Finally some Fish

 

Beautiful 9 1/2 inch bluegill

OK, it's not been a very good start of summer.  Coupled that with being retired, quite honestly I am not sure where I found the time to get everything done before.  It seems like I get nothing done now, maybe I am just getting lazy, maybe less motivated, I sit back and think that when working everything got done on a regular basis.  This would be including fishing.  The last 6 weeks have been brutal regarding the hot and dry weather.  I did make it out to Mille Lacs in June but only caught 2 fish in the boat, a nice smallmouth and a sickly looking walleye.  Compare that to the last couple of years where we would catch 25 - 40 walleyes, I don't know, maybe just losing the touch.  Personally think that we went too early as the bug hatch was in full bloom but again that just sounds like a great excuse...one of many I have these days.  The garden is starting to look good and just a few days ago we had a much needed 3.2 inches of rain at the house.  Still not enough to get the river back to a navigable level, but it's something to work on.  Finally my friend Bill Lundeen must have sensed my frustration and invited me to fish with him on Thursday.  The catch would be that we use my truck, his was in the shop.  Looking back that should always be the case when we use his boat.  Meeting at his place on Mille Lacs we drove to what Bill calls the orphanage and hooked up his older Lund 16 foot boat with a 70 hp Johnson.  I really like fishing out of that boat, however as I get older it seems that backing down the boat ramp becomes a challenge these days.  Thank the Lord Bill has patience!!  We headed about 45 minutes away to a "secret" lake to try for panfish.   Fishing for bluegills and crappies is something I love to do but seldom target.  Well my first keeper bluegill was a huge 9 1/2 inch fish caught on a Flu Flu jig with a piece of Gulp 7 feet under a slip bobber.  The lake was crystal clear so we fished the weed edges in about 9 - 12 feet of water.  It was a blast, with ultralight tackle these fish put on a memorable fight for sure.  Half the time my assumption was that a bass had struck the bait.  This lake has special regulations of only 5 fish per angler and we stopped short of 10 but it sure was exciting, and a perfect day after the rain.

Bill with his nice Bluegill

After 3 hours of great panfishing we loaded the boat up and headed for a designated trout lake nearby.  Using 3/4 to 1 ounce bell sinkers we rigged up a small spinner, gulp combination and started trolling the deeper water, assuming we were down 20 - 40 feet.  This lake was an old iron mine pit in the early 1900's and is quite deep.  With steep sides, often over 30 feet deep at 20 feet from shore, the Minnesota DNR regularly stocks rainbow trout in these lakes around the area.  What was nice about this lake is one can launch a regular boat rather than hauling a canoe down to the lake, much easier for me!  Another interesting feature is the water is super clear, the Lake Finder app states about 30 foot clarity.  We trolled for about 2 hours with the electric trolling motor and I swore something hit my bait but in the end we caught nothing but a relaxing afternoon on a beautiful lake.  It is interesting as there a a number of open pit mines that when in use continually had to have the water pumped out of them to prevent flooding.  The Cuyuna Iron Range is on the southwest end of a rich vein of iron ore that stretched from just east of Brainerd Minnesota, up through the Mesabi (Eveleth, Hibbing, Virginia, MN) and under Lake Superior before ending in Ontario.  Because the iron ore was so rich and accessible, the Cuyuna area was easy to mine at the time.  It is certainly interesting to study the history of the area and it's mining past.  When the mines became depleted the pumping stopped and eventually these pits filled up with spring water making them exceptionally clear, cold, and deep.  In some cases these old mines are often over 300 feet deep.  Of course as the mines became devoid of their rich iron ore, the mining simply moved northeast and followed the rich vein of iron ore.  Thinking of our inability to really understand how deep we are fishing I am going to propose to Bill that we try using lead core line for the next trip.  Having Suffix 832 Advanced Lead Core line, it sinks like 7 foot per color.  Lead Core lines are color coded every 30 feet, so if you want to fish 35 feet down simply let out 5 colors of line (150 feet) and you control the depth much more accurately.  I'll have to see what he thinks of that idea.  

Among other things this covid crap has really put a damper on our Lac Seul fishing.  It was closed all of last year and we should have already been there twice this year.  Talk of opening on August 21st is simply that, talk.  Even if they open it it's doubtful that some camps lack the ability to find people to work for a month, there are a lot of issues to be solved.  Lac Seul has been the highlight of my summer fishing adventures and admittedly not being able to go has taken some wind out of my sails.  Bruce and I have flown a few places for lunch, but  that's about it.  Mille Lacs has been closed for a couple of weeks now, as I said the river is extremely low, but eventually things will get back into the swing of things.   Hopefully I will have a positive report soon into the future and won't take so long!

July Continues!

New Trailer Brake Actuator

It's been an interesting summer for sure.  The good news is that the garden is growing like crazy,  With the right amount of proper fertilizer, warm muggy days and warm nights, along with timely rains, the first planting of corn is tasseled out, the cucumbers are producing like crazy and the potatoes look fabulous.  I did speak too soon on the potato bugs as I am seeing a few these days.  As most of you know my boat has been a curse these last 12 months.  After getting the live well valve replaced and backing it into the shed the next morning there was a puddle of brake fluid under the surge brake actuator by the hitch.  Pulling the plug where one checks and fills the brake fluid, it was completely empty.  After filling it up again and letting it sit a few days, nothing leaked out but still there was something wrong.  My estimates on the trailer is it probably has 30,000 to 40,000 miles on it.  Last fall it got 4 new tires, a new axle, it isn't worth the chance to mess with the brakes.  Looking online an original OEM Dexter actuator replacement was about $350 by the time you add shipping and taxes.  Last fall when I needed an axle I was given Kremer Services as the "official" RangerTrail service center.  I called them and it wouldn't be till the end of July before they could order one and get me in.  the service guy was going to call me back but never did.  Last Thursday there was a "MEGA" fishing garage sale in Lindstrom, MN, near Frankie's.  Deciding to go it would also gave me the opportunity to stop and discuss my new problem.  The sale was a complete dud although I did buy 7 pairs of Green Bay Packer socks for $20, but that was about it.  Stopping at Frankie's, Deb was behind the counter as I told her my boat is lonely already for your shop!  Discussing the latest issue she said, yes we do these all the time, in fact I have the actuators in stock.   Well put my name on one and I'll be back on Monday.  She promised me they would put it in while I waited.  On Monday the boat was dropped off and instead of waiting around it was a great opportunity to drive to Burnett Creamery just east of Grantsburg, Wisconsin about 35 minutes away.  Uffda, their cheese curds were out of this world.  Freshly bagged from the morning they were still warm, squeaked like crazy, and had the best flavor of any curds.  Ended up with 4 bags of curds, some 14 year old cheddar, and 4 rounds of 3 pepper Colby cheese, incredible.   Next stop was to cross country it to Cumberland Wisconsin and stop at Louie's Finer Meats for their amazing homemade bratwursts.  Got 3 flavors, Packer Brats which has sauerkraut and cheese in them, Pickle and Cheese, and plain Beer Brats.  Before getting to Louie's, Jared from Frankie's called and said the trailer is done.  Incredibly the charges on fixing the trailer were $410, a heck of a deal considering it was done right and I wouldn't have to find a guy who knew what they were doing to bleed the brakes.  As well it was very noticeable once pulling, it's possible that the brakes had been going bad for a while.  Well now they are fixed.  I ended up giving some cheese to Deb as she asked if I would pick up some of that 3 pepper stuff.

Bill's 18 inch Smallie

Last Wednesday Bill Lundeen was in town, as mentioned in the last post.  He said he'd like to go fishing and thought a river trip would be nice so he showed up at noon, we loaded the Jon boat on the UTV and headed to the river.  Admittedly my routine is pretty much the same, run up about 4 miles then fish the north side of the river with crankbaits while drifting down.  As stated, the water temperature is quite high and usually my river fishing is done in August but I am surprised at the few smallmouth we have been catching.  Finally Bill hooks into a nice one, we were probably double the distance from the shore as we usually are, maybe this is trying to tell us something!  Never the less this was an interesting experience for Bill, one that was all my pleasure.  One of the best places to fish is where the shoreline rocks meet deeper water and the fish hang in the small areas of calmer water next to the main current, this hasn't been very productive either.  It's a fast paced fishing experience as one is drifting with the current about 2 to 2.5 mph, so everything is fast.  It was nice that Bill caught the first fish and the way it was going, maybe the last fish.  After passing the good areas we anchored just downstream from Cloquet Island to fish with worms but nothing was biting.  Giving it 20 minutes we moved downstream to another deeper eddy and anchored.  After about 15 minutes something hit my bait but after lifting the rod and feeling nothing I set it down.  Another tap tap, another lifting the rod, another nothing.  Deciding to reel it in to check the bait, the hook finally connected with a nice smallmouth bass.  Apparently the fish had the bait and was swimming upstream with it making it virtually impossible to detect.  After deciding to reel in the circle hook did it's job and fish on!!!  It's an interesting way to catch a fish but it works.  Once again zero rough fish caught, not even a catfish.  I am getting to think that the real trick is to get up into the shallow areas where the fish come up to feed, like off of John's dock.  Checking it out it's only about 3 feet but Jake and myself's best day was there.  You would think the deeper holes would hold more fish but that seems not to be the case.

Second Smallie on a bottom crawler rig

After fishing with Bill I noticed that the ceramic inside ring of one guide was missing.  Thorne Brothers fixes these so on my way back from the garage sale last week a detour on Central Ave to Thorne's I dropped of the rod.  This Monday when returning from Frankie's they called to say my rod was done.  Another detour and picked up the rod, a Fenwick HMX casting rod, not an overly expensive rod but worth fixing for sure.  The guide was a single foot guide, small diameter and quite honestly it's almost impossible to even tell which guide they had fixed.  The workmanship is excellent, and it was even a matching guide.  The next thing was the price, only $12.  I felt so guilty I had to buy a bait!  Nice job and highly recommend them for rod repair.  The other thing happening is fixing up the river boat.  When out with Bill it was very difficult loading the boat on the trailer.  When I got the boat my brother-in-law had side guides mounted but they were not very good and the brackets became more of a problem than what they were worth, so they got removed.  Fast forward, this spring the thought was to weld a plate to the trailer then using better u bolts, that would be more secure.  Neighbor Brandon volunteered to weld the trailer, so we did it last Thursday night.  After looking at it we decided to weld the side guides directly on the trailer, using some angle iron to brace it.   They look pretty good and now will stand up to getting the boat straight on the trailer better. At the same time the winch didn't function well.  Brandon was going to fix the front roller stop however decided to simply move the winch down.  This worked but the winch handle was still too long and hit the boat on that last turn.  Ordering a new winch from Amazon, one with a strap, it needed modifying in the form of a new mounting hole on the trailer as well, decided to shorten the winch handle as it was also to long.  This is sort of a pain but a few trips to the hardware store and getting out the seldom used drill press, it is a work of art! The next thing is mounting some navigation lights which are done and just needs to be hooked up.  New guides, winch, lights, now all we need is the fish to cooperate better as I'd hate to say fishing off of John's dock is more productive!

Annual Trout Fishing trip

Dad's Gift, Panther Martin's Deadly Dozen

Well, we were able to get in our annual October trout fishing trip to an old mine pit that we have been going to for a number of years.  With Bill Lundeen as my guide we met at his house last Thursday and he was ready to go.  My father died in 2011 however he knew how much I loved fishing and a few years before he passed away he gave me a box of Panther Martin trout spinners called the Deadly Dozen.  Knowing my dad he probably ordered them from a Field and Stream or Outdoor Life magazine but wherever, he presented me with this kit of 12 spinners for trout fishing.  He had that look on his face when he gave them to me that I would never forget, that look of....Geez, I finally got something you don't have!  He was correct and I put them away for safe keeping.  Well last year I told Bill I am going to catch a trout with the spinners my Dad gave me but after 8 or so years, I simply didn't remember where they were.  I had a Mepps Spinner and decided to use that but it wasn't the same and I only caught one fish.  Sort of a stubborn streak in me but I was bound and determined.  Well 6 months went buy and one day I found the box of the Deadly Dozen, probably right where I left them earlier.  Not to be shut out again putting them in an obvious place where they would not be forgotten, when Bill set the date last week, it was the first thing I packed!  Our strategy was simple, launch the canoe, attach the trolling motor, fire up the electronics and troll down anywhere from 10 - 30 feet with a small spinner rig, or in my case a Panther Martin.  Although I was determined last year, this time I was serious!! We headed up the shore in 30 to 40 feet of water as the fish marks were numerous on the depthfinder.  With a small trailer of a nightcrawler,  I was getting bumped but Bill caught the first trout.  Trust me, sitting in the front of a canoe has it's limitations, luckily this year I had settled down somewhat and got my sea legs quite quickly.  Having the bucket

Beatiful Day, Beautiful Lake

up front, Bill threw the trout under my seat, not the greatest idea with my limited ability to bend over these days! Finally getting the nice trout in the bucket, Bill was  getting hit quite a bit and had a number of them get away, I was getting nice hit but not hooking any.  Finally deciding to switch to a spinner with a larger hook, it paid off as my first trout came to the surface.  In the meantime Bill and I worked out a better system for moving the caught fish from back to front, use the nets each of us had.  With that problem solved there was another one on the line. Admittedly Bill caught more fish however my goal had been accomplished and Dad's Deadly Dozen proved to be a winner.   I wish he was here to be able to brag about the fish we had caught, he would have liked that, never the less I guess in the grand scheme of things, he wanted me to enjoy these baits and we finally got a chance to prove they worked pretty well.  Next time the strategy will to go to the next larger size as one upping Bill is now the goal!

A Pan Full of Trout.

We cleaned the trout like we used to back home in Eleva, cut the heads off, slit the belly and pull out the entrails then finally removing the blood line under the backbone.  These fish are all about 10 - 12 inches after being cleaned.   They are excellent on the grill, smoked, or delicious pickled by my good friend Mark Applen.  I have plenty to try all these methods for sure.  We know these trout are planted into the lake, similar to what the trout back in the Eleva pond were.  Planted trout usually have a pale white color to their flesh but as they feed on more natural food their flesh becomes more pinkish orange in color, which these all exhibited. They taste a lot better as well this way.  This is one of my favorite trips of the year and of course as you see in the above picture, it is also one of the most beautiful times of the year.  Trout fishing ends on October 31st and although it would be nice to get out again, the weather appears to be heading for a cold and wet period so we'll have to see.

I have been working on my Ranger boat, dressing it up a bit seeings how it wasn't used much this year.  One of the first things was to put some disc brake caliper covers on to dress up the wheels.  In the process of doing this by taking the tires off, the front axle, inner tire was wore down to the point of having no tread left.  Last year the front tire exhibited some wear while the back tire was almost perfect, I discounted it to the fact that dual axle trailers create some drag and wear on the tires and rotated front to back.  Well the limited amount of mile since the rotation put almost double the wear in about a year verses the previous 4 seasons.  Well, maybe Ontario Hwy 502 finally got it's revenge as the axle may need replacing and using the recommendation that trailer tires should be replaced every 5 years as well as the wear, it will be getting a new set of tires as well.  My appointment with the alignment shop is on October 31st, here;s hoping we skip the Halloween Blizzard this year.  There are also a few minor issues to clean up so the plan is to get these taken care of before the boat is put away for the winter.

When it Rains It Pours

This year's Extravaganza Logo

OK, maybe when it snows it really snows!!!  Events of the last few days have severely impacted the next few weeks plans and there is little I can do.  February has proven to be quite wintery this year, so much that as of today it has become the snowiest February on record.  Admittedly in the grand scheme of things, it's only since records have been kept, maybe the mid 1800's so maybe 150 years, however I guess what really counts is today, and we will surpass the old record of 26.5 inches of snow set in 1962.  Before this morning we were at 22.6 and I know we have had at least 9 inches at the National Weather Service so we are over 31 inches and this weekend could be another 10.  Admittedly this is one of the things that has put a damper on the planned activities for Saturday, Johnson's Portside Perch Extravaganza, held the last saturday in February at Hunter's Point Resort on the east side of Mille Lacs.  Usually there is Mark, Randy, Russ, Mike, and myself with our wheel houses grouped together were we enjoy some time together, we cook lunch before heading into Hunter's Point  to attend the door prize drawing, on where they give away about $100,000 worth of great stuff.  Well, beings somewhat disorganized and with probably 17 inches of snow on the ice, our routine of staying together is just not going to happen.  The last time we had this much snow on the ice, there was so much weight on the ice, large tracts of water came up onto the ice making it almost impossible to pack up.  Add that to a couple of different factors, Mark had carpal tunnel surgery a few weeks ago, as we have gotten older, fighting the snow isn't so much fun anymore, it just may be that instead of dragging our wheel houses up we might just attend the drawing.  Adding insult to injury and as mentioned earlier, Saturday could have big snows associated with it, maybe it would be a good year to skip, we will see on Saturday morning.  I can tell you that they are warning of the snow depth and the ban on Wheel Houses in the front area of the drawing area.  It's too bad as I suspect there could be a lot of money being spent on Custom plowing but that's not my call. 

Great Advice!

It's probably good as I need to take care of some stuff around home anyway.  The other issue that has been changed is my trip to see my friends Matt Davis and Joe Stanfield, my plan to meet my other friend Bruce near Dallas and fly back to Minneapolis with him.  Bruce was planning on a week's getaway from this God Awful snow in South Texas, I'd meet him in Dallas spending a few days bass fishing before heading back through Springfield, Missouri then back to Crystal Airport.  Well last night Bruce's traveling partner and wife slipped on the ice shattering her wrist.  A couple hour surgery and the followup appointment has put that trip on hold, which is fine, I have my own issues as well.  It's too bad as I get really into the planning aspect of this, even bought Joe an new fishing rod, some plastic worms, and terminal tackle, I told Bruce that we will just have to fly down on our own sometime and test that southern Texas hospitality!  I did drive up to see my friend Bill Lundeen last Saturday and picked up my ice fishing equipment that I loaned him of a guide trip he had.  Bill is still going to guide on Lake Mille Lacs this summer so I threatened him I would buy this shirt for him!  I guess if you have ever guided people fishing you would understand what this means!  So Bill calls me, as a couple of weeks ago he asked me to pick up a Live Trap special at Fleet Farm, I did.  Where did you set the traps?......Sorry they are still in my pole shed, CRS dang it!!  He laughed and maybe if I go to the drawing on Saturday I could drop them off, we'll see.   With the current issues at home I don't know when I will get out next, all that can be said for certain is the John Deere with the snowblower attachment will get plenty of use these next few days!

Middle of February

Tulibee's

The snow just keeps piling up as we have just moved into the 4th snowiest February on record with in excess of 20 inches for the month and it's only the middle of February.  As stated last week, the snow has really put the damper on fishing, not that I don't think about it yet the amount of snow on Lake Mille Lacs is restricting travel to plowed roads and no "off road" travel is suggested at all.  Last weekend I ran up to my friend, Bill Lundeen, former owner of Lundeen's Tackle Castle.  Our relationship is built on our love for fishing and not just another customer.  Admittedly that's how it started!  Bill still is doing some guide work and this time of year, there is usually a large corporate event that entails snowmobiling, ice fishing, whatever trips your fancy up north.  We talked about how interesting it is, some of these guys are from the southern United States, and really never get to experience snow.  Well the snow came just in time for these guys as the snowmobile trails around Mille Lacs are in excellent shape but the lake offers some challenges as there is about 12 inches covering the ice.  Nevertheless they rent like 3 ice houses from Mac's Twin Bay Resort and Bill is the guide in charge of helping the rookies out, showing them how to operate everything.  As well, I dropped off my portable Eskimo Pop Up  Insulated Ice Shelter, my FL28 depth finder, a Marcum underwater camera, and a couple of portable Propane heaters to keep everything warm.  I have become so dependent on my Vexilar FL28, I could probably fish without it however what would be the point as it makes everything much more enjoyable.  The guest's look at this and more than likely think it's crazy yet it is amazing to watch.  The tulibee's were biting and they are fun to watch on the Vexilar as these fish tend to chase the bait quite a distance vertically.  They had a few walleyes on but the tulibee's were the star of the show.  Bill likes to smoke them as they are a type of whitefish.  Admittedly I like to catch them as they are quite active on the depth finder and they put up a good fight.  As well, I like them pickled, they are like pickled herring and are pretty good, that is if I can get either Mark Applen to make it or at least give me his recipe!  This weekend might be a great time to go pick up my equipment and head out on one of the plowed roads for some ice fishing.  I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

Soft Sided Worm Binder

Although things might change, I am still getting ready for the Texas Bass Fishing adventure on
March 8th.  One of the things that needed to be done was to organize the collection of wacky worm components that has been accumulated.  Keeping it all in one place and to have everything at your fingertips, a quick trip to Cabela's and they had the perfect item, a soft sided, medium sized worm binder, perfect!  It has about 12 ziplock plastic "pages" to store your worms, a series of pockets on the inside of the covers to put your hooks in, it will fit nice in my suitcase and will allow myself to have everything at my fingertips.  Originally the plan was to simply take a few things with but not now!  It wasn't too expensive either, under $20.00.  The next thing that needs to be addressed is an adequate spinning combo for Bruce.  Something like a fairly stiff Medium action 6'6" 1 piece rod with a nice reel that will handle 10 pound monofilament line, maybe a 3000 or 3500 series reel.  Cabela's had some really nice deals on Black Friday weekend, some $70 Pflueger's for $34.99, it was a heck of a deal and I got 2 but now maybe I should have bought an extra, seems like there is always a need for another reel!  Today that same reel is sale priced at $49.99.   As I always say............Oh Well!  I have been telling Bruce how much fun wacky worming for bass is, simply cast the worm out, it is heavy enough to slowly sink on it's own and when you see the line take off, set the hook and hang on!  I guess one just has to experience it yourself!

Having things to do today, I am finishing up the post later.  Last year we were having trouble with my main starting/electronics battery in the Ranger boat.  It is a series 31 AGM and has performed well up until last summer where it would only last a few hours before one had to jump it with a trolling motor battery.  Last fall I traded the battery in for a new one, it only had 39 months on it yet the warranty was for 36 months...not much one could do.  Well the Interstate guy took my battery from the dealer, checked it out and said it was fine.  I suspect something is wrong with my onboard charger and will have to look at this more closely when the snow finally leaves us.  Today I picked up my old "good" battery and brought up my 25 hp Mercury that is one my Jon Boat which is used on the river.  Deciding it could use a good tuneup and carb cleaning.  Almost back to work and the mechanic called me, the bottom cylinder is scored and it's really not worth fixing.  Well, that changes things and I will be making a decision on my river boat soon as it definitely needs a new or different motor.  My age has me thinking of electric start this time.  It sure would be nice!

Trout Fishing with Bill

Absolutely a Beautiful View from the boat landing

Last week was quite busy, busy enough that my usual weekly post didn't make it.  One of the best reasons was that I had to prepare for my annual trout fishing day with my friend Bill Lundeen.  Admittedly it really doesn't take much on my part however the excuse sounds pretty good!  We settled on Friday as a date as the first part of October has been quite wet, yet there was a good reason to get our date finalized fairly soon as it isn't getting any warmer out.  As it is, there was snow on the ground as I approached Onamia, as well the standing water in the ditches has a thin crust of ice overlaying them.  It was still 30 degrees as I pulled into Bill's driveway at his newly remodeled home on Cove Bay.  It is sort of strange not meeting Bill at the corner tackle shop, as he officially sold his business, Lundeen's Tackle Castle, about 2 months agos ago.   35 years ago I fished Mille Lacs almost exclusively.  Living in Brooklyn Park at the time, my normal route up to the lake was to take Highway 47 to Isle and would stop at Portside to get any bait I needed.  When I moved to Dayton, the new route to Mille Lacs was up 169 and my new bait shop became Lundeen's Tackle Castle.  We have become great friends that essentially started as a business relationship, and it's been a great one!  We have trout fished every year since 2014 and this was our 5th trip to our secret lake that will remain so!  October is a beautiful month to fish as you can see on the picture above.  It is a small lake that is quite deep, over 100 feet and we speculate that it may have been an old mine pit at one time.  The water is crystal clear and has a landing but not for a traditional boat/trailer as one has to carry the boat down to the lake.  As we get

Bucket full of trout.

older it isn't getting any easier for sure, and my spot is in the front of the canoe, that in itself is a challenge!  It takes about an hour to get used to sitting in the canoe, but eventually one get's his sea legs and we spent over 5 hours to get our 10 rainbow trout.  this year wasn't my best performance as my attempt to try a different tactic didn't turn out so good.  Normally we use small hand tied crawler harnesses with a smaller spinner blade on them.  Deciding to try inline spinners, I did catch the first fish but really struggled after that.  Luckily I did get a few more hits but Bill was the star of the show this trip.  It probably was as simple as changing my lure however its not that easy in the canoe and as well, attached to my line was a Water Wolf Camera, which I used last year to get some great shots of the trout hitting my lure.  It is heavy and bulky, maybe that made all the difference.  I don't know but again, not complaining.  Looking at the first picture, one get's the idea of how peaceful and beautiful it was on Friday!  By the end of the day we headed home with a nice bag of rainbow trout.  Not terribly big, maybe 10 - 13" they are excellent on the grill.  Although planted in the lake, by fall their flesh has turned a light pink color and are just delicious wrapped in foil and thrown on the grill.  It is surprising how well these fish fight and the first one on the line almost pulled my pole out of my arms.  It was a great day on the water with my good friend Bill.  Admittedly the canoe is getting more precarious as I get older and may have to tackle that problem in the future!  Maybe we will start looking for a more flat bottom boat to make fishing a little easier.  We'll see as there are plenty of them on Craigslist and I don't think it would be that bad to haul it around.  That will be a great discussion for the ice house!

New Snowflap System

The other item that has taken a bunch of time is getting a new set of receiver mounted snowflaps ready for this years ice fishing season.  These flaps are necessary to help keep the snow from accumulating on the front of the wheel house as it's pulled down the road.  They do work pretty good however last year I was determined to get a new pair that will give even better protection to my wheel house.  Having basically assembled them, it became evident that my receiver ball mount would not work as the snowflap assembly was too thick to allow the mount to get far enough back in the receiver to get the hitch pin through.  Figuring the weather is changing fast, I'd better get going on getting this taken care of.  Really all that needed to be done was to get an extended ball mount then cut the actual flaps to the right height, securing all the bolts and do the final adjustments.  Well, try to find and extended ball mount, it's not that easy as Northern Tool has a lot of stuff, just not one with a 3 inch rise.  The guy at Northern was very nice and suggested I go back to U-haul up the road.  They had just what I needed and with a few measurements and actually hooking up the ice house gave me the drop created by the tongue weight, whether the rise was adequate, and the final adjustments needed to get that perfect fit.  Cutting off the bottom of the flaps with an ever handy utility knife, tightening everything up.  The last task is to attach a 2 5/16" ball to the mount and everything should be good to go.  These new flaps extend out about 4 inches from the bumper and hopefully will give me better coverage.

Trout Fishing With Bill

Nice Rainbow Trout

For the last few years, the third week in October generally means a trip with my friend Bill Lundeen to fish trout is in order.  This week was no exception as we could not have planned a more perfect day.  We took off  to Bill's "secret" lake where we launch the canoe complete with front and rear depthfinders, electric trolling motor, and a definite cramped style that takes a bit to get comfortable with, which is not impossible.  This year I decided to purchase a Water Wolf underwater camera that attaches directly to your line.  The camera looks back as you tie your lure to the end of it, therefore you can record a video of the bait going through the water and any of the fish that happen to strike the lure.  The camera has 4 hours of battery life and a 32 gb memory card, the card and on/off switch is embedded under a water tight cap so once you turn it on, it's on.  It purely records video and records everything, however you do not have any feedback on how you are doing until you pull out the memory card and put it in a viewer.  Because it's a .mov file, it has to be a compatible viewer and for me, Quicktime seems like it is the only easy accessible viewer that works.  Therefore you don't know if you have too much weigh making the lens point up or down, not straight back.  Obviously speed makes a difference as well.  We fished from about 11:00 AM til 2:00 in the afternoon and accomplished catching our limit each of nice trout.  In addition there is about 2 hours of video that needs to be edited down to show the highlights of the action.  It is very cool but it probably won't be done for a couple of days so I will have to add it to a future post.  I did get to see some of the video recordings before starting to write this and admittedly it's pretty interesting.  Fearing I could lose the camera, it was fastened to one of my casting rods with 30 lb test braided line.  Luckily we did not run into any issues as the transducer position gave me a perfect understanding of how deep I was.  Either way it's simply amazing how hard those fish hit the lure, one 13 inch fish almost jerked the rod right out of my hand.  In two and a half hours we stopped our trolling and started to cast simple ice fishing spoons that we use for walleyes, and had very good luck.  It was a nice change of pace as well.  As soon as the edited video is done, it will go on my Youtube channel, elevadave, and I think you will find it interesting for sure!

Nice crappie, unfortunately the only one I caught!

Getting our trout early means there is time in the rest of the day to crappie fish.  We chose Camp
Lake, just west of Mille Lacs for our destination.  Camp is a very pretty lake and the deepest areas of the lake tend to be about 30 feet deep.  Here the crappies tend to follow their predictable patterns and start schooling in the deeper structures, suspending off the bottom.  These schools are relatively easy to find on the depthfinder, look for solid marks or blobs just off the bottom or suspended half way in 25 feet or deeper water.  After checking out the issues with Bill's trolling motor earlier, we were successful in having it work for our crappie fishing which is critical, for as soon as we mark a school of fish, we hit the anchor mode on the trolling motor and fish the area.   Bill seemed to have the crappie touch this time as I sat and watched him pull in one after another.  Finally decided that maybe they didn't like an orange jig or I wasn't deep enough, I finally switched to a chartreuse color.  As well, I added a large split shot just above the jig head to aid in it's descent.  I finally nailed a really nice crappie, the largest of this portion of our adventure.  With the sun setting and a desire to get something to eat, we left before it got dark.  It would have been nice to get a number of this size fish but our excuse was that it was quite windy therefore making it hard to fish with light line in deeper water............sounds good to me!! It turned out to be a beautiful day, we caught some nice fish and spent some quality quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of work.  I am so glad that this has become a tradition for us, I really enjoy the fishing and spending time with Bill.  As a bonus, I even bought some of his hand harvested Wild Rice, it is so good!

The neighbors Todd, Lory, Lynn and my wife Lyn, they all helped to get the apples picked.  If I had to guess, I'll bet there is over 20 bushels of apples.  On Tuesday we pressed 8 gallons of cider and barely made a dent.  Todd needs cider to make his homemade hard cider and Lory needs about the same, 10 gallons to make his homemade apple wine.  As long as they help, it's a good use for the apples, but admittedly it's a lot of work.  I guess that's what makes it so good!  Definitely have cider pressing on the agenda for this week end.

Boatless in Minnesota

From my Nephew, Kevin

Last Friday my dealer called to tell me that my kicker motor had water in the oil and a new seal kit needed to be installed, however it would not be done in time for the weekend fishing.  This seemed OK as I needed some quality time to get some stuff done around the house, as well I had a pretty good offer on Sunday.   Bill called me from Mille Lacs and asked if I could help him on Sunday. Seems like it would work out for all of us, my dealer could keep the boat over the weekend, I'd get the garden and other things finished, and Sunday I could head up and spend some time with Bill.  So Saturday I finished planting the garden, sprayed my apple trees with Sevin to chemically thin them out as they have a ton of apples on them, mowed, and attempted to clean the pole shed  (Good Luck with that!)  One of the nicest things that happened this week was my nephew Kevin texted me on Monday exclaiming that I should have something special in my receiving department so I left my meeting to check it out.  I pretty much figured what it was but upon opening the box only confirmed those suspicions, some Willamette Valley wines, a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay, both very fine wines from one of the best Pinot Noir regions in the world.  He certainly knows how to tug at his Uncle's heart strings and I look forward to enjoying these soon as I added them to my wine cellar, never the less I'm always excited to have something from him.  I will definitely post how well these vintages are as I do like Oregon wines for sure!

So a quick update on the boat, uffda.  So Joe at Frankies has reportedly fixed the network system that

Wave Pro Air Adjustable boat pedestals

is been an issue from opener.  How in the heck did a seal on a new kicker motor go, well, I guess it's possible, let's hope this is under warranty!  The trolling motor bracket is the second one I've gone through so far.  When we returned from Canada a few week back my friend Bruce experienced some terrible back issues and landed in the hospital for a few days.  We got talking about different seat mounts to help balance the ride somewhat and he ended up with Smoothmoves, something that I was looking at since the Sportsshow, but a little research and I decided to go with the WavePro style.  They seem less bulky and Frankies carries them so it seemed a bit easier just to call and order a couple, which I did!  It should make those long rides into camp a whole lot easier.  It has an optional air pump that one can use to adjust the ride softness so I am sure it will take a little getting used to. The other reason to order from Frankie's is they have said that they sell a lot of these and knowing my Ranger, I am confident that they will do it right on the selection and install.  Maybe I am just getting more lazy these days, but it will be nice and if I do get my boat for this weekend, it's going to be windy on Mille Lacs so that would be a great way to test them out.  On Monday I get to bring my boat back in to get a Bimini top made for it.  I have never been one for a top however as I get older, protection from the sun and rain seem to make more sense, especially when we fish Lac Seul where it is mostly vertical jigging off the side of the boat.  This wheel boat stuff is hard to get used to after spending 36 years in a tiller type boat!

Sunday was spent at Lundeens helping him to get his rigs ready for some up and coming guide trips. We cleaned his big ProLine first, mounted some electronics, and started it before we moved to his 16 foot Lund that we used to crappie fish last fall.  He was installing Structurescan 3D so I helped him run the NMEA 2000 network as well as fishing the transducer cable up through the side of the boat. We had originally planned to take the big boat out on the lake but there was something wrong with the motor, so it was good that we got the smaller Lund taken care of first as he ended up using that for his trip.  The walleyes have really been biting on Mille Lacs with a report in Wednesday's paper that a Launch with 20 guys went out for 3.5 hours last week, caught and released 374 walleyes.  That's a lot of fish for sure.  There are rumors that I may be back on Lac Seul on June 24th, time will tell for sure!

Back on The Water!!!

10 Beautiful Rainbow Trout

Well, it's been dang near a month since I have been out fishing, for a lot of reasons, or so I say.  The rivers too high, it's raining, Mille Lacs is closed, all great excuses however they don't do much for my reputation!  I do have to admit that I really miss the September/October night pulling cranks on Mille Lacs for those shallow hogs that come onto the reefs at night, maybe next year. Anyway the trhird week in October usually signals it's time for my annual fishing outing with my good friend, Bill Lundeen.  He has a couple of very special lakes that we have gone to each year for the last couple and they have yet to disappoint.  One of the reasons I get invited back is my vow of silence on the specific lakes that we fish.  Not that they are that far from his place but it probably would not take too much to fish them out and it is nice to be the only one's on the lake, especially when it's so beautiful out.  Wednesday, October 19th was our set time so I took the day off and drove up to his shop on Mille Lacs.  From there we had to load up the canoe, trolling motor batteries, trolling motor, depth finders, and equipment like nets, rods, ice, and bait.  While I used plain old worms, Bill likes to experiment with Gulp, which does work quite well.  After getting the canoe launched and set up we headed out on the lake with a pretty simple setup.  3 foot, 2 hook small spinner snell for the worms and a 1 1/4 ounce bell sinker to act like a small downrigger ball to get our bait down 25 to 30 feet below the surface.  It was crazy as I got a hit right away.  These trout are quite aggresive and put up a good fight, often breaking the surface, they can actually be hard to get in.

Beautiful spot to fish

 Also with the big sinker sometimes they leverage themselves against it and actually free themselves. The other issue is when in the net they flop around such that it can break off the hooks that are snagged in the net and break.  That is not fun as rerigging in the canoe is somewhat difficult and takes time away from the true fishing.  Never the less in 3 hours we had our 10 trout, 5 each.  We would have ended 20 minutes earlier however yours truly was in charge of netting and making sure the trout got put in the cooler however our 10th one flopped out of the canoe so we were relegated to another 15 minutes of trolling before we got the last fish.  In addition to the trout we also got some real nice 9.5 inch sunfish, definitely a bonus.  I am looking forward to trout on the grill as well my friend Mark Applen makes an awesome pickled fish and last year I gave him a few fish to pickle and they were amazing!  The lake sits down into a ravine so even if it's windy, it's quite fishable.

12 inch Crappie.

With all of our trout caught by noon the plan was to load up Bill's 16 foot Lund and go out for some of those late fall crappies.   This is a lot of fun and represents the classic fall pattern where you cruise the 25 - 35 foot holes looking for suspended school of fish on your depth finder.  It actually works pretty well as we located a number of schools out in the middle of nowhere, no structure around, quite textbook for sure.  Bill had bought a Motorguide i5 front controlled trolling motor like I have on my boat, the one with the fabulous anchor function.  You can anchor within 5 feet of your anchor point so when we found fish we simple hit the button and stayed right on top of them.  Our bait of choice was Gulp again, the small 1 inch minnows. I was surprised how aggressive they hit them but who's complaining, I caught a number of 12+ inch crappies on them, WOW!  Also you could catch 5 or 10 fish on the same bait before you had to replace.  I know that Bill is hot on his Gulp and we never opened the real minnows that we took along just in case.  The strategy was quite simple, just drop your 1/32 oz jig off the side of the boat to the bottom then reel it up 5 feet or so and basically vertical jig.  Often the problem with a light jig like that and how deep you are fishing is that the fish can hit the jig on the way up, you feel the hit but it is hard to hook them.  Never the less it's fun and we ended up with about 15crappies for the afternoon, as as stated some real nice ones at that.  Admittedly it got pretty cold when we were out there.  Fished till about 5:45 and I would say it was at least 43 degrees with a north wind taking the heat away.  I have to admit that I was getting pretty cold but it was hard to leave.  It was getting dark anyway so when Bill declared the day over, I was definitely ready.  We put the boat away then got back to the shop where Kathy had steaks prepared for us along with grilled cabbage, wild rice, Spaghetti squash, and mushrooms.  It was delicious and a perfect way to end the day.  After supper we cleaned the fish and I headed home, a very successful day of fishing and a nice day off in the middle of the week.

Saturday night was a tough for me as I ate a chicken sandwich on a croissant and ended up staying overnight in Mercy Hospital for anaphylactic shock do to a severe allergy reaction.  This time it appeared to be caused by wheat, just another thing to deal with.  I am ok now but it's not a lot of fun wheezing and breaking out in full body hives, 3 different times that night.  Maybe it's just the problem of getting old, who knows.  Saturday I will be heading to Wisconsin to fish with my wife's cousin Jason Rombalski and  his dad Andrew.  Both are great guys and maybe we can find some crappies similar to yesterday's trip with Bill, I am sure the opportunity should exist.  We are going to fish Long Lake, north of Rice Lake, Wi and the weather looks to be beautiful.  This also gives me a chance to take my boat out for the last time and winterize it as my motor has a feature that does this for you automatically.  This will probably be the last trip of the season with the boat and before ice fishing as deer hunting is coming up.  Hopefully we will make ice quickly as I am getting the Ice Cabin ready to head to Red Lake as soon as we can.  here hoping for a similar report next week.

Nothing's working!

Ben with 2 nice crappies

Fairly unbelievable however this is the best time of the year to be out fishing and I have been relegated to sitting looking at my boat, watching it rain.  Sunday was my day to head to Mille Lacs and fish with my friend Bill Lundeen.  Fishing on Mille Lacs has been phenomenal, or so they say as you definitely couldn't prove it by me.  Even though you legally cannot keep a walleye on Mille Lacs, the bite is reported to be very good as there are few boats on the lake.  This should be Bill's peak time at the bait shop however with few people coming to the lake to fish and the fact that you can't even keep one fish has really put a damper on needing to be at the store 100% of the time as his wife, Kathy can handle it for a few hours.   Our plans were made mid last week and I worked hard to put my boat back together, unfortunately on Friday my mother went back into the hospital so Sunday's plan was abandoned as my wife and I decided to drive to Eau Claire and see how well she was doing. So, no fishing last weekend but my buddy Kevin and his son Ben did call me as they went to Devil's Lake, North Dakota and I am anxiously waiting a report. Thank God somebody is thinking as I always like to have some pictures for the posts and pictures I got, first of my neighbor Brandon and the 14 inch Crappie he caught at his lake while trolling a rapala for walleyes then this one of Ben Taylor holding to nice crappies that him and his dad got at their lake, west of Mille Lacs.  Unfortunately the good crappie bite is close to being done but we might be able to find a few before the 4th of July, we will have to see.  We have one of our employees, Chad from China here in Minneapolis and the plan is to take him to Mille Lacs with my neighbor Lory and see if we can't get some nice walleyes.  I have taken our visitors to the big pond before and they always tend to be somewhat intimidated by the big water but we have caught some nice fish and here's hoping we give Chad an experience that he could never have in China.  I am sure he will be amaze at the water clarity, freedom to go anywhere on the lake, and just the simple overwhelming size of the lake as there are not many large lakes in China.

Brandon's 14 inch crappie!

So I mentioned earlier the fact that I got the boat together.  Well I didn't do too much stuff to it yet
there were some things that drove me nuts so I fixed them. First was to complete the installation of  a remote plug in for my Sonic Hub USB connections.  Because my Sonic Hub is tucked way under my dash it is all but impossible to plug in a auxiliary source into the USB ports.  Therefore I bought a dual USB socket that mounts into a panel, then plugs into the USB ports on the Sonic Hub.  I am pretty impressed as both ports work and the installation makes everything very clean for sure. The second thing I did was to put a similar panel mount socket that has 2 USB plugins but is a fast charge port for a cell phone.  I don't like those standard cigarette lighter socket plug ins as the plug in chargers tend to fall out.  With the new plug in situation I now have a secure place to plug in my phone to charge it and it is certified as a "fast charge" technology and can really recover a discharged phone quickly.  Also it is almost impossible for the plug in cable to become dislodged, which is very nice.  I also got a few types of charging cables in case my guests need a cell phone charged and because my Sonic Hub has bluetooth, I can run my phone as an audio source and be able to safely power it so the battery doesn't drain.  The third thing I got done was to finish installing my RAM trolling motor stabilizer.  After returning from Canada last month I noticed that my bow mounted trolling motor head was hitting against the gunnel of my boat.  the only way to secure this was to physically secure it without letting it travel to the boat.  I ordered on and mounted it, SWEET is all I can say.  I have a few more things to do to the boat this season, most are small cosmetic or ...Geez, it would be nice to have..........stuff.
I put my 22" pitch prop back on for this spring based on the performance of my motor last fall, after what I figured was a breakin period.  Although it does give better mileage I am probably going back to my 20" prop to get the RPM's back up to where they should be.  I wish they made a 21" prop!!!  I am still working on getting my Structure Scan 3D hooked up to see how that works.


Mom is doing OK but at her age it's going to be time to start making some life changing decisions on where she should live, how much assistance she needs, all that fun stuff.  The sad part is that I'm not that far behind her!  We did have our 14th annual ENA Golf Tourney last Friday and it looks like we will have another successful fund raiser.  In the mean time we are starting to discuss the location of our annual Jul fishing trip which the last few years has been at Lake Oahe in South Dakota.  I have been lobbying for either Upper Red Lake (Where we ice fish) or Devil's Lake, North Dakota.  Lake of the Woods has been kicked around but that might put some pressure on the boat situation because that is such big water.  I am sure we'll end up figuring something out!

First trip to Red

 

View from my Chair in my portable 1 man

Working with my friend Mark who along with Russ brought their houses up to Red Lake last weekend and stored them at JR's while walking out to their fishing spots, we decided to head up on Friday, I'd drag my Salem up there, called my friend from Chippewa Falls, WI, Paul Wenaas and brother Steve from the La Crosse, Paul brought his ATV, we arrived at JR's about noon.  Russ was a champ and he and his dog Shadow rode up with me as I have had some medical issues a few weeks ago and my wife wanted someone to be with me, while Mark drove up himself.  Arriving at JR's I got my Salem house parked and got ready to head out pulling our portable fish shacks.  It was interesting as a large crack of about 50 feet opened up about 1/2 mile from shore and we were forced to fish in 8.5 feet of water whereas it would have been preferred to be in around 11 - 12 feet yet fishing till dark it was too dangerous to be wondering around in the dark. Mark and Russ was fishing close to me however I didn't have much luck, not even a perch!  Because JR'a or any resort for that matter was not allowing ATV traffic until the hazards were marked and the bridges over the cracks were in place, we walked out.  In the meantime Mark and Russ had caught some fish, while I was skunked. Between them and Steve and Paul we had enough fish to fry them up at JR's and a pizza filled us up pretty well.

 It was interesting as you can see in the picture, the ice was about 7 inches thick on Saturday and it might be ready to pull the houses out in another week.  In the meantime it was pretty cozy however I did go through 3 1#bottles of propane it wasn't too bad.  Also my Skinny Dipper I bought at the Blaine Ice Show got burnt so I had to order another one as they are pretty nice to have.  Saturday was nicer than Friday as the wind had switched from out of the west on Friday to out of the south on Saturday.  Saturday we were allowed to drive our ATV out and 7 inches of ice was plenty for that provided we drove slow still it was a slow weekend for me regarding fishing.  I think I had one bite, that was it! and it was on the rattle reel to the left (you can only see the line going down into the hole).  I marked plenty of fish but they didn't seem to like what I presented them with, who knows.  It still was fun!!!

JR's Corner Access (That's russ in the lower right corner!)

JR's Corrner Access is a great place to ice fish.  This year he redid the back cleaning area to accomodate more bench space for cleaning fish, took out the pool table and added a couple of new tables to seat more people.  It's simply a heated pole shed, I feel just like home there!  He just sells beer and Set ups so you can BYOB (Bring your own bottle) of whatever and buy a glass of ice or they cook our fish up for $5.00 a guy, served with a heaping pile of french fries what more can on ask! JR is from St. Joseph, MN just west of St. Cloud and is a great guy.  He treats both Mark and I like special guest everytime we arrive.  He loves my friend Bill Lundeen's wild rice so we brought him up 10 pounds of it this weekend, along with a quart of my fresh homemade salsa and I gave him a salmon fillet from my friend Kieth Holtan.  I was a nic wild run sockeye salmon fillet and Keith has met JR before and I am sure he wouldn't mind.  As well my friend Paul is going up to Alaska next year and I suggested he get in touch with Kieth for a great time.  JR really watches what he eats and is always appreciative of home grown food and naturally harvested stuff.  There are a lot of great people in JR's, met the guy I bought a custom crappie rod at the Blaine Ice Show, so that was nice.   Actually one of the bartenders up there is the grandson of one of our Team ENA members so we had a great time with him.  Mark and Russ are huge in playing FARKLE so on Saturday night after a hard day of fishing we had JR cook our fish and sat down for a couple of games of Farkle before hitting the sack which was good after a long walk and a good day of fishing.  A longwalk because we didn't leave the ice till after dark and Paul was driving the ATV and was naturally nervous about where he was going! Either way I can't wait to get back up to Red with my brother Steve and my friends from Sconnie and am looking forward to maybe heading up next Monday.  I am anxious to catch my first walleye of the season.

Back to School

First fish in the boat!

Yep, back to school is what I describe as the process to unlearn what is no longer valid, relearn a new system of fishing, and try to figure out what all this connectivity means between the satellites, my depth finders, GPS, trolling motor, and my entertainment center.  A smart man looks around and figures out who is best to at least help you to move forward and that guy is Bill Lundeen. I've talked about Bill many times as he's pretty sharp with the Lowrance stuff and had expressed an interest to see how the new Motorguide i5 works when networked into the HDS units.  We agreed that Sunday afternoon would be a great time for me to drive up, we'd head out of Cove to try our hand at some fishing and more importantly play around with the new electronics.  We were on the water by 2:00 and heading for a gravel hump a couple miles out.  The first thing we tried pretty simple, mark a fish then tap that mark on the screen which then pulls up a cursor on the GPS side. Pushing the command "go to the cursor" and voila, it circled back to that point.  The next thing we did was to simply set a heading, slowed the speed down to 0.7 MPH and let the motor control everything while we dragged some spinners and nightcrawlers.  We traveled in a ridiculously straight path, impressive. Once we were at the end of where we wanted to go our next experiment was to create a new route that we wanted the trolling motor to follow.  Bill created a waypoint 200 yards to the north of our current location then another one 25 yards to the east of where we were.  Naming the route Test1, we then told the motor via the HDS unit to go to the start of the route, follow the route, then stop at the end of the route. Immediately the motor headed directly north at 0.7 MPH until it reached the first waypoint we entered then did a precise hair pin turn to the right and headed back to the second waypoint which was the end of the route.  The boat traveled as though it was on rails then promptly stopped at the end.  It was amazing and the possibilities are endless.  I suspect it's simply going to take more practice to be good at it.  We did fish a couple of spots both for walleye and smallmouth bass with little to show.  Seeing the bass on the reefs was nice but they appeared not interested in what we had to offer.  I finally felt a hit yet I knew it wasn't too big and as predicted, a small rock bass.  Oh well, regardless it's still my first fish in the boat so what the heck!  Beyond that we really didn't do anything else and coupled with the fact that it was looking like rain, we headed back to the landing just in time to get the boat on the trailer before it poured.

Loon near the boat.

So, there are a few things that I need to address regarding the boat. First, my Sonic Hub disconnects from the system and my radio goes dead.  The only way to make it work was to restart the depthfinder, which is a pain if you need to do it after each time you start the engine. The second issue is the propeller that came with the boat.  Although the hole shot is amazing and the boat gets up on plane very fast, I can only get about 5000 RPM's out of the motor.  The rated full throttle range for the ideal horsepower is 5600 - 6000 RPM's.  At 5000 RPMs it indicates that the propeller has too much pitch and is overloading the engine.  I have talked to my dealer as the prop that came with the boat is a RX4 15 x 22P (4 bladed, 15" diameter x 22 inch pitch) and it looks like the same prop in a 20 inch pitch would be much better.  I am working on both issues and believe I have the first one solved by reconnecting the power cords while the second issue with the prop needs a little more patience but the dealer is working on it.  The third issue is that the boat is almost impossible to winch tight to the front roller when loading.  It is frustrating because on Sunday we had to back it into the launch to tighten it up.  It finally dawned on me that I had the same problems 14 years ago when I bought my first Ranger and was told to spray the trailer bunks with silicon to make it glide easier.  I'll be getting some spray and the next time I go fishing, before I load the bunks will get a good dose of it as I remember that it solved the problem.  I remember being warned that it is important to keep the winch on the boat until it's in the water to make sure it doesn't slide off the trailer at the wrong time. Beyond this it's just more time on the water, dang it!  Bill always complains that he attracts loons to the boat which I was curious if he meant me as well in that statement.  While experimenting with the trolling motor we had a really nice loon following us, maybe looking for an easy meal.  I took a picture with new Samsung S6 Edge, I'm pretty impressed how clear and detailed the picture is.  It's really cool seeing these birds "fly" under the water as it hung around the boat for a long time.

I am still have a lot too learn and with good reports coming out of Mille Lacs it is a great possibility we will be fishing on Saturday.  We have a upcoming trip to Lake Oahe in South Dakota in July and it would be nice to have most of these issues resolved before then.  My friend Hondro wants to meet the weekend of July 4th and there is already planning for our late September Lac Seul trip.  I told those guys that if they wanted me to bring the boat to Lac Seul they would have to wear surgical booties over their shoes before they get in my boat.  Last year I made them wipe their shoes on a rug at the dock and no feet on the gunnels as it is really sandy there.  Although I probably won't require booties it's really good to get the guys thinking early about my passion to keep the boat looking new!
I got my Sirius Radio working, I am not too impressed with how slow the weather portion of it is, and the bluetooth connection is working which allows content from my cell phone to be ran through the radio.

Workin' for the Man

My friend Bill Lundeen of Lundeen's Tackle Castle on beautiful Mille Lacs Lake is mentioned frequently on Fishin' With Dave, and for good reason.  Bill and his lovely wife Kathy's bait shop is strategically located at the corner of Hwy's 169 and 27, on the southwest side of the lake.  A gateway point for fishermen coming to Mille Lacs, there are many options after loading up on fresh bait, snacks, tackle, ice, and some up to date advice on the latest status of the bite.  When I moved into my current residence 18 years ago, it was easier to head to Mille Lacs by taking  US Hwy 169 north to Onamia.  In about 1 hour and 15 minutes I was at the lake, a little faster than my previous route of going north on Hwy 47.  My new preferred route presented me with a few options for bait shops.  Prince's north of Milaca, The Holiday Station (now a BP), and Bill's all were given a chance.  Prince's seemed like it was never open, The Holiday Station was a little to big company for me, leaving Lundeen's Tackle Castle as my effort to support the local business's.  Through the years we have become good friends.  Sharing fishing reports, opinions, and just about anything else, I was excited when he asked if I could possible watch the store last Sunday.  Apparently the Bishop was coming for a special celebration at their church and it was an event they would really like to attend as a family.  After clearing my schedule, got up at 5:00 and drove my motorcycle to the store for a quick lesson in how to run the operation.  I did get some help from a former employee, Mike who was up fishing and visiting his mother.  Together we restocked the essentials, dusted the shelves, swept the floor, all while selling a few minnows and leeches in between.  Here's a picture of me behind the counter, ready to greet the next fisherman that walked in.  Although it wasn't terribly busy I did manage to sell a new landing net, 1 quart of Bill's famous home made maple syrup, some sucker minnows, a few rainbows, and some leeches.  We did have one issue with the DNR license machine but all in all it went pretty well.  Bill and his family came back from church, happy to have been able to attend and the shop was still in functioning condition, abet a little cleaner!  It was certainly a nice change from the transformer business and it really feels good to be trusted enough with another man's life work.  As I said before, if you are ever in the area stop in and tell them Dave sent you, I guarantee you a smile.

Of course I did get a chance to get out on Friday night with my neighbor Tom.  The weather has been nothing short of phenomenal and this night was no exception.  Bill had reported that the perch were starting to go in Wahkon Bay, usually an opportunity to put a few perch in the live well with plenty of action.  We would fish to just before sunset then head to 3-mile reef to try some shallow water walleye fishing.  Well the perch were definitely going crazy however the problem was they all measured between 4 and 6 inches.  I must have caught 100 or so casting a ivory colored Power Bait twister tail while Tom casted for larger prey.  In the end I had caught only 1 perch that measured enough to make it worth filleting.  Of course that first keeper must get into that live well to set the stage for introducing additional company to keep the first one happy.  Well, that didn't happen.  This was our one and only fish for the night and trust me, it looks a lot larger than it really is!  Our trip to 3-mile proved a fruitless effort.  We  could not even scrounge up a lowly rock bass.  I think the water temp was still too high, 59 degrees, not enough to drive the fish shallow.  The full moon is in a week or so and this might be my last stand before I put the boat away.   I am hoping to get back on the Mississippi River this weekend for an attempt at a trophy smallie.  With fall rapidly approaching, time is getting short to get everything done before the snow flies.  I guess it's the same every year.

Mille Lacs 2010 Maiden Voyage

Having skipped last week's opportunity to hit Mille Lacs Lake, it gave me time to get a few things caught up around the house.  Memorial Weekend is usually my first real excursion to the pond and this year was no exception.  Monday is a great time to hit the lake as most of the traffic is heading south and the lake is substantially less crowded.  The reports from Mille Lacs has been excellent with a lot of fish being caught and a good number of them acceptable for the live well.  Mille Lacs has special restrictions due to the current Native American netting which goes on in the spring, during spawning, and before the fishing season opens.  These restrictions include a bag limit of 4 fish which must be under 18 inches with one allowed over 28 inches.  In the past 5 years the average walleye was exceeding 18 inches and bringing home some fish to eat was difficult.  This year has started out much better with many slot fish available.  The Minnesota DNR regulates the total amount of fish harvest based on the Indian harvest and available sportsman harvest.  The last few years the total harvest has been less than half of the total allowed (around 460,000 pounds).  This year we may have the opportunity to utilize our full allowable take of fish.  The first picture is the largest fish I landed, about a 22 incher.

Deciding to go out of the west side, we headed for a deeper rock reef south of Sherman's Point.  My friend Bill Lundeen had insisted that we fish deep, 26 - 30 feet.  The water temperature was 62, a number I expected to be higher.  After 30 minutes on the rocks I called my friend Jon Bathke to see if he was on the pond.  He answered the phone but was at home.  A short discussion of yesterday's success changed my strategy.  Hitting a special spot on Sherman's Flat, I nailed a couple walleyes, one keeper and one to long.  Action was slow so we moved to another favorite spot of mine, The Cut.  Although we marked a ton of fish as well I had a very nice fish on, that was about it.  I finally conceded to Mr. Lundeen's suggestion, headed south and bobber fish the deep water gravel.  Picking a popular gravel bar, we anchored in 28 feet of water, away from the assembled crowd.  Using slip bobbers set about 18 inches off the bottom baited with a leech, I had our first fish within 5 minutes of anchoring.  The next 3 hours proved to be quite successful as we put 7 more in the box giving us a total of 8 walleyes with a couple of nice perch thrown in for a bonus.  One interesting experiment that I like to do is target the fish just below the boat which show up on my depthfinder.  My guests were a couple of frequent friends, Tom McAtee and Tom Emmons.    Mr. McAtee had some issues with his line so I let him use my bobber rig as I jigged directly under the boat, watching the jig and fish on m depthfinder.  It was just like ice fishing as I caught at least 4 walleyes this way.  In an interesting experiment, I have a very cool stereo system in my boat.  As I marked fish directly below me, I cranked the volume to a definite uncomfortable level (Lot's of bass!).  The fish never moved.  So much for noise scaring fish.  This picture is of my good friend Tom Emmons with a nice keeper walleye.

This weekend I will be competing in the MTT Walleye Tournament on Mille Lacs.  Held out of Hunter's Point Resort on the east side,  Mark Applen will be my partner in our attempt to capture the $5000 grand prize.  It should be interesting as I have never fished an open water tourney on Mille Lacs.  I will report our results next week with the hopes that both bank accounts will be substantially larger on Monday!