choke fully on and the engine sputtered to life.  Unfortunately that's all it did and it would not run consistent.  Remembering it had a tendency to easily flood, a quick run to the auto parts store and new plugs seemed to help somewhat but no entirely.  The next step was to drain the gas and put in some newer stuff.  The gas smelled OK but one never knows so after finishing that task, a few pulls on the rope and voila, it started then stayed running!!  This Merc 25 hp has a goofy system whereas the throttle and gear shift is all in one.  You can only increase the throttle slightly before it shifts into gear as you pass a point on the twist grip.  Well up to this point it would simply kill once you passed that point however this time it kept running, and boy did it smoke.  Another sign of being flooded, it seems impossible that it could happen that fast.  Anyway she cleared out and after filling the tank with new gas, she's ready to go for the weekend.   It was great to get everything going and am looking forward to getting back on the river for some great smallmouth and catfish fishing!  Needing a nice fish picture for this week, my good friend David Grant sent me this one of the 22 pound King Salmon he caught on Lake Michigan this week.  I remember fishing this time of year on Lake Michigan in my 16 foot Lund Pro Angler with a 50 hp Merc.  My friend Kevin Aiona and I would go out and get kings, Coho's, and Lake Trout as we had the boat decked out with down riggers.  One can fish 3 lines per guy so we always had 2 lines down on the down riggers, maybe 40 - 60 feet down.  To the side we had Dipsey Divers that took your bait down and away form the boat, I suspect those were about 40 feet down.  The last two line were straight back of the boat, we used brightly colored crankbaits or J plugs.  We would get plenty of fish and the great thing about it was we'd take turns fighting the fish while the other guy reeled in all of our gear.  This meant we could fight the fish directly instead of keeping the motor running so we would not get tangled up and having to reel the fish against the 2 mph boat speed.  Anyway Dave, that's a nice fish and I'll bet it tasted great!

So the plan is to hit the river this weekend.  Hopefully there will be some nice pictures of the results.  As stated before, our next trip to Lac Seul is planned for September 17th, admittedly I'm so spoiled!!

Quiet Week

Jane Holtan and her HUGE Silver Salmon!

Actually it's really been busy, too busy to even write this week's post  on time but yet it's been awfully quiet around.  The weather has cooled down and it looks like it will be raining this weekend so time to get some of the things done around the house as well, get my boat ready for the next excursion to Lac Seul in 4 weeks.  The Ranger still has some work to be taken car of since a number of afflictions came upon it, namely the theft of my electronics where they destroyed the plastic panels as well my hydraulic steering still needs some adjustment.  The boat will go back to Frankie's on Monday where they can work on all of these issues and hopefully get her back like new before September 20th when we head up to Chamberlain Narrows.  I finally had lunch with Mike Worms and got him my old Ipod for his boat.  I am still struggling with getting my new 128 GB Ipod up and running but there are people at work who are smarter than me (and younger) who can help in this regard.  Because I don't have any latest and greatest pictures of me, I will defer to my friend Keith Holtan and the picture of his wife Jane holding an enormous silver salmon that she caught in the Kenai River last week.  I can tell that Keith has instructed Jane on the finer points of fish photography however even though you can do those things to make a fish look big, this is a big salmon.  Tricks of the trade are to hide your hands so as not to have a clear reference to the size, she does this very well, however the other is to hold it out a ways from your body and I suspect this fish is easily over 16 pounds (I let Keith comment!) so unless Jane has been lifting weights on her days off, I am pretty impressed! Of course my friends and Cousin Mark that are in Alaska keep sending these teases, maybe I'll just have to make one more trip next year, 2018 is an even year and the humpy's will be in.  Definitely food for thought!

So one thing we did last week was Lory Brasel and I went to Brainerd with our friend Kevin Sonsalla for our annual trip to BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) and the NHRA's stop on the National Drag Racing Circuit.  It is always a fun time unfortunately rain put a damper on most of the racing however we did get in a few ear shattering runs. Brainerd's track and location can make for record setting runs as the cooler weather is perfect for top fuel (Nitrous) funny cars and traditional rail type cars.  On friday the 18th the track set a new National Funny Car record by breaking the 3.80 seconds in the 1000 foot length (it use to be a 1/4 mile for these cars) by Robert Hight with a time of 3.793 seconds and crossing the line at 338 mph.  Think about that for a second!!!, in 3.793 seconds you go from standing still to 338 mph..........uffda is the only word I can think of.  It is fun and exciting to see these care go.  Lory took a video of 2 cars coming down the track and the one the right looses control and pulls in front of the car in the left lane.  That was certainly worth watching for sure. It's quite amazing watching these top fuel guys go down the track in no time flat.

As stated earlier, the boat got back at Frankie's this morning, getting the final touches on the insurance work that I had done from the time they ripped my cover off and removed my electronics. They damaged the plastic dash pieces and because the damage was cosmetic, I decided to not wait for this work to get done prior to my trip to Canada on June 24th.  Well if you don't stay on this stuff eventually no one ever has time to fix it! We already have plans for Lac Seul leaving on September 20th.  Some "not so above board" stuff has been happening with Mille Lacs Lake as the season for fishing walleyes will close coming weekend, it might be just the impetus to head up again, assuming my boat is done in time.

Dog Days of Summer

Flames shoot out the exhaust on an amazing run.

Fishing has been somewhat frustrating considering all the rain we have had in the last 30 days.  I suspect it's been over 12 inches but who is counting!  Friday I was fortunate enough to be invited back to Brainerd International Raceway (BIR) by my good friend Kevin Sonsalla.  Kevin is a business colleague I met a long time ago and he happened to be from the area where I grew up.  There were plenty of Sonsalla's near Eleva so we have a lot in common.  Last week event was the NHRA's (National Hot Rod Association) scheduled event and all the big national teams were there.  Kevin has a relationship with Tony Schaumacher, the championship drag racer who is sponsored by the US Army.  Therefore he has race day passes, passses for the hospitality tent which get's us refreshments and a awfully good meal after the first race.   It is interesting as these top fuel cars run on Nitromethane which has the ability to provide most of the oxygen needed to make power.  These engines are 500 cubic inch and have no cooling other than air, so after each run they are torn apart and rebuilt for the next race.  In this case the top fuel guys raced at around 5:00 in the afternoon and have to have their cars ready for the next run, 2 hours later.  It is quite fun to watch a crew of 4 guys rebuild the engine, pretty amazing.  These cars start from a dead stop and race just 1000 feet to the finish.  It used to be a quarter mile length however the speeds were getting too high so they shortened it.  The teams now have caught back up to the speeds and times of the old distance and the fastest run was covering the distance in 3.77 seconds with a top speed of 322 mph.  That's moving!  Sitting in the stands you literally feel the force of these engines as they scream by.  It is pretty loud as well.  We stayed for the second run later in the evening and the flames shooting out of the exhaust is pretty cool.  The last race of the day was a couple of jet engine powered cars and that was interesting.  Not as fast or as quick never the less the afterburners on the engines put on a pretty good show.

Current water Levels behind the house.

I did make it on the river on Sunday night however because of the rain the water was up another 18 inches.  The high water makes for traveling anywhere you want to go pretty easy however it does scatter the fish.  My neighbor Tom Olson went with me but it was pretty slow.  He caught a medium sized smallmouth while I haven't been doing very well at all in that department.  At 7:00 we decided to anchor and again all we could catch were 6 inch catfish in the high water.   Oh well, hopefully the rain will settle down somewhat. Personally I like it when the gage height is between 4.0 and 5.0.  Unfortunately both seats in my Jon Boat broke so I ordered new ones to replace them. They were pretty bad.  I have one other project going on with my boat, on the Ranger I have an HDS 9 mounted on the dash above my panel mount HDS12.  My original idea was to use a Johnny Ray so I could move it between my Ranger and the Jon boat however it proved to be too heavy for the Johnny Ray that I bought.  After a few ideas am going to try to mount just an HDS9 gimble to my dash using a nice 1/2" thick plastic piece then fashion it into an adaptor plate so I use the existing holes that I have already made.  Luckily the Johnny Ray still works good in the jon boat so I should be ok, it just takes a little thought process to make sure it looks good.

After a season of strictly catch and release fishing on Mille Lacs this year, the calculations for hooking mortality have now exceeded the allowable totals on the State fisherman's side.  Our illustrious Governor announce that we would not stop fishing but the Indian tribes called foul so starting September 6th it will be illegal to fish for walleyes again until a new quota is announced for December 1st...........what an unbelievable mess for sure.  I promised myself I won't get political but this whole situation on Mille Lacs is ridiculous for sure.  Anyway I am hoping to get out this weekend for one last trip for what it's worth, maybe try some deep water trolling with lead line or deep diving reef runners.  It's always fun and the MTT event on Mille Lacs, that strategy proved to be very successful.

Finally........Back on the River

Evening on the River

This is the time of the year I usually get my jon boat ready to go and head to fish the Mississippi River behind my house.  the neighbor has an adequate boat launch and is kind enough to let me use, which is very convenient.   This year I had some things to accomplish before heading out.  I had a HDS7 that I used on the boat however I had sold it to my friend Bruce Wiley last September.  during that last trip on the river I floated into a rock that busted my transducer off the bracket and rendered it useless.  Besides replacing the transducer I noticed last Sunday that the battery on my Polaris Razor was dead so I hooked up a charger to it in hopes that it would fix the issue.  Figuring I'd try to get out on Monday and I need the Razor to pull the boat to the landing, it still wouldn't start.  A quick feel of the battery and I was hot, the battery is cooked.  I noticed that the date engraved on the top was 8-1-15, a year and 7 days ago.  The warranty has a 12 month free replacement, crap.  Pulling it out of the vehicle and putting the battery in a pail of cold water, I headed to Fleet Farm to beg for mercy.  So much for my plan to get out Monday night.  Arriving at Fleet Farm I was directed to the back of the store in the automotive section.  There I was greeted by a young man who was just wrapping up another deal, the guy asked what he could help me with.  I looked at him and said "You want to hear my sob story?" to which he replied, "do I need to take notes?"  We both laughed as I explained the events of the last week.  I acknowledged that I understand I don't have a leg to stand on however in the end he gave me a full adjustment!  One does win some every once in a while!  Saving me over $100 I headed home and ut the battery in, it worked as the Razor fired right up.  Being too late I decided that fishing would have to wait till tomorrow night.  On Tuesday I cleaned up everything and pulled the boat out, hooked it up to the Razor and withing 15 minutes I was on the water.  Unfortunately when launching I let the winch handle fly and smack me right across my left hand, I was getting to believe it had broke a few bones in my hand.  Heading up river I had about 90 minutes to fish so I decided to head up to the Stevens Farm area and drift down.  The river is still higher than normal however it did make for nice fishing as the water was right up to the bank and flowing well.  On my second cast I had a smallie but it got off right away.  After getting a pretty good birds nest in the reel I was using I switch rods and it was much stiffer and easier to control the lure placement.  I did get hung up a few times and one of those times the lure was just sitting on the surface, a big bass took a swipe at it and missed.  I kept having trouble with my snap at the end of the line opening up, it had a double locking feature as well but at least 4 times my lure fell off and I had to retrieve it, luckily the lure floats.  Eventually I ended up biting off the snap and tieing the lure directly to the line.  Without lights on the boat and it was getting dark I decided to head back with my mission accomplished, get the boat out and make sure everything worked.  The only thing I caught was this nice picture of the sunset looking up river.  It was very peaceful as the river is interesting and fun to be on.  I drifted past a tree that had wild turkey's just roosting on the high branches.   Fish seemed everywhere as they were surfacing, maybe they were just carp but it still is a lot of fun.  In the next 4 weeks I suspect that there will be more trips, now that I have everything running!

Sunset on Round Lake, MN

Last Saturday my wife and I headed north to Round Lake by Garrison Minnesota to help my friend Bruce celebrate his 60th birthday.  It really felt like a reunion of all the guys I have been to Canada with including Pete, Dan, Wayne, Tom and Bruce's father -in-law and brother-in-law as well as his 2 boys.  It was a gorgeous night, not too hot and the lake is quite beautiful.  Bruce decided to get the pontoon started and we all took a very leisurely cruise around the lake where like where I do a lot, snapped this picture of the sunset.  This picture is a great example of the proper way to take a picture of stuff like this, divide your scene into thirds.  Here you see I put the horizon on the bottom "third" line of the picture and then the remnants of the sun on the right third, where it intersects the bottom.  I think that following thee guidelines give much better depth to the scene as well as balance.  OK, it's fishing with Dave, not picture taking with Dave but as you see since June's trip to Lac Seul, it's been pretty light on the catching side.  That will change hopefully as I plan on hitting the river pretty hard in the next 3 weeks and it's a fairly easy task as it takes me about 5 minutes to get the boat in the River and the bite should be pretty good.

The countdown to Lac Seul is happening as one of the things I gave Bruce for his birthday was some Berkley Powerbait Walleye twister tail grubs and the appropriate jig heads.  He claims to want to learn how to fish plastics but in reality it's pretty easy up there as the fish are plentiful and hungry.  Next Friday Lory Brasel and I are once again invited up to BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) for an afternoon of relaxation and enjoying the NHRA sanctioned event.  Our friend Kevin Sonsalla does some work for Tony Schumacher and we get to ride along on his tails!  It is pretty awesome to watch them rebuild the cars before each race then see them go 1000 feet in 5 seconds, getting to over 300 mph.   Along with this we will definitely get to see my neighbor Tim who is frantically getting his school bus converted to an RV for the week, I have to admit, it looks pretty nice.

Taking The Weekend Off

At the Races

With severe storms, high winds, and colder weather scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday of last week I decided to go up with my friend Kevin Sonsalla and Lory to BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) on Friday instead of picking up my boat at Frankie's. The GPS board in the Motorguide needed replacing so I dropped it off on Monday but they still had some stuff to do and it wasn't going to be fully done so it worked out well.  The NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) has their annual race week at BIR and all the big boys are there for this national event.  Although there are many classes of drag racers, the stars of the show were the Top Fuel Dragsters and the Funny Cars.  Kevin always get's tickets to the events as he has his contacts with Don Schumacher Racing so we get right in and have special hospitality passes to DSR's area's which is pretty cool.  The races are amazing as both the Top Fuel's and Funny Car's cross the finish lines in under 4 seconds, often at speeds over 320 miles per hour. That's damn fast when you consider they start from a dead stop and race to the 1000 foot mark, which is less than 1/5th of a mile.  They moved the finish line back from a 1/4 mile when the speeds started getting unsafe.  It seems like they have caught up to those old times again.  One interesting thing we saw was 2 Funny Cars that had lined up and both crossed the finish line in under 4.0 seconds.  The track announcer stated that this was only the 3rd time in NHRA history that both cars lined up broke the 4 second mark.  Even more interesting was the next 2 drivers that lined up and they also broke the 4 second mark...2 in a row.  The sound is deafening as you can feel the speed as they go by.  It's quite interesting for sure and with the cool weather coming in, things were bound to get faster, which they did!  Sunday's high was only around 60 degrees F and with the cloud cover the track was insanely fast.  Checking the results on Sunday night 4 NHRA speed and time records were broke including a 3.68 ET for top fuel, the fastest time ever recorded at 332.75 mph in Top Fuel, a 329.58 mph fastest Funny Car time ever, and a record setting 3.664 ET but could not be verified via NHRA rules.  When we were there the announcer gave a update on one run, at 660 feet the Funny Car had accelerated from a dead stop to 288 mph in less than 3 seconds while covering the last 340 feet in another second. Uffda!!!

Grapes!

It's really getting to be garden time and although the corn and pickles are done, the tomatoes, peppers, carrots, squash, raspberries, onions, are in full harvest mode. This is the first year that I have raised grapes and with the help of Lory we actually got a few this year. They are pretty flavorful, have seeds in them, and are probably pretty useless for wine but it's sure cool to see them hanging on the vines.  I have to take care of them this winter, making sure the roots get covered an protected from a hard cold January.  That should be pretty easy as I have lot's of leaves and a good system to pick them up with.   My carrots are really doing well this year.  Usually I dread planting them then having to thin them out to assure they have room to grow then I never do. This year I bought the coated seeds, they are about the size of a BB and really easy to plant. Not crowding allows then to grow nice and big so everyone is amazed at my carrots this year.  I love carrots and eat them raw right out of the garden.  My dad always said they were good for your eyes and to this day I still have 20/15 vision, not bad for an old guy!  Somewhere I read that you can also cover any carrots left in the garden with leaves such that the ground doesn't freeze and you can harvest them all winter long, I don't really know about that but it might be worth a try.  As well the tomatoes are really

Nice Looking Carrots 

starting to ripen.  I've canned tomatoes in the past however it seems like all they do is sit in the jars for years until they rot, I clean out the jars and repeat the process.  Well a few years ago I decided that the tomatoes are best use to make salsa and quite honestly I seem to be getting better at it every year.  I hate soupy salsa's preferring the thicker, cling to your chip type and have perfected my process.  There are a couple of secrets and I know many simple don't want to take the time but first is after peeling the tomatoes I squeeze out the juice then put them in a pot to boil it down.  The second secret is towards the end add a large can of tomato paste, it's like adding cornstarch to gravy. Anyway the batch I made the other day was excellent with a lot of garlic, lime juice for increasing the acidity, and 6 different peppers from the garden.  I also have about 6 different varieties of tomatoes, most of them heirloom type as I think they have considerably more flavor.  One of the other items in the garden that are huge this year are the potatoes.  I dug one hill up the other day and I swear it yielded 5 pounds of huge tubers.  I like to leave them in the ground and use them as needed because they stay fresher that way.  I might have to take some to Canada with me next month.  I hear that potatoes have to be in a commercial bag that they come in from the store, that wouldn't be hard to do, we'll see.

Picking up the boat before the weekend as I just got my snaps for the new replaceable carpet and can get them installed.  The new GPS board on the Motorguide needs calibrating so there's a great excuse to get out on the water this weekend.  It's easy to do just press a couple of buttons and drive in circles, something I do very well.  Countdown to Lac Seul is now 3 weeks away, I'm getting excited!

Catfishing for Harold

Otto's first Mississippi fish

I am fortunate to have a lot of great friends in the neighborhood and one of those is Ricky Shermer.  Ricky is younger than me and 10 times crazier.  We both garden and have apple trees, enjoy working outdoors, and possess the same cynical attitudes about many things including politics.  Generally what's mine is Ricky's and what Ricky's is mine if we every need something.  He has a real nice Kabota zero turn monstrosity of a lawn mower and coupled with a dethatching unit and a vacuum system works wonders for getting the yard in shape in the spring.  Rick likes to get up early each day and you can always tell if he's been around checking out the place as there's a motorcycle track in the yard where he drove his scooter, verifying that your onions aren't as big as his!  I have been telling him about my latest adventures on the river when he asked me to do him a favor, "My dad, Harold Shermer loves catfish and next time when you go out and catch a few, save some for him".  Well, that's about as good excuse as any to get back out on the River and try our luck.  After getting a few chores done around the house I called my other neighbor Otto to see if he'd like to go with me for a couple of hours.  Now Otto is not much of a fisherman but when I added that there would be Jameson served in the boat and he would really have to do very little but sit there and enjoy the tranquility, he couldn't refuse.  After asking him to humor me for 5 minutes while I casted a crankbait into the shallows for that huge smallie I missed last week, we headed below Cloquet Island, scene of last's weeks success.  Dropping the anchor in the current break it would be a simple strategy, night crawlers on the bottom and a Jameson in the cupholder.  It wasn't long before we got a few small taps, the kind catfish are notorious for which stripped our hooks.  Otto finally hooked a nice golden redhorse before we finally got a keeper sized channel cat, maybe 16 inches.  Putting that on the stringer we continued to get bites and ended up with 3 catfish before it got too dark.  After getting the boat put away the fish were cleaned, vacuum packed, and frozen for Ricky.  Here's hoping his dad Harold is going to like them because there's a lot more where they came from!  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the catfish, oh well.

Tony Schumacher

Sunday my wife Lyn and I went down to Independence Wisconsin to the annual Fall Fest.  It was fun to see all of our friends that we have known for over 40 years now.  It's interesting how much old fashioned bread, coffee cakes, and baked goods are sold there.  I can guarantee you that you'll never find this kind of home cooking in the city.  After stopping to see Lyn's uncle and aunt, Bernie and Nellie, the next stop was at Kevin's to retrieve my motorcycle GPS that I let him use of their trip to Glacier National Park.  It's actually a pretty nice GPS and is completely waterproof and shockproof.  With lifetime updates, the maps are always the most recent, sometimes I'm surprised how quickly they are updated.  Friday will be spent at BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) to attend the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals featuring all of the top drag racing stars in the world.  Another good friend, Kevin Sonsalla has pit passes to Tony Schumacher, the #1 guy in Top Fuel Dragster racing today.  It's a lot of fun to stand next to the guys working on the engine, it's amazing that they make one run then completely tear down the engine and rebuild it, all in about 90 minutes.   BIR is the fastest track in the country, so fast that the quarter mile has been reduced to 1000 feet to add additional stopping distances needed.  Interesting that the cars have reached the same speeds as they once did in the quarter mile, amazing.  I should have pictures for next week.

I'm hoping to get out again this weekend, the river continues to drop which really concentrates the fish.  I am bound an determined to find out where the walleyes are!  Maybe even try to get Harold some more catfish fillets.