Getting Ready for the Season

catalpa/chartreuse Pulse R soft bait

It's been a busy last 2 weeks, since Easter.  On the same day (April 18th) that my mother passed away, our good friend Jim Carlson had passed away hours earlier.   His funeral was last Monday so we left my mom's funeral to head back up to the cities to attend his family memorials.  Jim was the brother-in-law to my really great friends Mark and Jack Taylor.  He was also a Lutheran pastor and I was instrumental in helping him get the pastor's job in my home town of Eleva, Wisconsin.  Jim's wife Linda is Mark and Jack's sister and my wife and I would always get invited to their family get together's as they were our family here in Minnesota.  Jim's funeral was Monday and we were honored when the family asked us to walk up with them as part of the family.  It was also nice to see both Dennis and Linda Barneson as well as Gary and his wife, Karen, I had just seen them on Saturday at my mothers funeral.  On Tuesday I flew down to Chicago with my production Manager, Rich Rebella, to attend the spring TTA meeting for 3 days.  I really enjoy getting together with my fellow members of our industry, we fished together last December at our fall meeting then again in late March when we all met at APEC.  Quite honestly I am anxious to just try and relax for  a few days but we all know that is going to be hard to accomplish as there is not much time between now and fishing opener.  One thing I have enjoyed is watching the In Depth Outdoors video of the host catching walleyes one the Rainy River a few weeks ago.  Here is the link to one of their latest videos that uses these Pulse R's Here  One of their baits, which I have found to be quite productive on Lac Seul is the BFishN AuthentX Pulse R soft plastics as it has a unique tail action that can be fished quite slow.  After watching the video I just had to order their new color, Catalpa/Chartreuse as it should be a real good color in the stained waters of Lac Seul.  I am bound and determined to catch a walleye on Leech Lake on one of these!

Long Day Onions planting guide

Monday evening I  picked up my onions from Andy Stevens, an engineer that used to work with us. Here is a video explaining Long day onions as many people don't understand how to get the results most people would like to see. Dixondale Farms from Texas does and excellent job of providing the right type of onion sets to assure a great crop this fall. Every year we order onions together, the right kind for our area.....Long Day onions,  Because of our long days (> 14 hours) in the growing season, you need the right ones.  As well I stopped by Beiswinggers Hardware to pick up some drive belts for my dad's old Honda Tiller. I go them on and tilled up a good chunk of the garden Tuesday night before I left.  I definitely need to get the onions and potatoes planted before fishing season starts.  If possible I'd like to get the boat out this weekend for a trial run before opener.  Although I am sure it will be just fine it's still good to try and get familiar with the new equipment before I get out on the lake.

I am writing this at the Chicago Skyclub waiting for my plane ride home.  I hear it's been cold up north, hopefully my apple blossoms are going to be ok.

Open Water is Just Around the Corner!

Collecting Maple sap

With some of the lakes around home already ice free, and the temperatures in the 60's last weekend, fishing was not in the cards.  I spent the weekend helping my friend John Matthews help rewire my sister -in-laws house as I figured he may have bit off more than he could chew! She lives in Hudson, WI so both Saturday and Sunday were spent pulling wires.  We must be at least 3 weeks ahead of what I would call a normal weather schedule as my neighbor Brandon Larsen is already been tapping the trees for maple syruping,  I have a couple of nice maples in my yard so I let him tap them and in return I get a nice bottle of homemade Maple Syrup which is exceptionally good!  The sap has been really flowing lately because of the warm days and nights below freezing, I have to believe that he has collected over 500 gallons to date from the neighbors and I.  Brandon also has an osmosis filter that essentially removes 1/2 the water when ran through the filter, making it so it does not take forever to boil off the water to get the syrup to the right stage.  Apparently he can run it through up to 4 times so 400 gallons of sap at 2% sugar content get reduced to  50 gallons at about 16%.  This saves boiling away 350 gallons of water in the original sap, a huge reduction in wood needed to fuel the boiler.  It still takes a fair amount of processing to get real Maple Syrup but the end product is definitely worth it!  Brandon has a large tray that is separated into a number of compartments.  By magic the finished syrup makes it's way to one end with a spigot and thermometer to monitor the whether it is ready.  For all practical purposes finished maple syrup boils at 219F give or take a few adjustments for altitude.  Once it hit that temperature it can be drawn off as syrup.  Brandon's neighbor Jake was over helping on Monday night as they were boiling and I stopped over.  We poured a little brandy into a cup then added some hot syrup from the spigot.....Uffda that was good, (not particularly good for my diabetes!)  One interesting thing the Brandon has been doing is finishing his syrup off in used bourbon barrels.  Het reheats the syrup then pours it in the barrel and let's it sit for 8 weeks.  the syrup picks up the bourbon flavor and it's pretty good.  The used barrels are expensive so he obviously gets more for it but it is definitely an interesting twist to his craft.

Wild Turkeys in the Garden

So this warm weather has me thinking about the garden this year.  I have quite a bit of work to do however I did order my onion sets from Dixondale Farms out of Texas again with my friend Andy.  They are great onions and much better than the ones one buys up north.  Onions are classified by Long Day, Moderate Day, and Short Day onions, a term that describes their bulbing properties.  Long day Onions need more than 15 hours of daylight to trigger them to start growing the onion.  It definitely makes a big difference as I get larger onions that last a lot longer.  One thing that has hung around my property this year has been wild Turkeys.  At some time there can be as many as 18 in a bunch and trust me, they can eat! If you look closely at the picture of them you will see a white bucket that I fill with corn. They can really clean it out and I am not sure who's worse.....the deer of the turkeys.  I compare them to a good vacuum cleaner as nothing in their path is safe.  If there is no more for them in the garden they will strut up to my deck and eat all the bird seed out of my ground feeder.  Never the less they are an impressive bird for sure and I am half tempted to enjoy a wild turkey dinner some day but that would not be the nicest thing to do and could end me up in trouble!

I have promised to take my friends the Grants out ice fishing this weekend, I am planning on heading up to the Battle Lake area and try for some crappies.  If there is any issue in walking out I have plan B, we will hit the outdoor stores of Scheels and Cabela's for David Grant, a new up and coming fisherman!  Hopefully I will have something to report next week.  I am definitely afraid this will probably be my last adventure on the ice for this year.  The next big trip is back to Naples for some great grouper fishing on March 26th.