Merry Christmas

A Tree Full of Goodies

It just seems like a few days ago when we were in Naples fishing but I have been back to reality for 3 weeks now!  Christmas as well as this goofy weather has put a damper on ice fishing this start of the season.  With Christmas on Wednesday, it seems to break up the typical schedules as last Saturday I spent time with my family so that weekend was shot, and the weekend after Christmas was supposedly to be with my wife's family but now it's changed to New Years Day so there is some time to sneak up to Red on Thursday and try my luck.  This year I have been inundated with requests to join me as my usual first trip includes my brother Steve and friend Keith Holtan, however things are getting crunched and with little time to plan it looks like a full house this weekend.   My brother Steve lives in Onalaska, Wisconsin and the Gander Mountain store is closing there.  Like a good brother should he called me with some of the deals (up to 80% off) so I had him pick up a few rods, and he said there was a ton of the Northland Tackle Long Shanked Fireball Jigs there as few people use the Canadian style of baiting the jig with a minnow, and at $1.00 for 4, that is $3.00 cheaper than the usual $3.99 for 4.......pick up as many as you can!!!  Well, on Saturday he brought them with along with a few other nice lures hung nicely on a  small Christmas Tree, it was pretty nice.  There must be at least 20 packages of jigs, some traditional hair jigs and a few perfect sized crankbaits for trolling walleyes on Leech Lake this opener.  My plan is to take this to Lac Seul this year and sell the jig packs for $5.00 each and there are plenty of Gold plated ones which seem to be a favorite in Canada.  I am also now determined to try the white hair jig on the top and get a walleye as these were the preferred jig pattern 50 years ago, I know as I used to tie our own for the walleyes in Catfish Slough up from Alma on the Mississippi River.  Actually I caught a keeper grouper on a white haired jig in Naples so I am excited to try it.  The early Christmas was the first time my family got together since my mother died in 2017, it was nice to get together as none of us are getting any younger.

Jerry and 2 nice walleyes from Mille Lacs

So it's exciting to finally get the wheel house out on the ice as Red Lake is reporting a good 17 - 18 inches of ice extending out at least 10 miles from the landing.  Mille Lacs has been in quite a predicament this year regarding ice.  Yes, we did get a nice below zero cold snap right after deer hunting which normally puts a good layer of ice, which it did on Mille Lacs however we got 2 significant snowstorms right after the cold which dumped almost 16 inches in the area.  That much weight on the ice causes the water to seep up through the cracks and flooding the top of the ice, which combined with the snow makes slush.  Also the snow insulates the ice from the freezing temperatures and further delays the ice forming.  Along with the warm weather we have experience in the last week, there is a lot of variance in the thickness of the ice on Mille Lacs from 2 inches to 8 inches, but it's hard to tell how thick the ice is over the layer of snow so venture at your own risk.  On Monday night we had 2 great things happen, first it was Jerry Kiffmeyer's annual Christmas fish fry.  Jerry fished with me in my boat last September at Lac Seul.  He is a great guy and happened to be in Naples fishing the weekend before I was there.  His fish fry included most of the fish he brought back, snapper and grouper.  I am allergic to wheat and need a corned based fish coating but by the time I got there all the fish had been breaded already........but wait, here came Jerry with some grouper fillets, perfect as they coated them first with my stuff and fried them up.  Absolutely delicious.  Jerry showed me his catch on Mille Lacs a couple of days ago when they dragged out their light weight shack with the snowmobiles, pretty nice.  It looks like a couple of keepers which have to be between 21 and 23 inches.  Jerry says that he was using my method of posing with fish as they do look bigger!  Hopefully I can post next week with a good report and some nice fish.  I am already planning for our Lake of the Woods trip for January 9th.  And by the way, the Ranger is still in the shop!  I did volunteer to work for Frankie at the Northwest Sportshow this year and he was happy as it is in the first of April, probably one of the worst times as boats are coming in and it is really busy.  It will be a fun time for sure!

Back from Toronto

Westin Harbour in Toronto

This week was our annual Spring TTA meeting and for 2016 we decided to host it in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  We have a few members from that area and thought it would be good to support our northern members.  Toronto is a big city, actually the 4th largest in North America with only Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico City being larger.  It's a very clean city and I was amazed at all the high rise building and condominiums that were around.  We got to stay right on the water front on the 21st floor of the Westin Hotel.  Although the rate was @199/night in Canadian, is US Dollars that's only about $150 an a pretty good deal for a room right in the heart of the town. It had fabulous views from the room and on the top floor (38th) was a nice bar and restaurant where we stopped and had one on the last night.  Absolutely beautiful.  I took a picture but it didn't turn out so good. Of course Toronto can be expensive, however as my friends from Canada state, you get used to it.  Apparently housing is quite high and they have a 13% Provincial sales tax on everything!  When you come back through the airport, you do go through US Customs right there so once through, the concourse is considered United States soil therefore you can simply get off your plane and head out as though you were flying from Chicago to Minneapolis.  They did have a duty free shop on the US side of the security and their Crown Royal was pretty cheap, $37 US Dollars for two one liter bottles (about half price) so I did get a couple for my friends.  In addition I got some ice wine and a bottle of perfume for my wife.  I would have bought more but I had enough to carry already!

Onions Arrived

Arriving home it was raining and I was thinking about picking some night crawlers but it was pretty cold out and I was tired.  This weekend is time to plant my onions as the ones we ordered from Texas came in.  Along with the right fertilizer it's a perfect time to plant potatoes and the onions.  I use to get the big Texas sized onions but they don't last very long after you dig them up, maybe only a few weeks.  Like last year I buy the long storage onions, they still don't seem to last very long but better than the other ones.  I use them for pickling fish, making my salsa, and just plain eating.  The Texas onions are fabulous as I have 4 varieties this year, 2 white types, a yellow, and a red type.  Along with the right fertilizer I should be set for planting as you saw last week, Ricky Shermer came over and tilled up my garden so it's ready to go.  Besides planting a few things my asparagus is starting to really sprout.  I love it as it is so good and sweet and is great on the grill.  The raspberries still need some work which hopefully I can get finished this weekend.  With 2 weeks before opener I need to mount my 3rd depthfinder in the boat.  I have a new Structure Scan 3D module however I am somewhat nervous about mounting the transducer and am still waiting for the flush mount to be shipped.  Maybe that will just have to wait.  Next week I am planning on going to my cousin Greg's place as well, reports are that Mom is going to be released from the rehab center to go back home.  She hasn't stayed there since March 6th so I am sure she's looking forward to it.  So much to do, so little time!  Looks like I might even have to mow the grass this weekend.  I did go to a fishing garage sale and found a couple of items worth buying, a Abu Garcia Zmax 2 casting reel and a couple of packages of Northland Tackle 1/8th ounce Fireball Jigs for opener.  At $1.00 for a pack of 12, it was a good deal.

Ready to Go

Northland 1/4 oz Fireball Jig

Ready or not, Leech Lake here I come!  To be honest I am not as excited as about opener as in previous years. Time seems to march so fast that what we planned back in January is almost like it was yesterday and last year's opener was like it was a month ago.  Oh well, the joys of getting old. The 2014 opener was almost like 2013 with a very late spring and the predicted bite on Leech was nothing to brag about, still we did catch fish.  This year it's totally different as the ice went out 3 weeks earlier and we have had a spell of nice warm weather, the spawn should be well over with and the fish in a hungry mood.  This should help our success tremendously.  One downside might be that with the current conditions and regulations on Lake Mille Lacs there will probably be a big crowd on Leech with the hot spots having a lot of pressure.  It's okay if most people are simply drift fishing while pulling a jig as this is pretty effective on opener.  If they decide to try and troll or God forbid, anchor (I've seen before) it can be a zoo.  On the other hand using a 1/4 ounce Northland Tackle Fireball Jig, a nice green or chartreuse color seems to work the best, paired up with a 3 inch shiner minnow and voila, a walleye smorgasbord at it's finest.  Speaking of shiner minnows, the last couple of years the supply of these morsels have been tight and in fact 2 years ago the ice wasn't even off Leech so luckily we didn't need minnows for bait.  With the early spring this year we should be in really good shape.  Team Walleye orders about 4 gallons of shiners, we used to bring fatheads but nobody really liked using them. The problem with shiners is they are more fragile than fatheads so if the boats don't take care of them, they go to waste and they are much too expensive to throw out.  It's a lecture I give every Friday night to the guys.  The other thing that the early spring will do is help the shad rap bite.  It was the winning strategy last opener as my boat pulled in 12 walleyes from 8:00 - 10:00 on Monday night to clinch highest point award for most fish caught.  The conditions will be very favorable for hitting some of those deeper spots like Grandville Flats as the bigger females tend to migrate from the shallower spawning areas after they've rested for a week or so.  Once there those big females tend to put on the feedbag and it can be very productive.  Either way, boat or no boat, I have a number of strategies that will definitely be in play this weekend.

New Fish Frying Device

Usually Saturday night at fishing camp is steak night with Sunday night marking our usual walleye feed.  Years ago I bought a special Cajun Cooker for frying all sorts of things and it tends to do a very good job.  Unfortunately it takes almost 4 gallons of cooking oil and about an hour to heat up to the correct temperature.  I does an excellent job by keeping the oil on the bottom of the cooker cool therefore the stuff that sinks doesn't burn and ruin the rest of the oil but I have to admit, it can be a pain to setup, get hot, then clean after one's done with it. This year I got an open kettle type cooker with a stainless steel frying basket.  I am sure that we will have to change out the oil a few times but in the end it will be faster and easier to clean up.  This year I bought some liquid shortening from Costco instead of soybean oil.  The word is the liquid shortening withstands heat better and will last longer than regular oil, we'll see. We started having a walleye fry at fish camp as the joy's of eating fresh walleye out weighed taking home frozen fish.  The hats need to be picked up and we'll buy the bait on the way up on Friday morning, other than that everything seems to be a go. Hopefully I'll have a good report next week of record sized walleyes and numbers just jumping in the boat.  So until Friday, I am still organizing Mark's boat, learning the best places to store stuff, deciding what to bring and what not to bring as sometimes I am worse than a woman, want to be prepared for everything.

The weather has let me get way ahead of planting the garden as the first rows of sweet corn went in Tuesday night.  This is at least 3.5 weeks ahead of last year and should get me some great eating towards the end of July into August.  The weather has been much drier than last year allowing me to really go to town, which is nice as my fishing schedule is pretty busy until the May 20th.  Heck, last year I didn't even start planting till after June 1st and everything didn't start ripening till after Labor Day.  My boat should be here in exactly 2 weeks, I sure wish it was here now but you know what they say, patience is a virtue!  Wish me luck.