Back From Boston

View from our table in Portsmouth, NH

Last week’s plan to get out on the lake didn't work out very well.  My pending trip to Boston on Monday morning left a lot of holes to be filled I n a very short time.  Mark Applen was up at Mille Lacs on Saturday and I knew I should have taken the afternoon off but with a ton of things to do, it didn't work out.  Just my luck he texted me with his mid-afternoon report, 5 walleyes with 1 keeper, fat and sassy on night crawlers out on the flats.  Well, what can you do?  With important meetings coming up I needed some new clothes, something I do about once every 2 years.   Shopping is easy for me as long as I am doing it, tan or brown colored Dockers, a blue or white shirt and I’m done.  My 4 year old belt looked pretty rugged so I bought one as well forgetting you need to buy one 2 inches longer than your waist size.  That’s what I did on Sunday, return it for a 40".  I was thinking about heading out for a little fishing on Sunday but with no one around to go, I decided to just keep moving down my things to do list.  I do have to tell you the garden is coming along well and the raspberries are in full season.  I've got a pretty good handle on the weeds this year however I'm afraid the 12 inches of rain we got in June has taken out my 2 mature Fireside Apple trees.  One is completely gone and the other isn't looking so good.  At first I thought that my initial orchard spray burned the trees but I had a hard time believing it.   Saturday morning's garden show on WCCO confirmed the worst, the wet spring was really hard on the trees.

Oysters ready to be shucked

At 7:00 on Monday morning the plane left for Boston with me on it, a 3 hour flight to meet my Eastern Sales Manager, Scott and call on customers.  Our first appointment on Monday at 2:00 so we stopped at Portsmouth (pronounced Port Smith) to have lunch.  With seafood abound we headed to find a place on the harbor to eat and their fresh broiled haddock was to die for.  Once done with our meetings we headed to Burlington, Vermont,  a place I’ve never been.  It was a fabulous drive as we finished that meeting then went back to Boston.  After arriving back our destination was downtown Boston to the Union Oyster House for some raw oysters and clams as an appetizer.  The Union Oyster House is the oldest continuous operating restaurant in the United States as it started serving in 1826.  The original soapstone bar where they crack open the oysters is still there, no worse for the wear.  After sucking down a couple dozen delicious and fresh oysters along with a couple dozen raw clams we moved on to the Chart House, a great on the wharf eating establishment.  Wednesday evening was already planned, my good friend Pablo Nayardy would pick me up and head over to his favorite place, the  Blue Ginger, started by an award winning chef, Ming Tsai.  Along with a great meal I got to ride in Pablo’s new 2005 Bentley GT as well, learn about his new acquisition, a vineyard in Hungary. For dessert we had a glass of the wine he is planning on making there, Tokaji Aszu or as he calls it, nectar if the kings.  It was a pretty incredible evening.  Returning to the hotel about 8:00 I had asked Scott if he had found his way up to Gloucester to see the Crow’s Nest where they filmed some of the Perfect Storm.  Only 20 minutes away we decided to take

Long Liner out of Gloucester

that off his bucket list as I've been there before.  It’s much like a tavern back home in Eleva, full of interesting characters with a few tourist (like us) that straggle in every once in a while.  After helping a Viet Nam veteran up to his room above we returned to find a guy sitting there with rubber fishing boots on.  Striking up a conversation it turned out to be a fascinating rest of the evening.  Leaving their port in St. Augustine, Florida, they work their way up following the fish be it tuna, swordfish, dolphin (Mai Mai) or sharks.  As the Gulf Stream moves the warmer waters north the fish follow and they are right behind.   Their boat is known as a long liners as they set out as much as 40 miles of line containing as many as 1500 hooks baited with squid.   The stories of his working on the boat, a 65 footer, and the excitement could have kept me there all night.  Unfortunately we did have to work the next day so we headed out but not before he invited us to see the boat and grab some swordfish bills he had sawed off for souvenirs.  Stating he preserves them by letting the red ants clean up the skin then soaking in a bath of bleach and Dawn soap.  Unfortunately they stunk pretty bad so we stopped at a Seven Eleven and bought some salt before putting them in my bathtub and salting them down.  It did help a little and not one to give up I repackaged them and checked them in.  Note, I am writing this on the plane ride back so well see if the TSA let them through.  If nothing else they’ll make a great conversation piece if I can get the smell out of them. Note: They did not show up with my baggage however as I questioned the person at the help desk at baggage claim, out came the box!

Unfortunately this is the week that I was supposed to go out to Lake Oahe with my friend Russ and Mark.  I was impossible to reschedule my Boston trip so I am curious how they did.  On the other hand my friend Bruce officially extended my invitation to fish Lac Seul again with him and Pete during the week after Labor Day so I’m pretty excited.  I might even bring my boat this time.  The plan is to finally get to Mille Lacs on Saturday to try my luck, it will be nice to get out.

Hello From Boston

I have been in Boston this week, calling on customers old and new. I was traveling with my Sales Manager Chuck Wild as well met our new Representatives from Tiger Electronics, Karl, Evan, and Rick. Karl and I hit it off very well as he grew up similar to myself. One look in his office explains it all. When traveling it's fun to get the flair of the area and Boston really offers an opportunity to see our history close and up front. Karl graciously took the time to show us some of the sites in downtown Boston. One of my favorite stops is the Union Oyster House. As stated it is America's Oldest Restaurant,with much being the same as it was in 1826. The oyster bar is classic. A semi circle bar with the original soapstone working area, the oysters are shucked in front of you and served super fresh with horseradish, their special sauce, and Tabasco. They are huge and delicious. Washed down with a ice cold glass of Harpoon IPA, it the perfect way to start the night. Most of the area around the area was built in the early 1700's. Not far from there is North Boston which is the Italian district. Originally the slums of Boston, the Italians were the last to inhabit this section of town and they stayed. It is alive with small Italian restaurants and bakery's. After the oysters Karl took us to his favorite Italian place, a small but delicious eating place then ended the night at Mike's Pastries, the most famous bakery in Boston. At 10:30 PM the place was packed. Know for their conoli's, the bakers are working all night. Pretty amazing when you consider most of Minnesota shuts down by 10:00!

Next on my list was to go to Gloucester, one of the most important fishing ports in the world. Here Gordon's of Gloucester made fish a household staple. If you have had cod, haddock, or swordfish it likely was processed here. Today the decline of the fish stocks (although haddock are reportedly at record highs) and the ever popular Government regulations have impacted this area severely. To survive the town is slowly converting to tourism. It is certainly a beautiful part of the country. Gloucester is also the basis for the book and popular movie called The Perfect Storm, the story of the Andrea Gail and it's fate during one of the worst storms ever witnessed. When I was looking at buying our current home in 1991, Minneapolis was hit with one of the craziest snowstorms ever. Known as the Halloween Storm of 1991, it dumped over 30 inches of snow in 24 hours. Well this storm met up with another low pressure area then a hurricane in the North Atlantic to create the "Perfect Storm". I loved reading about how they commercially fish swordfish with the lights and the long lines. The book also had a chapter on what is it like to drown. This is why I wear my life vest all the time. We entered the Crow's Nest, the location for much of the movie scenes shot for the Perfect Storm with George Clonney. It was a typical working man's bar, nothing special however the looks we got were expected ones of locals checking out the tourists. I admitted to the bartender why we were there and she offered a photo album of the actors and filming. It was interesting, we had a beer, I bought a hat, that's off my bucket list.

Next stop was the Cape Ann Brewery. One of my hobbies when traveling is to visit local brew pubs and sample their wares. I have been to about 60 of them around the country from Homer Alaska, Manhattan Beach California, The Strand Brewery in Galveston Texas and now one on the far east coast of New England. The beer was excellent as I had a pint of their Fisherman's Ale (go figure). My free time is usually casual and I wear my Green Bay Packer Hat as there seems to be a Cheesehead always close by. It is amazing the people you meet around the world who are Packer Fans, including some in the Shanghai Airport in China. Well half way through my beer a guy look right at me and asked where I was from. Sconnie of course! He was with his wife and son from southeast of Milwaukee. We cheese heads are a friendly bunch and invited ourselves to join them for another pint, discussing the problems with the last Packer game. It was a lot of fun for sure and Chuck learned the power of the Green Bay mystic, something that he will never realize in Buffalo, New York. Here are a couple of pictures of my new found friends as well as me, the Gordon's from Gloucester fisherman! I did check out the fishing opportunities and yellowfin tuna are in the area as well as stripers and cod. I have put that on my list for potential fishing adventures.

I did get out fishing on Mille Lacs last Saturday. I had heard that using lead core line was in so I bought 200 yards at Fleet Farm before heading up. Lead core line is exactly what it sounds like, a lead strand with braid around it for strength. The line is also colored in 10 yard sections going from purple to white to black to green and a rainbow of colors for each section. The theory is that 18# lead core sinks at a rate of 5 feet for each 10 yards (or color) let out. To fish 25 feet deep simply let out 5 sections. At the end of the lead core is tied a mono leader around 10 feet long. The objective is that you can fish standard baits like floating Rapala's or Shad Raps at depths significantly deeper than what they would run. My plan was to have Tom drive while I take an existing line counter reel, strip the line and replace it with the lead core. After doing all that work the line prove too large of a diameter and could only get 4 sections on, not enough to fish the depth we planned. Plan B was to see if Bill had any larger capacity reels. He did not but reminded me of the large salmon rods I had let him use a number of years ago and they would work. After a half hour of rerigging we were set. Tom and I headed out to some of the deep gravel areas that had fish stacked on them. The fish were there but not very cooperative. Although we caught nothing on the lead core it was a great experience for next years strategy. We did end up on Anderson Reef for the evening bite, which never materialize either. Tom finally got a 16 incher with a Rouge before we left. Certainly one issue remains the warm water temperatures. It is still in the high 60's which needs to get into the mid 50"s before that shallow bite really gets going. Oh well, fun trying!