Back On the Big Water

Ben's First Walleye of the Day

 I won't bore you with the details however Mille Lacs Lake opened back up to walleye fishing August first after being closed for the entire month of July.  August is not one of the best months to fish walleyes on Mille Lacs but after a scorching hot July, with a moderate amount of rain in the area as well as cooler night time temperatures, the lake surface temperature  has dropped at least 8 degrees, things were going in the right direction.  After watching this video of one of my favorite YouTube guys, Tom Boley, it was titled, Mille Lacs, Part 2.  Tom is a young guide from the Hayward, Wisconsin area and has his own YouTube channel regarding fishing.  He does an excellent job of explaining the fishing scenario's on his video's and is especially interesting when it comes to going through how to use electronics to locate fish.  Tom posted this video last week and it influenced myself to get and try lead lining an long line trolling with planar boards in the deeper water off the flats on Mille Lacs.  I have been asked buy a good friend Greg Kinblom  to take him and his son Marcus back to Mille Lacs and this was a perfect time.  Although storms blew by the night before, Sunday was to be calm, partly cloudy, a perfect setup for trolling.  Unfortunately Marcus has a girlfriend who's parents were coming over for dinner on Sunday............it was a no go.  In their place was my good friend Jack Taylor and his son Ben.  I guess next time I see Marcus we'll have to go over his priorities once again!  Heading to 8 Mile Flat, the strategy was to fish just off the 25 foot break in the 32 feet of water. With barely a breeze we headed out from the landing at full throttle, full trim.  It was fun opening the boat up and still remain comfortable as we made the 6 mile run in about 15 minutes.   Everything ran exceptionally well with the exception of my live well valve, it still won't shut off the water coming into the live well on Recirculate.  More on that later.  8 Mile Flat looks like a big H facing north and south.  Starting on the west (Left) side of the bottom of the flat we positioned ourselves about 50 yards off the edge and got set up.  The first rod we rigged was a long line rod with a Reef Runner 800 deep diver.  This lure will run at 28 feet with the about 150 feet of line let out.  Ben originally wanted to use pink, not my favorite on Mille Lacs but the kid needed to learn a lesson so we put on a pink colored Reef Runner.   Using a line counter reel we let the proper amount of line then attached a Offshore Tackle planar board to the line which will carry it 20 yards to the side of the boat.  Next Jack an I rigged up a lead line setup, each has an 8'6" trolling rod with a large reel that carries 10 colors of lead line.  Lead line is simply a braided Dacron line with a lead core inside.  The line comes in a variety of diameters based on the breaking strength one is interested in.  Regardless of the size (diameter) they all have on thing in common, the line is segments of 10 yards (30 feet) long that are different colors.  For each segment or color, the line at 2.0 mph will sink 5 feet deep.  With normal lead line to fish 25 feet deep, one would let out 5 segments or colors.  On the end of the lead line is tied a fluorocarbon leader, maybe 10 - 12 pound test and I tend to make them 10 - 15 foot, so the lure has a minimal effect on how deep the lure itself will run.  With a number 5 Shad Rap it may only run a couple of feet deeper than the stated lead line depth,  and usually a walleye on the bottom will come up 4 to 5 feet and slam the lure.  In all the years fishing I would estimate that the number 5 shad rap crankbait has caught more walleyes in my boat than all other crankbaits combined.  Of course I do use them alot!  In the case of lead line my reels are loaded with Suffix brand 832, a thinner diameter line that runs 7 to 8 feet per color instead of the standard 5 foot per color.  The thinner diameter allows one to add more line to the reel and in the case of using the 832, I can get all 10 colors on my line counter reel just in case something would happen to the end of the line, which I've experienced before.  In 32 feet of water we attached our lures and set them to the proper depth.  It took a while but about after an hour of trolling Ben's planar board was acting funny.  I had him reel it in and checked the lure, nothing so telling Ben pink was not cutting it I attached one of my favorites, a brown perch pattern.  20 minutes latter Ben pull this walleye from the depths.

Fishing wasn't terribly fast.  We had a little trouble with the planar boards a those reef runners pull very

Jack's 25 inch walleye

hard and was finding it difficult to keep the back line clip in place.  Keeping slack between the main line clip near the front of the board and the back clip that is hooked to a flag system is critical as the flag acts as a strike detector and if it's down you probably have a fish.  After getting it clamped on the line we let it out and before long the flag went down, another fish.  That would be Reef Runner 2, Shad Raps 0.  We started aggressively changing colors on our Shad Raps, finally putting a Fluorescent green/white on Jack' line and before long his rod was bouncing in the rod holder.  One nice thing is my EZ Troll, kicker motor throttle control.  When we had a fish on we could dial down the speed to a crawl, this would not mess up the existing lines that were set yet allow one to fight the fish without the pull of the motor.  This fish looked like a nice walleye and once in the net it was definitely what we were looking for, a 25 incher.  Deciding that this might be a clue I changed the Shad Rap on my line from a crawfish colored pattern to a lighter colored, similar to Jack's.  The previous strategy was to use a color similar to the Reef Runner as Ben had already caught 2 nice walleyes, but I had dragged it for over an hour with little success.  Unfortunately I had a nice white/chrome shad rap on earlier but it got hung up in some weeds that were floating and the line broke.  We did go back to try and find it but were not successful unfortunately.  Well after 30 minutes of switching my rod starts to bounce in the holder, I was finally on the board.  After setting the lines and another 30 minutes of trolling Jack tied into a dandy.  The battle ensued and he finally got it up to the surface.  I estimate it was in that 27 to 18 inch range.  Putting the net in the water and asking Jack to bring it my way, a quick head shake and the hook came out.  A quick flip of it's tail and she was gone.Although it meant no picture, it's a great way to release a fish as we work hard to unhook them quickly and get them back in the water.

Finally a Walleye!

So a quick day of fishing which included 6 hours on the water, 7 walleyes to the boat, and a variety of lures tried.  Maybe not my best day of trolling but we did not come home skunked.  The lake was beautiful and with a slight breeze from the Northwest it was just about perfect.  the original plan was to go on Saturday but severe storms had moved through that area Friday night and usually fishing isn't that good after a big storm rolls through.  Apparently they had an isolated storm come across Mille Lacs Saturday night..........well that sounds like a great excuse!  Either way it was fun, especially being able to teach Ben how to run the boat, he did fine so all I had to do was to bark out some instructions and keep the lines going.

I am still having issues with this new version of blogger, it tends to drive me crazy.....I suppose it's the old adage, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks!  Between trying to get out on the boat and the river, there are plenty of things to do.  The second crop of sweet corn is ripening this week, the tomatoes look great and it will be time to make salsa again this year.  Canada recently closed it's border until September 21st so no trip to Lac Seul this fall, a pretty big disappointment but one just has to take it in stride.  It looks like our rescheduled Leech Lake Opener on October 9th is still on so that is good.  The winning strategy there should be trolling shad raps and I am set.  My brother Steve is working on getting a new boat and I've committed to helping him remove any electronics from his current boat and reinstalling them.  One thing that has me going is seeing the posts from my good friend Keith Holtan (he is located at the left side of this post or here ) .  Gary Blinn, a guy who frequents Keith's place in Alaska but also by chance is often at Lac Seul Outposts when we are there, is pictured with a nice silver salmon.  It takes me back to those days with my brother and cousins as this is the perfect time of the year to fish Alaska as the pinks come into the rivers and it's like catching sunfish!  Those were some good times for sure.  We will see Keith this winter, maybe I'll help him with his booth at the Sport show this year, and we'll definitely have to go ice fishing again!

Red Lake at Last!

JR and I posing for a picture!!  My Hero

With reports from JR's Corner Access allowing 1/2 ton trucks with single axle wheel housed out on the ice last weekend, it was time to get the proverbial show on the road!  Successfully recruiting my brother Steve to drive my rig, pulling the Salem, we picked up my good friend Keith Holtan north of Brainerd and headed north to Red Lake.  Our good friend Mark Applen was already on his way up and our other crew members, Randy and Russ Praught we somewhere in the mix.    A quick stop at Teal's in Cass Lake to fill up the truck and get some groceries (You never know if you are going to catch fish!) our next stop was in Blackduck for bait.  Timberline sports had a great selection of minnows so we got 6 dozen fatheads, a dozen rainbows and a dozen shiners, maybe too optimistic but in the grand scheme of things the price of minnows is not the biggest problem we have.  Arriving at JR's it was great to see him as we exchanged our annual welcome back messages!  I really like JR, he's quite a guy and claims he would do anything for me, which I was soon to find out.  After paying for the access, we headed out to the bridge that crosses the heave about 1.5 miles out form shore and after crossing the bridge we headed northwest to what is know as the Center Bar area.  Mark was already on the ice heading in the same direction however with hundreds of vehicles and wheel houses on the ice, it is difficult to see exactly where he was.  Unfortunately cell phone service can be sporadic as well.  After going west about 3 miles we ran into a road heading north and took a right which was in the direction of Center Bar.  We were looking for Mark's white GMC pickup and saw a few but the wheel house didn't look right.  About a mile up the road I noticed a wheel house with 3 vent covers that stick up out of the roof, a telltale sign of Mr. Applen's wheel house.  Here he drove his gray Chevrolet Avalanche, No wonder!!!  Nevertheless we caught up with him and after a quick discussion headed to the south end of the Center Bar.  Picking a spot I started drilling holes while Steve and Keith worked on disconnecting the wheel house and letting it down on the ice.  One big problem, the left electric axle jack wasn't working.  Apparently it had bound up during the summer and only turned a few revolution before binding up.  This wasn't good.  Having put a 3/4 inch socket and 1/2 inch ratchet

JR Flying off in the sunset!

just for these types of  situations, it was soon discovered that the deep well socket would be fine for the front jack however there was no room to get it in place for the axle jacks. Now what???  Locating some penetrating spray we removed any cover and dowsed the insides with the spray.  It seemed to have a little effect but no very much.  Just then a plane buzzed our location, it was JR in his Piper Cub outfitted with big tundra tires to land in these conditions.  Getting out of his plane he asked what the problem was.  Explaining the jack situation I mentioned that it might work if I can get a 3/4 inch short socket and ratchet to turn the shaft.  After looking in his plane he stated that he didn't have one but knew where there was one and he'd be right back.  Before I could argue he was in the air and 10 minutes later landed with the right socket.  A few turns in the right direction and the jack worked as it should, we were back in business.  JR said no problem as he flew off into the sunset.  Wow, that's what you call a real friend.  I am lucky to have a few like him, and they both own airplanes! Finally with everything set we got settled down for some serious fishing.  It was about 4:00 in the afternoon and the bite wasn't the greatest we decided to have dinner on the ice.  By 10:00 we had 3 fish and maybe let 4 more back, or walleye dinner at JR's would have to wait till tomorrow afternoon.

The unfortunate guy who went off to the right when they said not too!

Things got very interesting as time went on.  After settling in for the night we had at least 4 more walleyes on our rattle reels, it was sort of amazing that the outside temperature stayed above freezing. By noon on Saturday the outside temperature was 45 and the word on the ice was traveling fast, they were not letting any more vehicle cross the bridge as the warm weather was causing the ice to shift to quickly.  Some of our guys decided to get across the break and set up on the other side yet both Mark and I felt we should stick tight, after all the bite wasn't too bad and we figured they'd have to get us off sometime!  It was quite warm for sure as a steady stream of wheel houses were heading to shore. Between Mark and my house there were 4 guys and by 4:00 we had our 16 walleyes plus a number of real nice perch, it was time to head into JR's for our walleye dinner.  Rumor had it that a truck went through the ice and it was right, although they had the truck pulled out by the time we passed the area, the wheel house was still there sunk into the ice.  Luckily the truck didn't go totally through the ice, it simply dropped down onto the ice and a wrecker was able to pull it out.  I'm not sure what they are going to do with the wheel house but I am sure they have dealt with this before.  Of course this heightened the anxiety of the fisherman north of the break as word spread pretty quickly.  We went in anyway, cleaned the fish, and gave them to the bartender with my gluten free Zatarains Southern corn based fish coating.  It's actually very good, I think better than the shore lunch coating that they normally use when frying

Yes, we did get some walleyes!

and the cooks at JR's very nicely accommodates my wishes.  Usually the place is packed but the warm weather and the ice moving scared a lot of people.  After finishing our fish we headed back to the wheel house.  I have direcTV in the house but it can be a pain to set up as the cable connections are many.  just before we left I was successful in getting it to work so we were able to watch the Saturday night NFL game.  Not that exciting however we had been watching movies and you can only watch them so many times.  All day Saturday we watched Second Lions, The Big White, Planes Trains and Automobiles, all great movies.  It stayed what we would call quite warm through the night, got down enough to freeze any water on the ice, but we knew that we had better head out as early as possible because there were going to be a lot of guys crossing that bridge, and each time a vehicle crosses it degrades the situation a little bit at a time.  Finally getting packed up we headed for JR's.  After about 4 miles of cross country travel on the lake we arrived at the bridge that the resort guys were just finishing up moving it to a new spot along the break.  There must have been 50 truck/wheel houses lined up to get across the new bridge location.  There was a crack just before getting on the bridge, maybe 30 feet from the crack.  The gus had 2 large steel plates over it to provide a safe passage to drive over.  Once in place we started directing the guys to come through.  The first guy crossed the steel plates and on the ice, the ice sunk about an inch before rebounding.  I didn't like that at all but it held pretty well.  A 3/4 ton pickup with a tandem axle wheel house was next and that definitely put a strain on things, but he made it.  Actually he shouldn't of been out there and when he crossed the bridge his house got on the edge of the bridge and something punctured his tire, you could here it.  Luckily we told him to keep moving and after watching a number of truck cross I gave the keys to my brother and told him to quickly get in line as this wasn't going to last.  He and Mark crossed about the same time, maybe 15 and 16th, I figured another 25 trucks or so and that ice sheet that was moving would be done.  This was about 8:30 in the morning, my friend Andy came off about 9:30 and he had to wait 30 minutes while they repositioned the bridge again.  We just got across in time!

 Mark has the same wheel house that I have, a Salem Ice Cabin and on Saturday his furnace went out.  He had an electric heater with and with the outside temperatures being fairly warm, he was pretty comfortable, otherwise it would not have been so nice.  With my electric jacks not working and his furnace out we both decided to bring our house  back to the Cities to get them repaired.  He found someone in Ramsey, across the river that knew exactly what was wrong with his furnace and they are fixing it this week.  As for my jacks, I called the dealer where the house was originally purchased from and  not only did they not have a common sense solution for my fix, they informed me that I could not get in until after the first of January.  Thinking I might have to fix it myself and because the jacks are standard hitch jacks used on RV's Amazon had them but delivery was out past Christmas.  Doing more research and after calling the company to locate the nearest retail center, I ended up calling Minneapolis Trailer Sales in Rogers, MN, 10 minutes from the house.  This guy knew exactly what my problem was and had a viable solution to fix it, the ice house is at the shop with the plan to get it back before the weekend. All Should be good for the next planned trip to JR's on the 28th.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Getting Old

Dad loved Wildroot Hair Creme

As you can probably tell, no fishing last weekend.  However, I have a friend that is related to a good friend, Mark Mayerich.  Franklin lives on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota and admittedly we share a lot of the same values in life. To be honest,, I've only met Franklin a few times but he is one of those guys that because one shares similar values, we tend to stay email buddies. He sent this early this morning and it really hit home:

Yes, I am older than dirt!

Remember Slow Food? 

'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'  'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up, I informed him.

 'All the food was slow.' 'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'

'It was a place called 'at Home,'' I explained.  'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table,

and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage,so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it.

 Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at  Sears Roebuck or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.  Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow) We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people. 

I was 19 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had. 

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. 

Pizzas were not delivered to our home.  But milk was. 
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --Idelivered a newspaper, seven days a week. It cost 10 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 3 cents.  He had to get up at 6 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 60 cents from his customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave 

me 3 quarters and said to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day. 

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. 

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? 
MEMORIES from a friend : 
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old. 

How many do you remember? 
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.  (Like my Mustang)
Ignition switches on the dashboard. 
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall. 
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. 
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals. 
Older Than Dirt Quiz : 
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom. 
1. Blackjack chewing gum 
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water  
3. Candy cigarettes 
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles 
5. Coffee shops or diners with table side jukeboxes  
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers 
7. Party lines on the telephone 
8 Newsreels before the movie 
9. P.F. Flyers 
10. Butch wax  (that was our hair product) 
11.. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 2 channels... 

12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody 
14. 45 RPM records 
15.S&H green stamps 
16. Hi-fi's 
17. Metal ice trays with lever 
18. Mimeograph paper 
19. Blue flashbulb 
20. Packards 
21. Roller skate keys 
22. Cork popguns  
23. Drive-ins 
24. Studebakers 
25. Wash tub wringers 
If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older

If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You' re older than dirt! 
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life. 

Jared and a nice mess of panfish

This brought back a lot of memories of long ago.  The list includes Butch Wax, well my dad loved Wildroot as I put the picture up of their ad.  He would always slick my brothers and my hair with this before going to Sunday School. I remember when McDonald's in Eau Claire had 15 cent hamburgers and 20 cent cheeseburgers.  Michael's Dairy used to deliver milk in returnable glass bottles to our house.  Every December, maybe a week before Christmas, they would haul a team of horses, our delivery guy would dress up as Santa, and they would pull a sled around town and give each customer a half gallon of ice cream as a present for being a loyal customer. I still remember you could hear the jingle of bells on the harness's as they traveled down the streets of Eleva.  We all can look back at what was as things change very quickly.  I wanted to share this as it was important to me.   So this is Fishin' with Dave, not Remembering Old Times with Dave however not getting out last week was killing me!  Ben Aiona sent me a picture of this nice batch of sunfish and perch, he still hasn't told me where he got them but never the less it's a nice bunch of fish, I am sure his son Jared had a good hand in all of this!  JR's is letting wheel houses out this week at Red, so the weekend is planned.  My brother Steve is driving up Thursday night to stay with a friend on the south side of Minneapolis and will meet me at the pole shed on Friday morning.  We pick up my friend Keith in Brainerd on the way to Red and hopefully will be set up and fishing by 4:00 in the afternoon.  With a little luck we can catch supper and head into JR's.  Our plan is to spend 2 nights leaving Sunday morning while leaving the wheel house at JR's till the end of January.  It will be great to both get out fishing and to see everyone again!  I hope you enjoyed the post.

Missing Deer Hunting

Ben's first Buck!

Well my situation last week definitely has put a damper on the usual outdoor activities which occur this time of year, namely deer hunting.  Although I have been deer hunting since I was 16, the only time I have missed is when I first moved to Minnesota and really didn't have anything established for the first couple of years.  In 1978 I had already met my good friend Mark Taylor and along with his brother-in-law Tim guzek, and brother Jack, we teamed up with a guy from my work who was from Roseau, MN (10 miles south of the Canadian Border) and began to hunt Minnesota.  Things have changed over the years and Mark doesn't hunt anymore however up to this point I have continued to hunt with Jack and his son Ben, up near their cabin west of Onamia, MN.  We have hunted our old friend Rich Allen's land however it's been getting wetter and wetter over the years as Rich's nephew Brett is now in charge.  Luckily one of Jack's neighbors at the lake has 40 acres southwest of the area, it's driveable and although can be wet, is still more comfortable to hunt.  In the last few years it really hasn't been important to harvest a deer as much as it is to participate in the deer hunting comradery.  Well the one year that circumstances made it impossible for me to hunt, Jack's son Ben shot his first buck.  I would have loved to been there to see his reaction, although I am sure you can tell by that big smile on his face that he was pretty happy.  I look back at my deer hunting experiences and I was probably 23 or 24 before I shot my first deer, here Ben is 14 years old and  has already shot a nice deer, good for him. Ben and Jack are going back up this weekend and are hoping to get back into the high ground on the other side of Rich's swamp, good luck to them.  With a little luck the next few days are supposed to have low temperatures near 10 degrees, enough to possibly create a layer of ice over the swamp and allow an easier access to the stands in the back.  I  guess time will tell!  Good luck and I suspect I'll have to wait till next year to try my luck again.

Freshly frozen salmon fillets!

Tuesday was a great day at work as one of my dearest friends stopped by with a little present for me, a bag of freshly frozen salmon fillets from Alaska.  Keith Holtan and his wife Jane are back in Minnesota for the winter and they came down to the Minneapolis area to meet with someone, as long as they were here they were kind enough to drop off some beautiful Sockeye Salmon fillets as well a couple of smoked salmon chunks that are absolutely delicious!  Keith is a guide on the Kenai and spends the winters in the Brainerd area.  He often comes up to Upper Red Lake, at JR's with me for the early ice walleye fishing.  As well he has a client, Gary Blinn, whom I wrote about on my June 27th post from this year after we met at Lac Seul Outposts this year.  Keith is a really good guy and I would highly recommend him if you want to fish the famous Kenai River in Alaska for salmon.  I also really appreciate his friendship as shown by the fish gift, and I am sure that soon I will be posting of our adventures on the ice.  It is interesting and I am sure I have discussed this before, years ago I talked Keith into buying a chamber vacuum packaging machine for his clients.  It has turned out to be such a popular service that he is now talking about buying a large, double sized unit to do two at a time.  Nothing like taking it to the nth degree!  Either way it's a nice thing for his clients as I understand the process to get your fish vacuum packed and frozen while in Alaska.  I am looking at the weather forecast for Waskish, MN which is on the east shore of Upper Red Lake.  For the next 10 days the daytime temperature will be in the mid 20's and the overnight temperatures will be in that 10 degree range, hopefully enough to start making some substantial ice.  A couple of years ago we were able to drive out on Red Lake on the friday after Thanksgiving.  Hopefully this could be a repeat year for early ice as the Salem is pretty much ready to go!  The next couple weeks will tell the story for sure.  I almost have everything done with the boat for it's long winter's nap.  Interesting but this cold weather, rain, an my extraordinary last weekend put a damper on using the new vacuum system on my lawn tractor.  It will come in handy next spring however.  The next thing on the list is to get a snowblower attachment installed before the real snow comes!  The forecast looks as though it might be pretty soon!

Back From Lac Seul, Part 2.

Nice 24 inch Canadian Walleye

Because our trips to Lac Seul usually run 3 days then upon return it's usually a weekend to get caught up, and there is usually a lot of things to post about, I tend to take advantage and stretch it into 2 weeks.  It is interesting, before going to Lac Seul I would have at least 4 trips to Mille Lacs by now yet I am still waiting for the opportunity to get there as the reports are the bite has been short of phenomenal, maybe next weekend as there is a family get together this weekend that will put a damper on my ambitions to get to Mille Lacs.  So I did catch some fish the previous weekend.  As stated last week, the numbers were not there yet I was still impressed by the numbers of larger fish over 22 inches, clearly over 50% of our walleye's caught, including the one pictured here!  Usually we stop at the Ojibwa Baits in Sioux lookout and I buy 3 or 4 dozen large minnows specifically for these big fish.  Not that the minnows in camp are sub-par, but it's nice to have a few larger minnows to attract the larger fish.  The group ended up fishing Wapesi again on the second day as Bruce decided to do a shore lunch for our 10 year old guest, Alex.  Shore lunch is always a group event, I clean the fish, a fire needs to be built, potatoes and beans are cooked first before the old cast iron frying pan is filled with oil and put directly on the fire. We found a nice sandy area where I could park my boat without worry of scratching the bottom on the rocks.  While cleaning the walleyes I noticed a leech had attached to a sore on my foot and was having its own "shore lunch"  Leeches, especially the blood sucking kind, are opportunists and with a sore, blood vessels are just a bit away as they somehow have an analgesic effect where one doesn't feel them bite then secondly they inject and anticoagulant so as to keep the blood flowing as they feed.  I didn't take a picture unfortunately, but it did remind me of my late brother Jon, who had a tissue transplant on his face due to the horrible disease he suffered with.  In the hospital the doctors

Bruce Cooking Shore Lunch

would put on special blood sucking leeches that were bred specifically for this function.  The nurse came in and using sugar water set a leech on his cheek to entice them to bite.  Once attached to his skin, they would inject the anticoagulant into his tissue and start sucking blood.  The would literally gorge themselves and become 6 or 8 times their original size.  What this did was promote the proper blood flow into his transplanted tissue as they did this a number of times during the day.  It worked and Jon was able to have some sense of a new cheek.  When I removed the leech from my foot the sore bled for a good 10 minutes before it stopped.  I guess we all have to eat!  Well, Bruce's shore lunch was delicious as always and both Alex and his dad had a great experience.  It took about an hour before we cleaned up our mess, put everything in the "Shore lunch" box, then made triple sure the fire was put out before heading back to fish.  It was kind of nice as everyone was quite full wen getting back to the cabin so no one had to make supper that night!

Two Handsome Guys!

One of my favorite things is to meet people, especially those who have something in common with myself or a situation.  My good friend Keith Holtan, Alaskan Guide, has cabins on the Kenai River near Soldotna, and every time we tried to rent from him in August, he was already booked with a man from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gary Blinn.  This happened for a couple of trips then one year Gary took Keith to Lac Seul Outposts with him and his crew, as Keith had worked out the time to fish with him.  Well, Keith informed me that Gary would be in Camp the same days that I would be so it turned into a goal, to go and introduce myself to Gary.  Talking to Ken, the owner of Lac Seul Outpost, and asking him which cabin Gary was in, he said Cabin 6.  And oh by the way, Gary is a great guy, you'll like him.  Well those words echoed Keith's same thoughts so I knocked on the door and introduced myself.  It was a great first meeting as I started by giving him crap for renting Keith's place when we were there! Actually not a big deal as we shared some home made core hush puppies he had made, absolutely fabulous.  Not wanting to over play my self invite, we talked about things we had in common and I promised I'd return on Tuesday night with a bottle of good Red wine and a steak that I cook every trip.  Of course I kept that promise, he enjoyed the steak and wine, and it fulfilled a desire to meet this famous man that graces a number of people I know.  We had a great time and his guest were also pretty interesting, all in the medical fields in or near Chattanooga.  One actually was very good at playing the guitar and sung pretty well.  I challenged Gary to bring himself and some of his friends to experience ice fishing this winter at JR's on Red Lake.  We'll get some houses and stay on the ice, these southern boys will be in for an experience of a lifetime, at least for them!  It is an even year on the Kenai and Gary will be at Keith's again so I told him to add to the pressure, they can fly into MSP, I'll pick them up and away we go north, first to Brainerd to pick up Keith then on to JR's, I know they would have a blast!

As stated, I have to get to Mille Lacs soon before the bite slows down.  Next week is the 4th of July and for years I fished with my good friend Tom Emmons and Tom McAtee on this day.  It's a great time to remember him.  The 4th is on a Wednesday and the plan is to go to Eau Claire and have a catfish fry, sounds good to me!

Ice Fishing at last!

My First Walleye of the Season

This weekend was my official start to the ice fishing season.  Red Lake is located  5 hours north of my home and as stated the last couple of weeks, we were finally waiting for the ice thickness to develop enough to allow vehicles and wheel houses on the ice.  Last Thursday the resorts deemed it safe enough to drive 1/2 ton pickups with single axle wheel houses, the perfect description of my rig.  My friend Mark Applen had left on Tuesday afternoon with Russ being a day behind him, both pulled their rigs out on Thursday and had our location pretty well set before I got up there.  In my house were my 2 good friends, Kevin Aiona from Eleva and Keith Holtan, my Alaskan Guide friend who spends his winters in Brainerd.  It was great to see both of them and even better to have them in my house for a few days.  Kevin Drove up from Eleva Friday morning while I finished packing and hooking up the fish house.  With the new pickup and 10 months behind me in exactly what it was that is needed to make sure the house sits correctly on the hitch, my initial assumptions did not work out well as I assumed from the measurements that the new truck sat 2 inches higher at the hitch than my old on did.  Upon hooking up the house it was apparent that it wasn't the case and it took some scrambling to get the proper fit, luckily I had earlier ordered a different receiver hitch that is quite adjustable and once that was changed out, it was easy to get it right.  Kevin showed up and we were on our way to Lundeen's to get the "now needed" State of Minnesota ice shelter license.  A couple of dozen minnows packed in oxygen and we were off to pick up Keith in Brainerd.  Arriving at JR's around 2:30, Russ just happened to be in the bar and they had finished eating a walleye lunch. Checking the propane in the house, one of the 30 pounders looked like it needed to be filled so we got that taken care of and we followed Russ to our destination on the lake.  Mark had his fish already so he came by to help set up.  Setting up includes unhooking the house from the truck, drilling the holes through the ice, with the electric jacks by the wheels lift the weight off the tires and pull the pins that secure the main springs to the shackles, retract the shafts to set the house on the ice.  I have curtains that go over the wheel wells, snow has to be packed along the edge to keep out the wind.  Furnace is on, generator needs to have the extended run auxiliary tank connected, hooked up and started.

My Friend Kevin with a nice fish.

DirecTV antenna needs to be plugged in and hooked up as well the receiver needs to be installed inside.  The last thing to be done is setting up my flagpole so we can display the Stars and Stripes, the Green Bay Packer flag, as well there is a strobing light that only operates when it's dark, which helps us relocate the house after dark. All of this takes about an hour, even with 2 people extra, but when you are finally ready, it's wonderful to sit down in a warm house, mix a congratulatory cocktail and get down to the business of catching fish!  And catch we did, enough to provide a walleye dinner a few hours later at JR's.  The regulations this year on Red Lake ar 4 fish total with only 1 allowed over 17 inches.  The fish were absolutely beautiful with most of them being in the 15 to 17 inch range, as well we had a number of them in the 17 to 19 inch range.  Nothing huge but definitely a lot of nice fish and great eating size.  Friday night was an absolute zoo in the house as the rattle wheels we set just kept going off every 45 minutes or so.  I could hear Keith get up to tend to the job of catching these fish and catch he did.  Waking  up on Saturday morning there  was7 in the pail and as I stated, some real nice fish.  Seeings how these guys were my guests I felt obligated to make sure they caught the fish while I stayed comfortably in my sleeping bag, just proving what a good friend I really am, guys like me are hard to find!!!

JR's Airplane

The fishing slowed down a little on Saturday however we did manage to catch our allotted 12 fish for the day and took 6 of them in to clean and eat.  JR's does a great job as he has a nice cleaning area, you simply filet your walleyes and bring them into the bar where they take them and deep fry along with some French Fries, all for $5.00 each, a bargain.  The people at JR's including JR himself and his son Adam along with everyone else really do a spectacular job.  Heck, they even let me bring in my own corn based fish coating as I am allergic to wheat, and make sure that I get the right fish back.  As well, on Saturday morning my friend Andy Achmann called to see how we were doing.........apparently better than they were.  Asking if I minded if he moved by us....No problem, just stay 100 feet away from everybody.  Andy showed up and joined our little "camp" out on the ice.  The first thing Andy told me was he felt the ice was thicker where we were than his previous spot.  We absolutely had zero issues with the ice thickness, in fact the buoyancy of the ice sheet was excellent as sometimes the weight of the house and truck will cause the ice to bow, causing water to sit on the ice.  At the end of the weekend we each ate 2 meals of walleyes, took home our limit of 4, and probably caught and released 20 more fish.  Personally it wasn't my best trip as I did not catch a fish until Saturday night but it was still a blast being with my friends.  It is always good to see JR as he was flying around the lake to get a handle on the conditions.  Luckily he landed just as we got there and had a chance to talk to him.

Monday and Tuesday was spent in Chicago on business.  Always one to mix business with pleasure, we were able to get to the Bass Pro Shop in Gurnee, Illinois.  Although we have Cabela's there are some things I like about Bass Pro.  It's a pretty large store and has a lot of fishing stuff.  I simply love their Redhead crew socks and buy many pair the same type, it's easier to match them then.  They had a pretty good deal on a 1/4 zip pull over and when I held it up the XL seemed too large and the large seemed just right,  Not the case.  I called them and because Bass Pro bought Cabela's, I can take the pullover back to Cabela's for a refund....interesting.  I did get a couple of little single LED lights like Keith had for charging his glo baits, maybe that's why he caught more walleyes than me!  The next trip looks like it will be after Christmas, unfortunately the cold weather is supposed to arrive at the same time with -12 predicted for the high on Tuesday and -22 for the low.  Uffda is all I can say, other than it will be making ice for sure!!

Red Lake, Here we come

JR's on Red Lake

After much anticipation and juggling of guest, Friday my friends Kevin Aiona and Keith Holtan will be joining me for the first excursion of the year to JR's and Red Lake.  Mark Applen drove his house up on Tuesday night and called with a report last night, the bite was fabulous, he had fished in one of JR's Rentals and did pretty well.  As well here is JR's fishing report from this Wednesday : 12-13-17. Well that time of year is here that we have all been waiting for.... 1/2 ton trucks and single axle houses are good to go

starting tomorrow Thursday. We have some of our sleeper houses still available for this weekend, Friday and Saturday. Please call to book one now as the bite is very strong. As for the ice conditions we are at 12 to 15 inches of ice In the areas we are allowing the traffic, but we are still asking you to use caution and be careful. The trucks will be limited to west to the rockpile and North to 14 feet of water, this depth seems to be very key right now to get on the hot bite.    Mark is going to put his wheel house out on the ice today, as well our mutual friend Russ Praught was heading up this morning and will join Mark out on the ice.                 

2018 GMC 1/2 ton truck.

Last week I indicated that I had been negotiating on a new pickup truck.  Well on Friday I took delivery of a 2018 GMC 1/2 ton Sierra XLT with a heavy duty towing package.  I still need to get a few things put on like the tonneau cover but after only a few days I can see how much nicer this is as it has a 6.2 engine which is bigger than the 5.3 I have had in my other trucks.  The side mirrors are great, they pull out to extend, which will be nice for towing my wheel house.  The mirrors also have a great LED lighting system for backing up as well as they are 2 section and the bottom mirror really gives you visibility along side the truck. The rear has heavy duty springs which are nice but required me to reset all of my reciever hitches as the heights are all hosed up for each of my trailers, especially the Salem Ice Cabin.  It required a 4 inch rise on the hitch but now the receiver is 2 inches higher so it needed to be lowered by 2 inches.  I am sure I will need to redo the one I use for the boat but admittedly this isn't much of a problem.  Another thing I like is the fact that when I have the cell phone bluetoothed to the audio system, when a text message comes in
there is an option to listen to it, which is nice.  The dealer is scrambling to get the tonneau cover on today and stated it might take till tomorrow so we need to give you a rental car.  I told her as long as the rental is a 1/2 or 3/4 ton truck so I can pull my wheel house to Red on Friday morning, trust me, if I go through the ice I'd rather it be your vehicle then mine!  They did not find it very funny and said they would have mine done today!

TX Bourdon

For Christmas my good friend Matt Davis from Texas sent me a bottle of TX Bourbon.  This stuff is super popular and must be really good as the first batch that the distillery released sold out in less than 6 hours.  It is made in Fort Worth, TX and is only available in Texas, as is their other product, TX Blended Whiskey.  Matt tested me as to whether I liked it or not however he was informed that the official opening would only be after I caught my first walleye on Red Lake, it just seemed fitting!  Because my friend Mark Applen is a bourbon fan, I will definitely use the occasion to get his input as to the validity of this product.  Something tells me it's going to be pretty smooth! Besides this, I have some Gluten Free Waffle mix and corn based fish breading, which the cooks at JR's accommodates me very well!  The plan is to have Kevin meet me around 8 AM tomorrow, we will stop at Lundeens to pick up my now needed ice shelter license as well as some minnows.  Head to Brainerd and pick up Kieth before beelining it for Red Lake.  My last fishing trip was in September so I am really looking forward to wetting a line!

Waiting for Ice

Special Ice Lures from JR's

The warm weather has finally left us and we have returned to much better conditions, at normal or below!  With near zero or below temperatures at Red Lake, we should be making at least and inch a day of ice an if it continues we should have enough ice to pull out the wheel houses next week, which would be nice! Last week the topic was the Ice Fishing show in St. Paul and of course one could not leave without buying a few lures to add to the collection.  My friend Keith Holtan was looking for some bubblegum colored jigs with a gold back, the best I could find were these glow Pink/red with gold glitter on the back.  Not exactly what he was looking for however they are dang close!  I have offered him these but he stated he will hold off.  That's OK, when I am slaying them on Red Lake next week with them he will definitely be rethinking his decision!  These lure are made by JR's in Brooklyn Park, MN and are featured across the Midwest.  I drive by their shop every night going home from work and have spent a lot of time talking with it's owner, Duane, regarding the current stat of the wholesale fishing business.  He is quite interesting to talk to as both of us have been to China and share our stories!

Air boat for fishing the shallow saltwater sloughs

We have our annual APEC conference in San Antonio, TX this year in March and I have got my friends fired up to maybe spend the weekend before the conference fishing down along the Texas coast near Corpus Christi.  We have done this a couple of times like last year when the conference was in Tampa, FL or a few years back when it was in Charlotte, NC and we drove to Charleston to fish for sheepshead.  I have fished in Texas a few times with my friend Joe and Matt with the first time fishing out of a high powered air boat like the one pictured here.  This matches the one we fished out of a few years ago, it has a big block GM engine with 2 counter-rotating 8 bladed propellers.  Sitting on the top seat, high up off the water is quite the thrill for sure as being from Minnesota this is an absolute blast and I'll be the first to sign up.  Looks like we can round up three or four guys, at minimum my friends Matt and Joe, staying at a nice resort along the inter-coastal and fish for red fish, black drum, sea trout and flounder.  My assumption is that the resort will cook our fish and there is nothing better than fresh red fish or sea trout with a nice glass of TX Whiskey to wash it down.  I should have more information by next week, it will depend on how many guys we can get lined up.  I might even get the opportunity to bring home some fish.

Brandon's Walleye's

My neighbor Brandon Larson stopped by the house on Thursday night with his newer 2017 GMC 1 ton diesel pickup truck. I am looking at something somewhat similar so we took a ride as he explained he was heading to Red Lake in the morning with a friend.  I asked him to text me a report, which I received a few hours ago.  They have about 12 inches of ice for about a mile out and they pulled their wheelhouse out with an ATV.  Brandon claims that this afternoon they nailed 7 keeper walleyes, most on the rattle reels.  It matches a lot of reports that I have seen today and I am looking forward to talking to him on Monday when he returns.  He is out of Greater Minnesota Rentals which is a few miles East of JR's, our preferred outpost, on the south shore.  I am sure that the ice is better there than by JR's.  As I stated, I have been negotiating on a different pickup truck and should have most of it done by next week.   

Busy week

Leech Lake Opener with Jon

Well, we got my brother taken care of last weekend however it came with some family drama as often these things do.  It still did not take away from the celebration of his life and the fun we had together the last few years taking him to our annual Team Walleye Leech Lake Minnesota Fishing Opener.  At the funeral there were a lot of pictures of Jon holding up walleyes that he had caught on Leech including this one with his beloved mentor and guide!  Jon loved going up with the guys where he was simply accepted as one of the guys, which meant a lot to him. Jon was never much of a fisherman however I do remember taking him down to Alma on the Mississippi River backwaters and after a day of basically catching nothing we hit a weed bed that was loaded with northern pike and just hammered them.  Jon was looking forward to this year's trip but I sense some doubts that he was going to make it as his condition had turned terminal a couple of years back.  We all know what that mean but we never anticipate the end date.  Oh well, at least we have some great memories of him at Leech and it is very satisfying to know that he appreciated us taking him with.  Unfortunately this leaves a hole in our group for the 2017 opener but my friend Kevin will probably come with us, that would be a great replacement!  Either way I will miss my brother coming up, we are all getting too old and one has to really cherish the time spent together, one never knows when that that will be the last time.

Keith's perch checking him out!

Because of the funeral and the Green Bay Packer game on Sunday, it put a damper on ice fishing, probably for the next week or so.  My wheel house is parked at JR's yet and I do plan on getting up there soon as I can as all reports point to the fishing has been picking up.  I know that the fishing on Mille Lacs has been on fire with reports of 30 to 40 walleye days however the limit is tight, you can only keep one between 19 and 21 inches.   This is not the main reason I haven't fished Mille Lacs this year as I do enjoy fishing Red Lake in my wheel house and if you get a couple of fish under 17, JR will cook them up for you, something I really enjoy.  My friend Mark Applen is usually who I go with however he has been traveling lately and is in Nashville this weekend for work.  My friend Keith Holtan has been doing a lot of fishing on his lake in Brainerd, and the water is pretty clear.  He sent me this underwater camera shot of a perch looking straight into the lens, as he caught a number of nice ones over 12 inches.  Boy, it's been a long time since I've caught a nice perch and maybe I can get together with Keith sometime and hoist a few!
                       

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow..............

New blanket of the White Stuff this morning

Oh the weather outside's delightful, or so it goes!  Winter arrived in full fashion this week with about 2 inches last week and now another 3 inches before Thanksgiving.  I barely got my potatoes dug before the cold came but I am pretty well set.  The only thing I have to do in the next week is get the mower deck off of my lawn tractor and mount the snowblower attachment and put the cab on, which is no easy task. Unfortunately last year at this time I suffered a stroke while working on these things, admittedly I'm not very motivated to get these things done however life goes on and it's not going to get any warmer, fortunately!  This weather means that the ice should be forming on the lakes and my friend Keith Holtan sent me a picture from the Brainerd MN, newspaper of a guy out on the ice............UFFDA!
I am anxious for ice fishing to start but not that anxious! With the cold weather scheduled for next week, maybe with a little luck we will be able to make it out on Red pretty soon.  I have checked the webcams around Mille Lacs Lake and there is no ice that has formed yet but I suppose this is not surprising as it was 60 out a week ago.   The Accuweather forecast shows that after December 1st the bottom falls out of the low temperatures and maybe December 17th is the more practical date Mark Applen and I can pull up our Salem Ice Cabins for a fishing weekend.  We are anxious to get up and see what JR did to the place as he called me in October to tell us he's remodeled the bar somewhat.  I have check some of the webcams from up north and the big body of waters are still wide open however some of the smaller lakes appear to have froze over.  Either way it will be what is is as going through the ice is not a desirable situation.  Last year we pulled our wheel houses up but had to fish our portables as one could only walk out on the ice.  I suppose it was good exercise!

Heather's nice 8 pointer

Deer hunting is in full swing back home in Eleva, Wisconsin.  My friend Kevin Aiona sent me a picture of his daughter-in-law, Heather, who bagged a beautiful 8 point buck on opening day.  It's nice to see someone get a nice deer, lord knows I never have and probably never will these days!  I still like to deer hunt and it would be nice to get a trophy before I leave this earth however, the chances are getting less as I am less inclined to chase them any more.  It is still fun to see others bag some nice deer. My cousin Greg Nelson's son-in-law is Joe Thomas, a famous Offensive Left Tackle for the Cleveland Browns. Greg is deer hunting his land down in Southeastern Wisconsin and on his land, Joe doe not allow anyone to shoot anything smaller than a 10 pointer, wow, that's a big deer.  Greg claims they really take some nice deer off that land but one could understand why!  Anyway, here's a shout to Heather, nice deer!  I getting ready for Thanksgiving and we are not sure where we will end up these days.  With everything sort of goofed up, mom's not doing too well, the weather is supposed to be ugly, it might just be that we stay close to home this year.  With all the things I have to do yet, it might be the best thing for getting caught up. At least the pins that one has to remove to drop my wheel house to the ice are loose and I am ready to pull it up.  The inside needs a good cleaning as well but for the most part she's ready to go.  One other thing that should be done is to hook up my satellite DirecTV antenna just to make sure it works.  A few weeks ago I did put in a new battery and the furnace has been run, so that's good.

Next week is our annual Fall TTA (The Transformer Association) meeting in Naples, Florida.  I was on the board of directors, including serving as it's President for 2 years.  In that time, instead of giving a feel god speech I started telling Ole and Lena jokes, something to highlight my Wisconsin up bringing.  Well it's been pretty successful and even though I am no longer on the board, the group expects a few Norwegian jokes to be told like this one:  Ole went into the Lumber yard to get some boards.  Sven was working so Ole looked at him and said " I need to buy some boards there, Sven"  "How long do you want'em Ole?"  "Vell Sven, a long time, see I'm building a house ya know!"
Happy Thanksgiving!!