Snow is gone and so am I!!

Carter Hayes and some beautiful ducks they shot

Tomorrow I leave for Naples, Florida to attend our annual TTA (The Transformer Association) meeting, an association for members of companies who make electrical transformers and coils as well as companies who supply that industry.  I was previously on the board of directors and eventually served as its President for 8 years.  It is a great organization and I have met many good people at the meetings, guys that have experienced the same issues I have for the last 40 years (On January 26th I will be celebrating my 41st year with my company).  Over the years this as well as our spring APEC conference has been a good excuse for us guys to go fishing as we have been to Key West, San Diego, Charleston, Cameron Louisiana, and now Naples.  It's not hard to find a few guys interested in going and especially now that there is no ice here in Minnesota, it's a double pleasure.  I will miss the St. Paul Ice Fishing Show on Sunday however what would one rather be doing, walking a show, dreaming about fishing, or fishing.........not a difficult question at all!  Unfortunately my fishing drought continues as it always does this year however my friend Eric sent me a picture of his son holding what he says are some Bull Canvasback ducks along with a drake Mallard.  Those are some really big ducks and Eric is certainly bringing his son Carter up correctly.  I am not sure how many Carter actually shot but either way he has a handful for sure!!  I have to thank Eric for sharing this and giving me at least a picture to open this weeks post with.  Great job boys!!!

Grouper

So the plan is to arrive in Naples on Wednesday afternoon then head to our conference hotel.  We will have a day and a half of business then on Saturday we have 8 guys and 2 boats rented to go out in the gulf and do some grouper fishing.  I have never caught a grouper however I have been told that they are fight like crazy and are excellent table fare.  We have a full 8 hour charter and with a little luck we will have enough to bring home so I am taking a soft sided cooler with me and be ready for anything.  I checked the weather for Naples and it is forecasted to be in the low 80's during the day and mid 60's at night, uffda, that will be hard to take!  It looks like next week it will start getting real cold up north and hopefully we will have enough ice to get out on Red Lake by December 17th.  Mille Lacs has opened up to a very limited harvest, 1 fish between 19" and 21", I guess it's something but I'm not holding my breath.  The lake is full of 14 - 15 inch walleyes, I remember when we used to call the lake the home of the quarter pounder, the more things change the more they stay the same!  Hopefully I will have a better report for next week.

Wingdam Walleyes

Carter's on the board!

Looking for a bite that's been better than Mille Lacs these days, I received a call from my friend Eric Hayes inviting me to fish the wing dams below the dam in Alma, Wisconsin with his 9 year old son Carter.  About the same time I got a call from Mark at Blueberry Ridge, the berries were perfect, come on down.  That's all I needed as the plan was to meet Eric at the boat landing around 9:00 on Sunday, fish till 3:30, pick berries till 6:00, and spend some time with my mother before driving home.  With perfect timing I arrived at the landing about a minute behind Eric and Carter.  Now  I had meet Carter a few years back and was excited to see him again.  Kids need adults that can engage them and I was looking forward to teaching him a few fishing skills.  Well, no teaching needed!  Our strategy was to begin trolling the front of the wing dams with crank baits such as Bombers, Shad Raps, or Smash Shads.  Wing dams are rock structures put in the Mississippi River to direct water flow to the channel, assuring enough depth for the barge traffic.  Some wing dams are better than others depending on the water flow, depth, location, how steep the front side is. Because they are made of rock, it's easy to get hung up and with the zebra mussels, lines such as Power Pro or Spiderwire are needed to avoid cutting your line and losing your bait.  Snags are fairly easy to get out but sometimes a lure retriever was necessary.  Eric hadn't fished this area much so we would have to troll the face to get an idea of it's lay under the water.  A big advantage was his Lowrance Side Scan, we could see exactly where the rocks started, ended, and the position of the wing dam to the boat.  The first fish was a dandy, about a 10 pound northern that hit Carter's lure.  For a nine year old Carter handled that fish like a seasoned veteran.  Dad lets him use a pretty sweet St. Croix rod with a Shimano Stradic reel, I have friends I would not trust with that rig.  I snapped a few pictures before I realizing the camera could take a video (I keep forgetting). With that we got Carter bringing in the northern and dad putting doing an excellent job of netting.  I just love how those big northerns look coming to the boat.  Check this link Carter's Northern. We continued fishing a few more wing dams when finally Eric caught a walleye over 15 inches, the minimum size limit for the river.  A few minutes later we had a second one.  From then on it was smaller fish, close, but it's pretty hard to stretch them as long as we needed.  Oh well, I did finally get one, a 14 inch walleye on my Smash Shad and this was the last walleye we got for the day, a total of 6 fish, 2 keepers and 4 released.


Carter's walleye

Carter was getting bored of the uneventful  pace of trolling, especially given the last 2 hours were pretty unproductive.  He had his eyes set on the rock rip rap along the shore, a perfect place to cast for bass, especially smallmouth.  His favorite lure was a plain plastic fluke rigged on a worm hook, unweighted and danced just below the surface, I was told the fish go wild for these.  Watching Carter cast into the rocks he would often end up on the shore while I was struggling to get close enough. He got hung up a few times but I admired his aggressive attitude toward those fish that were up tight against the shore. While we moved along the rocks and worked the edge, the bass didn't disappoint.  I think I ended up with 5 bass, including this nice smallie that Carter netted for me.  3:00 came fast as we loaded the boat up and I headed north to Eleva.  It was a real pleasure to fish with Eric and Carter, Eric has fished walleyes with me at Leech and Mille Lacs and Carter is a chip off the old block.  I brought him a Cabela's Fisherman's Folding Tool and he loved it.  Admittedly worried he might be too young but dad gave me the go ahead and he never put it down.  Hopefully in 30 years he'll remember how he received the tool in the bottom of his new tackle box.  I got something out of the deal as well, a new way to fish bass on the river behind my house, and a new friend, pretty good trade if you ask me!

My guide for the day!

Stopping in Eleva I headed to Blueberry Ridge to get my quota of blueberries.  They were more ripe than a couple of weeks ago, with Mark's help I picked 6 large pails.  We'll probably make wine out of a couple of the pails, 1 goes to Bill Lundeen, and the rest will get frozen.  Blueberries freeze very well and in the middle of winter they certainly are a treat.  I am writing this at the Cleveland Airport, having been here since Tuesday, it's time to go home.  My great friends Mark, Jack, Matt, and Jared Taylor are in Alaska fishing and they have sent me some great pictures of their adventure which I hope to write about next week.   They are coming home on Saturday so I'm looking forward to a full report.  My plans for the weekend are still not settled as we are definitely in the dog days of summer.  Maybe catfishing on the river, a motorcycle ride, working on the garden, there's never a dull minute this time of year.