Fishin' With Pete

Our launch point before it was froze

 I've started this a number of times and hopefully it get's finished.  On December 26th my neighbor Pete invited me back to his families land north of Grand Rapids, MN to catch some nice sunfish and crappies.  Meeting me at 8:00 Saturday morning, it started on the wrong foot immediately.  We hooked up the trailer and the coupler never got latched.  When driving the ATV onto the trailer, the front of the trailer came off the ball and put a little dent in Pete's new truck.  It's a stupid mistake that I've seen before.  In my mind I thought Pete locked it but apparently I wasn't seeing things right.  Either way I got a quick scolding, we hooked it back up and proceeded to load up.  Pete kept his cool pretty well as there is little one could do now.  It's sort of like getting the first scratch on the boat, not a great event but life goes on regardless.  After stopping by his house and loading up his stuff we headed north.  We were in no particular hurry and had time to stop by Bruce's place, just east of Garrison, to get our coffee cups refilled.  A quick visit and we were back on the road. Our next stop was in Grand Rapids to get groceries and go to the L & M farm store to get a battery for the inside lights for my portable shelter.  It's the first time in that store and I was really impressed as it reminded me how these types of stores used to be like.  Picking up a 12V 9 AH gel cell, I also bought a Vexilar Glow Ring for charging up my UV coated baits.  About 40 minutes north of Grand Rapids we stopped at the Frontier store to pick up bait and a few fishing items.  Arriving at the cabin, Pete's brother Tim arrived earlier and fired up the stove and had done some scouting for the fish.  After getting everything unloaded without incident, we hooked everything to my ATV and pulled our shacks out to the lake through the cattails.  It was quite slushy on our first drive through but we made it.  After stopping to see Tim, Pete decided to head up the lake further off a point, around 19 feet of water.  Pete kept talking about all the nice fish so when I caught an 8 inch bluegill and showed it to him, there was little reaction so back it went.  Although I had caught 5 fish in the few hours left, there were fish there and fishing out in the open didn't help our concentration.  The fish stopped about 30 minutes after sunset so we headed in for a nice meal of Cheeseburger Soup Tim had brought.  Tomorrow we'd hit it hard!

Nice 8 to 9 1/2 inch bluegills

Sunday morning arrived and after breakfast we headed back out.  Tim decided to fish the 23 foot water while Pete and I decided to try the point again.  After seeing what size fish Tim had kept there was a better understanding of what a nice bluegill was.  Setting up my portable that hadn't been used in about 6 years, there were a couple of things needing readjustment.  One of the screws on the bracket that held the front vertical poll support had come out.  Luckily it fell on the bare ice and was easily found and using a larger ice jig was able to make it work for the day.  The other is I mistakenly shoveled all the snow from the floor of my shack making it very slippery.  I like using the newer direct drive single action reels with 3 pound colored monofilament line on a very soft tipped 24 - 30 inch rod.  The key to catching these fish is to pay close attention to your line and the feel of the tip as the fish were biting very soft, often just inhaling the bait.  Moving the tip softly up and down would allow you to feel if a fish was there without pulling it out of their mouths, a quick set and up they come.  I ended the day with 14 nice bluegills, a small crappie and a very nice tullibee, about 18 inches long.  They are really fun to catch.  Tim had some really nice crappies in his bucket, in that 11 to 13 inch range as he was in deeper water.  Another fisherman came out to his area and did pretty good using larger baits.  I thought the glow ring really helped in that deeper water as you could see the fish come up to the bait as it drifted down.  My friend Kevin is a really good at this kind of fishing so I called him but he didn't answer.  We used to do real good in Alma using Purist's, a small panfish lure with a hard plastic attached on the hook shank.  It has a perfect sink rate, slow and inviting.  I did put one on and caught quite a bite of fish with it.  Kevin and I finally got connected and we talked about the using the Purist.  I laughed as he said you are fishing how deep!  It does take a while for those baits to get down, they can be deadly.  We cleaned about 30 fish that evening.

Monday was our last day and we decided to fish the deeper water.  Although the good news was the crappies were there, I only kept 2 sunfish as many were too small.  Still good action, it's fun watching the fish on your Vexilar and trying to get them to hit.  The same guy came out in the early afternoon and set up right next to us.  He left early and I suspect the noise didn't help our late afternoon bite.  Never the less I ended up with 2 nice sunfish and 7 beautiful crappies.  No complaints.  Although I had many offers to head to Red Lake, Winnebigoshish, and maybe Lake of the Woods.  Not having fished nice crappies and bluegills for a while it was totally enjoyable.  Enough to maybe try and fish panfish a little bit more this year.  I've fixed up the portable, got my auger running and picked up a few new lures and tuned up my gear.  It looks like we might be on Red in a week, with LOTW's definitely in the target.

Hanging with Pete

The home base on the Sipe property

 Last Wednesday Pete invited me to his family's compound east if Marcell, MN just north of Grand Rapids. Along with us was Pete's brother Tim, he reminds me of my brother, Steve.  He has talked about getting me up to the land that his dad and uncle owns, 200+ acres that border the Chippewa National Forest. It's quite the place, nothing fancy as you can see the main lodge on the land, however it is quite nice in it's own way.  Dating back to the 1940's, Pete's grandfather bought the land and today it is in the hands of Pete's dad and Uncle.  The land is basically in the middle of nowhere as one hears nothing but the wind at night, quite peaceful.  It's quite a hike off the main roads as one travels dirt forest roads to their land.  The landscape is full of huge old growth Red and White  Pines that stand tall and are impressive.  As well the area has been slowly logged off so it's an interesting mix of these large pines, quite a bit of Poplar Trees with a smattering of birch and oak trees.  Pete tells the story of his uncle that in the past would bring acorns with him and he would drop them in the woods as he walked, stepping them into the ground as he went along.  You can see the results all around as the woods have a lot of smaller oak trees growing.  The cabin in the picture is a single room building with a metal roof, old style shingle siding, with 4 bunks inside, a propane range for cooking, a barrel stove for heat, and and old style sand point through the floor with a hand pump by a sink that needed to have the plugs reinstalled and the pump primed.  Because the water used in the sink is pretty clean, the sink's drain empties on the ground outside the cabin.  There is electricity available for lighting and in both Pete and my case powering our Cpap machines.  No television, it was nice.  A simple picnic table served as our main seating area for eating and relaxing.  As you see there was a small amount of snow in the area with ice forming along the lake shore.  Pete and Tim gave me the grand tour of the surrounding lakes, forest roads and points of interest.  Along with the tour was commentary on the CCC projects in the area, the WW2 German Prisoner of war camps where German prisoners were transported back to camps in the US to work in the mines, cutting wood in the forests, or working the farms.  Many of these prisoners ended up staying in the US after the war.   

View from the shoreline.

One thing I found unique was the entire lake called Heinen Lake was completely within the property.  Although not a big lake it is fed by a river that runs through a number of lakes on it's way to join the Big Fork River in the city of Bigfork.  Apparently the lake's outlet seldom freezes over the winter so they leave their docks in.  Between the lakes one experiences a lot of beaver activity which constantly changes to water levels as the lake was quite high for this time of year. Claiming there is a nice 20+ hole in the lake, the fish seem to be hard to find in the winter.  There is another lake that borders the property that is better for fish in the winter and I am looking forward to possible trying my luck sometime this winter, maybe later in February or March. Because the forest roads are not plowed in the winter, generally the mode of transportation into the land is via a snowmobile.  Hopefully I will have my sled running by then and get the chance to chase those nice crappies Pete and Tim were talking about.  We did end up putting a ladder stand together for Pete then selecting a nice tree in a stategic location.  There seemed to be quite a few deer around however a few deer can make a lot of tracks.  Tim had a trail cam by his stand and we brought it back to camp to look at what has been walking by.  A couple of does, a fox, and a very nice 8 point buck staring right into the camera.  Pete claims that over the years one usually finds the area is dominated by one nice buck and usually a smaller spike buck and a few does.  There used to be a wolf pack on the property however both state that it is not a factor.  There is only a few doe permits allowed so it's mostly buck hunting.  I guess we will see what next week brings.

As far as my hunting, Jack, Ben, and I will be hunting our old stands on Rich's old property owned by Brett.  We haven't hunted the area in the last few years because it's been so wet however this year Brett had a couple of guys clearing out the drainage ditch that runs through the center of the property.  Apparently this had significantly drained the water, enough that one can walk or take an ATV and not get wet or stuck.  This well be nice as it make it easier to get to our stands.  Unfortunately I need to leave on Saturday night to attend a family event in Wisconsin, but that's okay, Jack and I can hunt all next week as he is also retired.  The weather has been nice with highs in the mid 60's helping to allow getting done at the last minute.  I should be able to get all those things that the early snowfall a couple of weeks ago stopped progress.  

Try Mille Lacs One More Time

Bruce's First Deep Water Walleye

With the official policy preventing US citizens from entering Canada extended to September 21st, this all but killed any notion of making it up to Lac Seul Outpost this year, as well everyone is got something going on this summer. Bruce, Pete and I decided to try and repeat the performance from the week before on Mille Lacs and do some deep water trolling.  I know these guys have never tried this so it would be a good experience for them.  Deciding last Friday would be a good time, we hooked the boat up and met Bruce at the public landing just north of the Casino.  The weather had been stable all week with Friday being no exception.Calm conditions were nice but it was pretty hot with temperatures in the low 90's.  With 2 goals in mind, 1 was to catch fish and the other was to show Bruce some of the screen shots of fish on the depth finder as they are easily detectable in the waters deeper than 20 feet.  The strategy would be the same as last week, one planar board out with a Reef Runner while putting 2 lead core rods out each side of the back pulling #5 Shad Raps.  The nice thing about the lead core setups is it's easy to change out baits and try to establish a pattern faster.  On the way back last week we drove over both 9 Mile and 7 Mile flats and they had a lot of fish around them so it was decided to start there.  Doing a complete circle around 7 Mile produced nothing so we made a beeline and trolled across to 9 Mile Flat.  Although we marked a lot of fish, as my buddy Kevin would say....."You can't make mark soup!".  Circling 9 mile produced nothing so we headed back to 8 mile where we got 7 the week before.  As stated before, 8 Mile Flat is a H shaped flat and is the longest mid-lake structure on Mille Lacs.  It is nice trolling the outside edges as it is fairly straight north and south, with the long stretches, one can easily control the trolling direction and speed.  As around 7 and 9 mile flat we were marking a lot of fish.  Unfortunately nothing was hitting.  Probably close to 3 miles long with a couple of smaller flats off of the northwest tip, it took about 1 1/2 hours to troll the west side.  Unlike last week we arrived at the end of the flat with nothing to show.  Deciding to change colors on my lead core, I let out the 4 colors of line and continued trolling.   As we turned east it was decided to weave in between the smaller flats on our way to the northeast corner.   All of a sudden the starboard side lead core rod starts to bounce.  Grabbing the rod and giving it to Bruce, I slowed the boat down to give us some better control.  First fish in the boat, about a 23 inch walleye.  Well, at least we weren't skunked! Thinking we should change Pete's Shad Rap to a different color we set the lines and started to troll again.  Last week the hot Shad color was a Chartreuse back and a white bottom but it did nothing this trip.  The Hot Steel pattern was the winner as it does have a silver back and chartreuse bottom, go figure!  As stated before, the nice thing about the lead core is changing lures is quite easy.

Not going too far when the rod started bouncing again. Although not a huge fish, maybe 19 inches, it

The first double of the day.

was a fish never the less!  Again this was on the #5 Shad Rap.  We got the lines set again and started trolling as Pete indicated we were due for a double.  Once again the starboard line started bouncing, as I handed Bruce the rod, Pete reeled his in like always to prevent any tangles.  All of a sudden Pete announces he has a fish on as well.  Suspecting the fish hit the bait as he started to reel, we definitely got our first double!  Pete's fish wasn't very big, about 15 inches but it was nice to see some smaller year classes being caught.  In the meantime Bruce had another one about 22 inches.  With the hot temperatures we try to get the fish back in the water with minimal handling and every fish swam away healthy however Bruce's fish stayed on the surface.  Rather than just leaving it we turned around to see if we could revive it somewhat.  Approaching the fish and attempting to net it, the minute the net touched the walleye it slapped it's tail and disappeared.  We ended up with 1 more walleye for a total of 5 fish boated.  A couple of thoughts, first they say never leave biting fish.  Hindsight is 20/20 and we should have never left the north end to continue down the east side of 8 Mile.  Catching all of our fish weaving between those smaller flats should have been a clue.  Secondly unlike the week before, we never caught a fish on the planar board, whereas last week 4 of the 7 were on the planar board.  I did switch out baits to match more closely to the colors of the Shad Raps we were having success on but it just wasn't in the cards that day.

We ended up back at Bruce's cabin before having dinner at the Lonesome Pine on Bay Lake.  The prime rib was superb!  After dinner we ended up at Jerry Kiffmeyer's place and I will not elaborate how that went!  Breakfast at Ricky Shermer's before heading home, 7 hours in the hot sun, a big meal and maybe too many refreshments made for a full 2 days.  Oh well, I'd do it again.  With the water temperatures dropping and myself getting better at boat control I  might just do some sunset trolling this fall on the reefs.  I used to do this all the time before the restrictions set in on Mille Lacs.  It's also a great time for smallies on the river as I have not done very well this year, maybe hit the river this week end.  I have still not mastered this new Blogger and may have to change my format to make it easier, driving me crazy!

Lac Seul Opener, part 2.

30 inch Walleye

Admittedly it was hard having to wait a full week before the highlight of our trip to Lac Seul for the 2018 walleye fishing opener was written about but here goes!  On most walleye fisherman's bucket list is to accomplish the holy grail of fishing walleyes, a 30 incher!  Now admittedly if one lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Port Clinton, Ohio, or on the Columbia River in Washington State, this may not be such a revered goal, however for us guys stuck in the bowels of Minnesota, a 30 incher is a fish of a lifetime.  Walleye fishing for over 40 years now in Minnesota, the closest fish that I have ever come was a 28.5 inch walleye caught a in the late 1980's on Mille Lacs.  Two years ago in June, Bruce's father-in-law landed a 30 incher in my boat fishing Tuk Bay, that was a nice fish, but it wasn't on my line.  This year with Pete, RJ, and myself in the boat we were fishing on Monday, May 21st, our last day of fishing for this trip.  The fish were really on the bite and on that last day our total fish count for the day, not including northern pike, was 158 walleyes caught.  The total time fished was 7 hours and if you do the quick math it comes to a walleye caught every 2.65 minutes, all day including running time in the boat!  We were on the point just north of camp and the walleyes were stacked in the 10 - 11 foot range.  We typically use what I call the Canadian method of impaling our minnow on the jig, simply run the hood through the mouth and out the gills then rotate the hook around and stick the point through the top of the minnow, just behind the head.  The fish are so aggressive that if you simply hook the minnow through the lips, you will end up losing many fish and wasting minnows.  With the Canadian method, one can often catch 2 or 3 fish on one minnow before it needs to be replaces.  Well, I had caught a number  of fish on a minnow when it finally was about to separate into two parts, the head still on the hook, then the body.  Simply discarding the head, the remaining body was threaded on my jig, basically just a piece of meat on the hook.  Dropping it beside the boat, it hit the bottom, reeling in the slack and bam, a nice fish hit the jig.  Setting the hook revealed that there was something substantial at the end of the line.  A few head

Right on the 30 Inch Line!

shakes later Pete was summoned, get the net, this one is a dandy!  One often doesn't get a real idea until the fish is visible next to the boat, UFFDA, this was the largest walleye ever to grace the end of my line.  Carefully instructing Pete....Head first, Head first, he slipped the net under the fish and hauled her in.  She was hooked solid, so we removed the hook, took a few pictures and measured her.  Exactly on the 30 inch line with the tail squished together, that was good enough for me and we let her go.  She swam right away and I believe that she was in pretty good shape.  Her estimated weight was around 10 - 11 pounds and of course she was recently spawned out to a month from now she might have been a pound or two heavier, never the less a beautiful fish.  I don't know if I'll get a graphite reproduction of the fish or not but at over $15/inch it will take some thought.

Sunday's beautiful Sunset

So the 2108 Canadian Fishing Opener at Lac Seul Outposts is in the history books and according to Bruce it probably was the best he's ever witnessed in the 30 years they have been coming up to camp.  The fish totals for the Ranger and it's 3 occupants were 145 on Saturday, 101 on Sunday, and 158 on Monday, a total of 404 walleyes caught.  What was impressive was the total number of walleyes over 20 inches, I would say that over half of them we caught were over 20 and half of them were over 22 inches.  That is an impressive total of nice walleyes.  We did extremely well on plastics as the fish were quite aggressive.  The ride in on Friday was absolutely terrible as we got soaked however the next 4 days were beautiful, with an accompanying gorgeous sunset to finish each of the days.  One of the things I like to do is stop in at the bait shop and buy some large minnows.  It really paid off this year as the big fish loved the big minnows.  Unfortunately the bait well in the boat drained out and many of our big minnows had died on Saturday night.  It really didn't seem to matter much as the walleyes hit those as easily as if they were alive, so we cleaned them out nicely.

One of the issues was having to park my boat on the sand beach next to Bruce's boat.  One of the things that was installed on my boat from the factory was a keel guard, meant for just this.  Everything turned out OK as we were able to plug it in each night and as well, RJ was a master of tying knots and did an awesome job of securing everything in place.  It was a pain to get in the boat with getting sand in it and backing off the sand bar was challenging as there were scour holes from previous outboards trying to push their boats higher, and or trying to back off the sand.  The Ranger is pretty heavy and really doesn't move that much so it did take some addition persuasion from RJ and Pete.  So what do we do for an encore?  The fish are biting on Mille Lacs and the Smallies are just coming off their spawn so that will more than likely be the next adventure.  We are so far behind at home, the garden still needs to be planted, trees need to be moved, mowing needs to be done.  We were at my niece's daughter's graduation last weekend so not much got done this last weekend either.  Honestly it was too hot anyway as Memorial Day hit 100 degrees, almost too hot to fish!

Lac Seul Part 2

Nice walleye

Finally getting caught up on the time and the big plus is having something to write about, this weeks post finishes the report on last weeks trip to Lac Seul with Bruce.  Believe it or not I did get some nice walleyes yet my attempt to try and fish similar structures that we fished during the last trip to Fisherman's Cove did not work out very well.  With only 3 days to fish and the anxiety of trying to fish where you know there are fish.........doesn't make for a very good formula for going out simply to explore!  In other words, it's almost impossible to leave biting walleyes no matter what the size.  Coming into camp I marked a few mid lake humps, not too far from camp yet we never made it to them. Fishing the west side last month the mid lake humps were loaded with nice walleyes, and I would say that the average was quite a bit larger than we find at camp.  In August about 75% of the fish we caught were over 22 inches but I would say that our average around Chamberlain Narrows is around 75% of the fish under 16 inches.  Generally the numbers make up for the size and numbers we get.  It rained quite a bit on Wednesday, our first day fishing yet we got on a point that was super productive and our total for the day was about 68 walleyes.  Thursday we went to Tuk Bay, my all time favorite spot and the bit was quite a bit slower.  Of course the rain had moved on and high pressure, bluebird skies greeted us as we anchored on Dan's point and started catching fish.  As the day wore on the bite diminished to the point where we could catch a walleye to save our butts.  Moving up the channel our first stop was a point I had discovered a year ago and we did very well on it last June.  I have it marked with a waypoint called Dave's Luck Would Have It Point!  The first thing I look for when fishing an area is whether or not the fish finders are marking any fish.  If the walleye's are there, the will show up on the sonar clear as a bell.  We were marking fish like crazy and admittedly it was as many fish as I have seen yet they were not in the mood to attack our minnow presentations.  We tried all sorts of things, different colors, different jig sizes and weights, big minnows, small minnows, plastic........you name it we threw it at the walleyes but it was a fruitless time in the old Ranger as nothing worked.  Oh well at least we were still in Canada.

Huge sauger that I caught!

Friday turned out to be on of the best days experienced on Lac Seul.  Ken had commented that we should try large minnows in the 40 feet of water in front of the cabin as the big females are moving into the deeper areas to feed on cisco's.  Luckily I had bought 3 dozen large minnows at the bait shop, consisting of large rainbow shiners and some big sucker minnows.  Dropping in 40 feet, it took a while for the 1/4 oz jig to reach the bottom but it got there.  The Lowrance has a glassed in transducer which essentially gives you readings that are about 1/3 the diameter of the depth of the water.  In 40 feet we could see about a 14 foot circle of whatever is on the bottom and it was easy to spot my jig and minnow on the screen. Unfortunately we didn't mark any fish and finally both Craig and I caught something each, two 15.5" walleyes.  Uffda, although Craigs went back down just fine, mine wasn't so fortunate as it's swim bladder was extended and it would probably end up as eagle food later.  After retrieving it we put it into the fish bag, the first of 12 walleyes we needed to take home our limits. We headed north to the unnamed point just as you turn west from Chamberlain Narrows, about a mile from camp.  There we set the anchor on the trolling motor and the action began almost immediately.  It was about 10:00 in the morning and by 11:00 we had around 30 walleyes.  We were pulling in doubles and the occasional triple but the walleyes kept coming.  Craig was pulling them in left and right and although the action slowed, changing the XM radio channel from Fox to Willy's Roadhouse made a significant difference as the bite took off again.  We had about 70 walleyes on the counter/clicker when Bruce showed up and their report was not that good.  Although the bite did slow up somewhat towards the end, it picked up about 3:00 and by Cocktail Hour (4:00PM) we had 103 walleyes on the counter, quite a day considering we hadn't left and area no more than 50 feet by 100 feet, all day.  I did catch a pretty small sauger as pictured, about 6 inches.  It is amazing the size of minnows a small fish like this will attack.  Never the less it counts as a fish caught!

Pete Caught a Number of Nice Walleyes like this

Four O'clock marked the end of our last day in camp, it's always a sad time to go but it's about the right amount of time.  The last day of fishing means Steak night as we use this day to equalize our 4 fish limit we each bring home to enjoy later.  This year we had boneless tenderloins marinated in Tabasco sauce, Frank's Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce, and Hot Picante Salsa.  2 hours of soaking in that mixture does wonders for the flavor!  While the steaks marinated I cleaned the 19 fish that filled out the limits we needed to stay legal.  Volunteering to be the fish cleaning guy, I happily do this every night.  We put the steaks on the grill and 2 bottles of wine later it was done, off to bed to get up early and clear camp.  It was a blast having Craig Biegert with this trip.  I understand that he had Chemo this Thursday however according to my friends he could not stop talking about the great time he had and all the fish he caught, especially on the last day.  I would have him in my boat any day.  One interesting observation, both Pete and I helped Craig bait his jig and also helped him remove and release any fish.  One time I was putting his minnow back on his jig when I noticed something very unusual.  We generally put the hook through the minnow's mouth, out through the gill plate, then rotate the jig and insert the hook tip through the back.  This keeps the minnow securely hooked to the jig and prevents losing a lot of minnows if the fish just grabs it.  Grabbing his jig to resecure the minnow I noticed that he had it what I would call.....assbackwards!  Generally I hold the minnow with my left hand using my right to thread it through the right side of the minnow.  He had it through the left side of the minnow.  What the heck, this seemed strange until it dawned on me, Pete is left handed and probably hooks his minnows the opposite I do, holds the minnow in his left hand.  It gave me another reason to make a stink about something admittedly I had to laugh at myself! As you see in the picture the backwards minnow method is effective as Pete did get a number of fish in the 25 inch class.

The fish house is basically put back together again as I have to admit that the Salem Ice Cabin looks pretty nice.  There are still some new plastic plugs to be inserted in the frame, a good job for this weekend. The Rangertrail Trailer has to get brought to Nick and get the step welded and braced up as I missed my steps when getting in and out of the boat.  I might get to go back up to Lac Seul to help Bruce close the cabin however it's a matter of timing as next week I am in Chicago.  Hopefully the annual trout fishing expedition with Bill can still take place this month.  Deer hunting is only 4 weeks away as time continues to fly at a record pace!

Fishing At Last!

Nice walleye

Well, despite all the issues that have been dealt with in the last few weeks, we finally made it back to Lac Seul for 3 days of non stop walleye fishing.  My friend and neighbor Pete Sipe was gracious enough to drive making it a pretty relaxing trip for me, as well he took some great pictures.  Getting up at 4:30 last Saturday Morning we were hooked up and on the road around 5:30.  I barely had a chance to make sure everything on the boat was fine but we took off anyway with our first stop in Orr Minnesota to fill up the truck and boat, as well to have breakfast at the T Pattenn Cafe, usually our breakfast spot in the past.  A quick topping off the gas in International Falls then across the border.  This time, as usual we did not have any issues and after a few questions about my Chinese Visa that was in my passport, the gentleman let us on our way.  We made it to Dryden where a quick stop at the Safeway to pick up onions and potatoes before heading up to Sioux Lookout's Ojibway Baits to pick up some larger minnows then off to the Deception Bay landing.  It started to rain pretty good so Pete and I put up the new Bimini top on the boat, WOW, is that nice.  It was raining quite hard and we were nice and comfortable in our new protection against the weather.  It was impressive that we could drive 30 mph and except for some rain coming through where the windshield meets the top, it was quite comfortable, I should have had this years ago!  Our first day's fishing was in one of Bruce's favorite locations, Wapesi Bay.  Pictured is a nice 22 inch walleye that definitely went back into the water.  For the day Pete and I ended up with 46 walleyes caught and released except enough for supper as we never like to load up on walleyes too early in the trip.  On Monday Bruce asked me where I would like to go and of course my favorite place to fish in Lac Seul is Tuk Bay.  I have some fabulous spots to fish and have named them, Pete's Point, Dan's Hole, Dave's Luck Would Have It Point, and Baboon Ass Point. They are a sure bet as I have had my absolute best days of fishing in Tuk, and his trip was no exception as Pete and I ended up with 95 walleyes for the day.  We could have stayed for another 5 but we were always careful how the other boats would feel about our success of passing 100 fish for the day.  We try to be considerate, ya know.

Sunset looking north at Chamberlain Narrows

Tuesday was our last day of fishing and the group decided to explore some new areas that were marked with trails into the bays by my friend Paul Wenaas.  They were straight south of camp and we did get some nice fish, it certainly wasn't on fire. Bruce's family was coming in that evening so he left about 2:00 in the afternoon after dropping off his son Michael in our boat.  Because we were basically straight east of Tuk, I decided that would be a great place to finish the day and our trip. Coming out of the channel into the main bigger water I had to cross a wake that was in front of us so I turned the steering into the wave to cut it a a 45 degree angle.  Unfortunately there was no response to my turning and we hit the wave almost parallel and at 30 MPH it almost threw me out of the boat.  Now this is a good time to remind everyone why it's important to wear your life vest and to make sure your cutoff tether  is properly connected every time you are under power.  I have stated this before that for the last 6 years or so I wear my automatic inflatable life vest 100% of the time and hook up the tether.  I am getting to old to expect myself to tread water for any length of time and even though I have had this boat for 2 years now, I am still learning the nuances of running a wheel boat after running tillers for the last 35 years. I have no desire to be thrown out of the boat then watch the dreaded "Circle of Death" take me out. We barely made it to a point in Tuk where we fished the day before and ended up with 78 walleyes for the day.  It is absolutely beautiful at camp so I decided to post a sunset picture.

So, just my luck, the power steering went out on my Evinrude outboard and because it is the latest technology, there is no quick fix to provide emergency steering.  We limped back to camp as I could steer it a little, turn the wheel fast and after about 5 revolutions it would make it's way in the direction you wanted to go.  Once in camp we were able to call my dealer Frankie to see if there were any options, nope it appears as though the power steering fluid leaked out somehow.  With 37 miles to go in the morning we took off very carefully controlling our speed and slowing down when we met another boat and it's wake.  It felt as though the longer we used it the worse it got and by the time we got to the landing, it was almost impossible to get the boat aligned with the trailer and loaded however, we managed!  On the way home I called Frankie's and although it was too late by the time we drove by the exit to get there, I got up early and dropped it off on Thursday.  Friday morning they called me and said that Joe had got it fixed, geez I was expecting at least a week!  I think they are about a tired of seeing my boat as much as I am not seeing it!  Talking to Joe, Frankie's son who by the way, is absolutely amazing and treats me like I am his best customer, we discussed what went wrong.  Apparently Evinrude had a recall on the caps that hold the power steering fluid and the last time I was in they changed them out to the new ones.  He stated that he was really surprised that my new cap had cracked and leaked fluid, the first one of the "new" replacements out there.  Either way I am going to send a note to Evinrude.  The good news is I have my boat and pending any bad weather I am going to try to get up to Mille Lacs before July 7th when it closes to walleye fishing for 3 weeks.....that's a whole new post for later!

Wow, Time Gets Compressed

40 inch Northern!

My trip to Lac Seul occurred during the time I usually post last week and I was thinking about doing it from the camp as there is Internet, slow, but it's there.  Unfortunately one gets busy eating fish and savoring the time with your friends, and we are a bunch of old farts and are in bed by 10:00, uffda!! Nevertheless, it's pretty hard to complain about the time one spends with your friends in such a wonderful place to fish, Lac Seul. I have to admit that I have been very fortunate to be included in the group that I go with, my neighbor Pete Sipe and his consideration of my love of fishing.  Bruce, who is our fearless leader has taken some direction from me and improved his electronics and anchoring technologies significantly..........all without one complaint of me spending too much of his money! Lac Seul fishing is always great however some days are better than others.  September lake levels tend to be the highest of the year which allows one to get around much safer than in May.  The fall fishing can be relatively challenging as compared to the May opener or even in June as the fish ten to be deeper and more finicky.  Of course the baitfish are more than plentiful and mature making for easy meals for the fish and it requires some more finesse to catch them.  This time of year we usually have 3 main areas to fish, Tuk bay, Wapesi Bay, or the main lake reef areas south of Chamberlain Narrows area.  Bruce has a fondness for Wapesi so we went there on Wednesday.  This was the first day of blue skies in a while as it rained the day before.  Typically the weather following a rainy period is a rising barometer and it make it tough for the bite however it wasn't too bad.  One of the advantages of the high water period is getting into places that can be tough and this day was no exception as we made our way back to where the Wapesi River flows into the lake.  It was absolutely beautiful back there with the rushing water, current that extended back into the bay and some pretty good fishing.  I really wanted to catch a fish on a shad rap and casting in the current break areas I caught my first walleye on a crankbait in Lac Seul.  We did really well with walleyes of all sizes from 6" to 24".  When the jig and minnow combinations stop short, I like to try plastic and using a Cabela's bubblegum/chartreuse 3 inch curly tailed grub, a nice 40 inch northern pike hit it.  Luckily it was hooked in the side of it's mouth and there was little worry of the pike's teeth cutting the line.  Dan netted the fish and a few pictures later we released it.  I have caught many nice pike on Lac Seul but this one was quite fat and probably weighed in at 18#'s as it was pretty heavy to hold.  

24 inch Walleye in Tuk

The bite tended to be good for the first half hour of anywhere we went then it quickly shut down.  We spend a few hours at the river mouth because it was very pretty, the sound of the rushing water was nice, and it was simply very scenic back there.  However eventually we moved back into the main bay and fished a number of points and caught more fish, at least enough for supper before returning to camp!  The next day was for me as we returned to Tuk Bay, one of my favorite spots.  Although we did catch quite a few fish in Wapesi, my confidence level for Tuk is much higher, some call it a personal problem!  I bought a push button counter to keep track of the fish caught and Wednesday was around 50 however I felt we could blow that away in TuK.   We accomplished this by catching over 70 walleyes that day.  I personally thought the walleyes were larger as well however in the past they were more turquoise in color.  There is a channel that goes up straight north of the main bay and has a number of small points that are walleye magnetic.  It's fun to go point hopping until you run into them.  The point we fished last June that was so good did provide a repeat performance but the next one down from it certainly proved successful.  Again one of the ways to catch fish once they stop hitting minnows is to try artificial and get the fish to react to a trigger bite, one where they simply cannot resist to strike something audacious swimming by!  I bought some jig heads with willow leaf spinner blades connected on the bottom of the lure and they worked very good but for some reason I lost them right away, oh well!  The first 2 days were certainly fun and we still had 1 full day of fishing left.

Light Brown Raccoon

I did get home in time to head to the Green Bay Packer/Minnesota Viking's first home game in their new stadium.  It was pretty awesome Except that Green Bay lost, what can you do.  Certainly the Viking's looked a lot better than they have in the past years so it should make this year's season very interesting!  My wife has been complaining that the raccoons are making a smorgasbord out of our bird feeders on our back patio, so it was time to put out a live trap. Well this morning I had a brown/tan colored critter in the trap, I've never seen this color phase before and I have caught a lot of raccoons over the years.  They almost look friendly enough to pick up but I can assure you this is not the case.  I tend to drive them over to Elm Creek Park reserve and let them go, hopefully far enough away from the house that they won't find their way back, maybe 7 miles. Anyway it was  interesting to see this creature this morning.  I tell you, they sure do stink!

Back from Lac Seul

Typical walleye, 18 - 22 inches

Last Monday, May 23rd, I left with my neighbor Pete Sipe and a new guy, John Loeffler to meet Bruce at Lac Seul Outposts on Lac Seul.  The last 2 years I had the luxury of flying up however this year we decided to take my boat and dispense with the flying.  The drive really isn't too bad, about 470 miles to the Deception Bay boat landing where we launch the boats and head out to the outpost camp, 36 miles by water.  Because of the strong US Dollar we decided it was easier to shop in Canada for both out food and refreshments.  Unfortunately because Monday the 23rd was a National Holiday, Victoria Day, a celebration of England's Queen Victoria, prior to Canada's independence from Britain, Lots of stores were closed.  It is somewhat like our Memorial Day here in the US as it signals the start of Summer.  Although the grocery stores were open till 6:00 pm, the Government run liquor stores, LCBO were closed and we were relegated to whatever was left over at camp.  Luckily there always seems to be plenty and I had included a few bottles from home that helped!  We did stop at the Ojibway Outfitters Bait shop in Sioux Lookout to get our parking permit and a couple dozen really large (3-5 inch) rainbow minnows which hopefully would attract larger walleyes.  After leaving home at around 5:00 AM we finally reached the landing at 3:30.  It was interesting as we were stopped by the police just outside of Sioux Lookout, it was a holiday and they were looking for drivers drinking and driving. We told the officer that we were heading for Lac Seul and he mentioned that he was fishing there yesterday.  I asked him if he went through the Rags, a short cut to the outpost but with the low water levels it was questionable if one could get a boat through.  He said......."No problem, went through there yesterday with our pontoon!"  I thanked him and appreciated his time and work as well as the tip on the Rags.  You see, bypassing the Rags means going around another 8 miles which means more gas.  We idled through the Rags as my depth finder showed 1 1/2 feet at it's shallowest.  One good thing is that it is a muck bottom and not rock so even if you hit the bottom with the propeller, little damage will be done.  It was interesting as I didn't kick up an mud or sand going through.  Lac Seul can be very challenging to drive and this would be my first time solo from the landing to camp.  The map I have has the houseboat routes and I have the trails from Bruce's old GPS as well, Pete isn't shy to add his 2 cents on which way to go. Nevertheless it's somewhat nerve racking to be cruising in 40 feet of water then all of a sudden the bottom comes up to 5 feet and back down to 40 in an instant. Even though our routes are tested and true, it gives one a bit of pause to think about what you just went over.   Oh well, we made it to the outpost successfully without an incident!

Another gorgeous Lac Seul Sunset

One of the nice things about going with Bruce is meeting new friends. This was my 6th trip to the video! Either way camp and each trip in itself is quite an adventure.  This year I met a new guy, John Loeffler, friends of the rest of the crew however new to me.  He was quite an interesting guy, was retired at a relatively young age and he had pretty much the same personality as I have, which made for some amazing moments!  John and Pete fished in my boat which always presents a problem because I can be quite anal in my care of the boat, for instance, everyone has to wash the sand off their shoes before entering, no feet on the gunnels, stuff like that.  Well luckily both my crew members understood, or should I say know that they are going to fish in comfort so no use rocking the boat! Now fish slime is another issue and is welcome because in the end it washes off with water. Speaking of fish slime, I did catch John in one of his more graceful moments in the boat, spreading fish slime all over the place.  Check out this Youtube Link of that exciting moment!  Like last spring because of the low water, just north of the camp is a sand bar sticking out into the channel.  I had done quite well last year catching a walleye every cast however this time I only caught 2 and they were quite small. It's a great advantage point to watch the sun go down and this time was no exception.

We fished 3 main areas, across the channel, Tom's Point, and we tried going south to Tuk bay.  The best was around camp as the water was 60 degrees and the spawn had been over with for a number of weeks.  Fishing wasn't as good as it was in previous years yet my estimates were I had caught over 200 walleyes for the 3 days we were fishing, not bad.  We really didn't land any big walleyes with the largest about 24.5 inches, never the less we caught plenty of those 21 - 24 inch fish and they were all plump and healthy.  I had gotten some good tips from my friend Paul Wenaas, who fishes that area quite a bit yet the low water really spooked us from going into some of those back bays that he had clearly marked.  Maybe next year.  The original plan was to stay until Saturday yet somewhere the wires got crossed and we headed home on Friday morning.  Beggars can't be choosers and I simply just appreciate the opportunity to fish with the boys.  We ate fish Monday night, Tuesday, and Thursday with my famous Steak a la Kienitz on Wednesday.  Anticipating that we were going to stay another day it was a scramble on Thursday, catch enough fish to take home but make sure everything in camp got cooked.  Because I enjoy filleting the fish, I cleaned 28 walleyes on Thursday afternoon, enough for each of us to take 4 fish home.  One has to leave the skin on and package them 1 fish to a bag.  I definitely look forward to getting back up there again as Lac Seul is fishing paradise less than 10 hours away!

Fishin' With Dave, Dave Kramer!

Dave's 10# 10 oz Texas Largemouth

Fishin' with Dave means Dave Kramer this week.  Dave Kramer is a friend of mine who runs the Kramer Open on the week after Labor Day, a Sporting Clay's shoot that raises money for a family that belongs to a friend of his who died early and give monetary help.  I used to shoot every year with my friend Tom Emmons however since his passing, I haven't had the opportunity as there has always been something going on that week.  I am looking forward to making it this year both as a tribute to my friend Tom and Dave always has a pretty good spread of food, beer, and friendship.  One of the things that my friends are always doing and to my delight, is send me pictures of their fishing adventures.  Dave was on vacation at the end of March and Hired a guide on Lake Fork, Texas to go largemouth bass fishing.  I am a huge advocate of hiring a guide when fishing a new area like in Texas.  Lake Fork is about 60 miles East of Dallas as is a reservoir on the Fork Creek and is really a trophy bass fishery.  According to the website 34 out of the 50 largest Largemouth Bass in Texas were caught on Lake Fork.  According to Dave they were sight fishing however the water was quite stained as the quide just knew the spot was a good one.  He had a NetBait Paca Craw, a crawfish shaped rubber bait rigged like a plastic worm texas style.  The fish hit the second cast. Wow, that's a nice fish considering that the Minnesota official State Record Largemouth is only 8# 15 oz, almost 2 pounds heavier.  I think Dave should get a graphite repoduction of this beautiful fish as it truly is once in a lifetime fish.  Thanks for sharing this wonderful experience.

Differences in Gold Colored Jigs

We have our Spring Canadian Fishing Opener trip dates set, I am going up with my friends Bruce Wiley and Pete Sipe along with 3 other guys on Monday, May 23rd.  We normally fish for 3 days and will plan on returning on Friday the 27th.  I have been fortunate to fly up the last couple of times however this trip looks like I get to bring my boat again, which is fun as well.  Flying takes about 5 hours by the time you mess around with everything and driving is about 9 hours, not too bad. One of the latest discussions is my partners love for gold colored jigs.  Lac Seul's water is stained a nice brown color even though the water is pretty clean, it's coffee colored.  The past notion presented to me is that Gold is the ticket and that color outfishes everything.  Well, I don't necessarily believe that notion but what the heck, if it works for them, I'm in.  One of the issues with gold jigs is that the color is plated on verses painted on.  Often times to facilitate the process the entire jig is plated, hook and all which tend to result in plating over the hook point and making it quite dull.  I bought some bulk jigs from Cabela's a couple of years ago to use however they are basically worthless unless you resharpen the hooks.  Bruce and I went to the sportshow and looked at Northland Tackle for Gold colored jigs.  I ended up ordering some for the guys both in 1/4 and 3/8 oz size.  I got them the other day and it was interesting, the picture above shows the 3/8 on top and the 1/4 oz on the bottom.  If you notice, the top on is only plated back to the wire keeper and the hook remains in it's original state.  The bottom one however is the 1/4 oz and for whatever reason, maybe it's just cheaper, but the whole thing is gold plated, hook and all.  If you do the thumbnail test you will find that the top, unplated hook really grabs however the plated one simply slides off the thumb.  I would never dispute their claims of fish catching abilities of Gold however my experience is that chartreuse or white works as well but then again.....whom am I to question the experts!  Oh well, the guys can sharpen these as we drive up!

Spring is finally arriving as I took the boat out of the pole shed to start the main motor, my 250hp Etec HO.  To my amazement it started within a second of hitting the start button, just like the 115 Suzuki's I had.  I am sure that because my E-Tec is fuel injected, that helped because my carbureted 9.8 hp kicker was a bear. Basically the gas drains from the carburetors and instead of being afraid to choke it too much (and flood the engine) it's the opposite, I really needed to choke the crap out of this motor.  After about 5 minutes of trying it finally fired up.  The choke is electric so I had to keep fiddling with it to keep it running until it warmed up enough, what a pain.  Anyway both motors got started and that is a great start to the season.  I did get my two depth finders to talk to each other as this was really bothering me.  I did everything possible and damn near wore out the buttons looking for the right menu.  In the end I ended up doing a soft reset of my unit up front and VOILA, the Sonichub 2 menu bar appeared.  As I told Pete, now he can change the music from the front of the boat if he don't like it!   My next project before May 1st is working on installing a third unit in the boat, this should be fun..............

When it Rains it Pours

First fish of the day.

Let's start off with the good stuff from last week!  While scrambling to get things done for our trip to Lac Seul this week, Pete and I found time to get out on the river for a few hours on Saturday night.  The last trip saw a couple of walleyes caught on nighcrawlers fished on the bottom, a surprise as normally carp, catfish, and suckers are the results of this setup.  It got me thinking about trolling the holes with Shad Raps, Flicker Shads, or any other bait that would tap the bottom while trolling up river.  Once on the river it was obvious the recent rains had risen the water levels over a foot from last week.  The current was faster and maybe the higher water had pushed the smallies back shallow.  We decided to head upstream and cast for some smallies before starting to troll for those walleyes.  Rigging up Pete with a spinning rod, I attached my yellow crankbait and within 2 minutes he had a beautiful 18 inch smallie on the line.  Pretty impressive however there became an immediate discussion of was it the fishing skill or the guide's attention to setting up his guest for the evening?  Of course it was my opinion that the guide had 80% of the reasoning for this nice fish being on board.   Think about it as he picked the location, the choice of rods, the ever important "lucky" bait which he could have easily saved for himself.  That debate will continue this week as we both head to Lac Seul for 4 days of nonstop walleye fishing.  As for the rest of the evenings fishing, we did get about 8 fish, a couple in the 17 inch range and a number of small ones before we started trolling for walleyes.  I put on a brown perch colored Little Ripper on my rig and a fire tiger Flicker Shad on Pete's.  Trolling to the top of the hole, our intent was if we caught anything substantial, we would continue the pattern.  About the time we decided there was nothing going, we dropped the anchor and reeled in the baits.  To my surprise was a small 8 inch walleye, the same size as I got last week hooked to the Little Ripper.  Well, at least the method has promise.  Not all that excited about small walleyes and with the high water comes more current, we decided to fish some nightcrawlers.  The sun sets too fast these days and after 20 minutes of no action we called it a night.

A nicer time, sunset on the river

Sunday was originally planned to go motorcycling with my brother Steve.  We have done this for the last 3 years as I trailer my bike down to Fountain City while my wife attends Farm Fest with her cousins.  This year I had been a little indecisive as plans were changing by the minute.  Of course at the last minute it was decided that we would go, I loaded the Victory Kingpin and met my brother at our destination.  Our plan was to head to Minnesota, go through Iowa along the river before crossing at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin before returning home.  Things were going really good, we weren't traveling too fast when we hit a left turning curve.  We were riding together as I was traveling on the outside of the lane when I got too high on the curve.  Instead of looking where I needed to go I looked straight, a big mistake.  We covered this in my motorcycle training but it was too late.  The bike went upright and straight for the guardrail.  Although my speed was more than reasonable, I should have never looked forward as now I was on a collision course.  Hitting the brakes the bike scrubbed a lot of speed before it went down.  Hitting the cable guard rail, it stopped everything like it should but threw me onto the edge of the road.  I suspect I was down to 10 - 15 mph when this happened and I sustained only a few areas of road rash and a jammed toe.  I always ride with protective clothing and I'm sure things could have been worse without a helmet, riding jacket, heavy pants and boots.  Getting up I staggered some before coming to my senses, was thankful no one hit me while I was thrown onto the road.  Walking back to the bike, it was impaled between the cables, still running and on it's side.  Unfortunately those cable guard rails do a great job of stopping you but also inflict a lot of damage as my bike was really wedged in.  I am confident that had there not been the rail there the bike would have stopped within a few feet of it, a little scraped up but rideable.   A few guys stopped by to help including a lecture on going too fast, but we finally got it out and upright.  Now the fender was pushed into the front wheel, the back tire was flat, not much I could do but hop on my brother Steve's bike and head back.  He really helped by getting my trailer and with his son in law Brandon, picked up the bike and brought it back to LaCrosse.  I guess pictures were the last thing on my mind.  Deciding to go to the Urgent Care on Sunday morning the doctor asked what's wrong.  I showed her the scraps, they took an xray of my toe which turned out OK but it was pointed to my that I have arthritis in the toes, and they showed me how to brace it using the toe next to the big toe.  She asked if there was anything else she could fix, I told her my pride.  No such luck.  I would not be surprised if the bike is totaled, but I'm hoping they can fix it.  Hitting a boat on opener, now this.....here's hoping my luck changes soon!  I guess one should be fortunate that all that happened was a few scrapes and soreness.   Therefore I decided to post a picture from the night before looking up river.

Tomorrow at 5:00 AM we head to Lac Seul and this time I'm bringing the Ranger.  I did have the sense to put on an aluminum prop, just in case, but it will be fun to fish out of my own boat.  Not one to go off exploring where I'm not comfortable with, cross my fingers, it will be just fine.  The only thing I worry about is that the water has been high and there has been a lot of deadheads in the water.  Apparently the water is down, which should help.  I guess we'll have a report next week and I'm looking for it to be as good as last year was.

Fishin' With Pete

Pete's 26 inch weed walleye

Ever grateful for being friends with my neighbor Pete Sipe, I am always looking for ways to repay him for his introduction to the current group of guys that fish Lac Seul.  Having lived down the street from me for over 22 years now I finally got him in my boat as we planned a Saturday afternoon Mille Lacs Lake  trip to see if the walleyes were cooperating.  Pete asked what to bring and after seeing his arsenal of fishing equipment I assured him that he just needs to bring himself, I'll supply everything else.   On the way up I suggested we stop for an ice cream cone at the Cenex station just south of Onamia, they're pretty good as well as reasonable.  Getting the cones while Pete put in about 12 gallons of gas in the boat on his credit card, that was awful nice of him, seeings who invited who.  After a quick stop at Bill's we finally launched to boat and headed for Roland's Flat.  20 minutes and we didn't mark a fish on the Lowrance, the next stop was a deeper underwater reef off of Sherman's point.  20 minutes and we didn't mark a fish on the Lowrance, the next stop was The Cut.  With the wind blowing pretty good from the south/southwest it was a perfect drift but after an hour we headed to 7-Mile.  It was pretty amazing that there wasn't a boat on the flat, a testament to the current attitude regarding the lake.  7-Mile is in my opinion the most popular structure in the summer to fish and for it to be 4:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday and not a boat in site, uffda is all I can say.  Moving to Sliver Flat to see if we could duplicate my friend Mark's previous weeks catch, nothing. Deciding to lead line the open basin area from Sliver Flat to the southeast tip of 8-Mile Flat, finally Pete saw his rod bend over.  We landed a nice fat 24 incher before resetting the lines and headed west.  Although the walleye hit soon after we started, another hour went by without another hit.  Packing up the rods we headed the boat to Vineland Bay with the plan to troll the weed tops for big northerns.  Setting up Pete with a 6 inch green tiger Rattlin Rouge, I put on a larger rattle bait and troll we did.  It wasn't long before rod bent over but as soon as it happened it was gone. Twenty minutes later Pete had a nice fish on and it was pretty exciting to see what it was knowing the size of bait he was pulling.   As the fish came to the boat it certainly didn't act like a northern and to our surprise it was a nice walleye.  Trolling 5 feet down, just touching the weed tops and we get a walleye, crazy.  Maybe I need to rethink my strategies!  With that fish being the last of the day it was Pete 2, Dave 0.  We ended the day driving up to Round Lake to see Bruce then over to the lake just east to meet up with our good friend Ricky Shermer and his crew.  It was a lot of fun despite the fact that once again I didn't catch a fish on Mille Lakes and having to drive 5 miles of dusty gravel roads to get to where Ricky was staying.  The good thing is the boat washes off but there is little I can do about the lack of fish on the end of my line, oh well it was fun.  Hating to admit I have yet to catch a fish on Mille Lacs this year, maybe the fall will bring a change.

Bruce's Monster 32" Walleye

Most of my good friends are very familiar with the blog as well as my love of fishing so they often send me pictures of the fish they catch. Sometimes to simply let me know they are having fun but often it's to show that they can catch the nice fish as well.  Last week a picture came over the phone from my good friend Bruce Thackray, a fellow transformer manufacturing colleague.  Bruce takes a trip to the Boundary Waters area every year with his family in July as we have discussed how much he enjoys Northern Minnesota.  Being from the Chicago area means he deserves some crap about fishing as we only see each other about  3 times a year at our Transformer Association meetings and trade association shows like the Coil Winding Show in Chicago.  Promising not to mention the lake he caught this pig at,  it was near the Gunflint Trail in about 12 - 17 feet of water when she hit.  Caught on a night crawler rig it was almost too big to fit in the net.  Bruce took the measurements and they were quite impressive....32 inch length and 18 inch girth with an estimate of around 13 pounds it's a once in a lifetime fish.  Bruce let the fish go and is already planning on getting a replica.  Suggesting Artistic Angler's out of Duluth Minnesota, they do an excellent job on walleyes and have a best collection of mount styles on the market today.  What's nice is that you tell them where you caught the fish and they understand the coloring and will match it perfectly.  It's definitely going to look good in his den and he can dream about that fish still swimming around, waiting for the next crawler rig to come by.

With the Mississippi River finally retreating from what has seemed to be a continual flood stage, I have been looking to replace the outboard motor on my john boat.  It currently has a 1976 15 hp Evinrude and although it runs OK, she's pretty slow.  Often my neighbor Lory goes with and traveling upstream yields about 12 mph.  As well, it can be cold blooded so it takes a while to get warmed up.  With the boat being rated for 25 hp, I've been looking on Craigslist for a reasonable replacement.  Not interested in anything older than a 1978 or something more than the whole boat is worth, it's pretty hard to find something in the middle.  I finally saw a 1999 25 hp short shaft Mercury in St. Cloud however by the time I called it was gone.  Oh well, I'd just keep looking.  Upon returning on Friday I got a message "if you are still interested in the motor the other guy fell through and I still have it".  A quick call verified a time to drive up to check it out and on Monday I had it in the back of my truck.  Double checking with my neighbor Blair to make sure his landing was still available the plan is to take it out on the river either Friday or Sunday.  It started on the first pull so it should work pretty good.  Saturday is filled with blueberry picking in Eleva, a farewell party of my wife's aunt, a birthday party for our niece, and the Fagerland reunion.   It's going to be impossible to hit everyone so we'll see who wins out.

Back From Lac Seul, Part 1

Our Ride Awaits!

Staying on plan and picking up Pete at 5:45 on Tuesday morning we headed over to meet our pilot Garith before driving to Surfside Sea Plane Base, our starting point.  Loading the plane took a few minutes and by 6:30 we were in the air.  I have to confess it was pretty exciting as they put me in the copilots seat where I could monitor everything that was going on.  Before leaving Bruce Fishbeck, one of our electrical engineers at work helped me with downloading an app for my phone used by private pilots for navigation.  With a flight plan set we started the plane and idled out into the lake for takeoff.  First thing I was told by Garith was never leave my seat until the engine is stopped.  Not that I didn't need to be told but it was still good advice as I have a fondness for my head staying attached to the rest of my body.  After warming the engine to the required 60 degrees C we pointed the plane into the wind and hit the throttle.  The de Havilland Beaver is a workhorse of a plane.  With the capability of carrying 2000 pounds of cargo it's a big plane yet didn't take long to get the floats on plane before lifting off the water. Actually I used one of my apps to monitor our speed at takeoff and was impressed at lifting off the water at about 50 knots.  The weather was light rain and a pretty low cloud ceiling so we flew about 1000 feet above the ground, watching

Our host, Garith!

for towers and other obstacles.  Admittedly I was somewhat surprised how low we flew yet after a few minutes it felt comfortable as the view was outstanding, even in the rain.  Our destination was Round Lake, on the northeast corner of Mille Lacs Lake, it was very cool to see the terrain that I drive by frequently.  As we arrived over Mille Lacs, one could see the skies were clear to the north giving us clear sailing to Lac Seul. Landing on Round we picked up Tom then headed for Sand Point Lake Canadian Customs just north of Crane Lake before departing for the Chamberlain Narrows.  Leaving Surfside at 6:30, we touched down at our destination at 11:15 4 hours, 45 minutes later.  It sure beats driving, which would have taken almost 11 hours to get to the outpost camp by road and boat. Our pilot Garith was fabulous!  As stated, Pete let me sit up in the copilots seat because he knew I would be interested in what was going on.  There is a lot going on to fly the plane from retracting the steering rudders, pumping the flaps to lower them for takeoff and landing, keeping the gas tanks balanced (there were 5 on this plane holding about 140 gallons), adjusting throttle, propeller pitch, fuel mixture, elevator position, altimeter, radio frequencies, GPS destination points, and other critical aspects of flying.  The engine is a 9 cylinder Pratt and Whitney rotary engine and has a distinct rumble as it powers up as smoke clears from the cylinders.  I'm not sure how many hours Garith had behind the stick but I can attest to the smoothness of our takeoffs and landings as well his willingness to share some of that knowledge with a curious passenger.  Spending 10 hours next to the guy was a pure pleasure and hopefully I will get another chance to fly with him.

Sunset on Chamberlain Narrows

Arriving at Lac Seul Outpost our arrival committee, Bruce Wiley and Wayne had flown up a few days earlier and as requested, had the frying pan ready for our first lunch, fresh walleye!  It just doesn't get any better than that, get off the plane, unload, and fill up on the best meal there is.  After getting settled in and cleaning up,  Pete and I loaded the boat and by 1:30 we were fishing.  The Chamberlain Narrows area is a necked down area in the northeast section of Lac Seul, a huge reservoir about 200 miles north of the US/Canadian border.  There is always a little current going through the narrows and is a major migration route for walleyes moving to and from the spawing areas.  Because the spawn was just completed the fish were shallow, often less than 5 feet.  Our first stop was across the channel from the outpost, about 300 yards.  Unfortunately the boats did not have depth finders so it was figuring out via the old fashioned way, drop your jig until it stops then pull it up and go from there.  Pete is very familiar with the area and is knowledgeable where the shallower underwater points and sand bars are located so it wasn't that difficult.  The current allowed us to drift the areas looking for active fish before anchoring to pitch jigs.  Starting at 10 - 12 feet we started catching fish almost immediately.  It seems like the fish would move through in waves as we could catch 5 - 10 walleyes before it would be quiet for a 10 minutes or so before starting again.  Fishing till around 7:00, I guess we caught and released over 60 walleyes as we kept 4 of them for supper.  Lac Seul has a nice slot limit where all fish between 18" and 21" must be released and you can keep one over 21".  We basically let everything over 18 inches go back in the water.  A short ride back to camp, I cleaned everyone's fish before firing up the cast iron frying pan to make supper.  One of the things I showed the guys was how to "zipper" a walleye.  It's always fun to teach old guys new tricks and this was a good one.  A simple way to remove the pin bones in a walleye fillet, it makes cooking and eating them a lot more pleasurable.  After a great meal and cleaning up we we settled down for a nice cocktail of TX Whiskey, brought to me by my good friend Matt Davis from Texas, and enjoyed the beautiful sunset on Chamberlain Narrows.

There is too much to write in a short time as there is a lot going on.  Trying to get the garden in before the rains came this weekend, it's always something.  I have some video's to download and as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story" will have to wait till next week.  Hopefully I can get back on schedule with some interesting accounts, pictures, and fishing tales of my trip.

Winding Down



A nice mess of crappies

Last year at this time we were basking in 80 degree weather, the ice was already off Lake Mille Lacs, and ice fishing was the furthest thing from my mind.  This year we have yet to break 50 degrees in the month of March, something that hasn't happened in 30 years.  I guess it just proves that Mother Nature tends to even things out.  So with the continued cold weather comes the chance for late season ice fishing and my neighbor Petey was ready to go.  With significant snow remaining on the ice our strategy was to pick a local lake that should have significant traffic to have packed the snow enough to get around.  Having fished Pelican Lake near Albertville a couple of times, unsuccessfully of course, it seemed a good choice for one last outing.  Minimizing the amount of equipment, we brought Petey's ice house, my auger, our electronics and after stopping at the hardware store in St. Michael for bait, headed out to the lake.  Even with the colder temperatures the sun is getting higher in the sky which is melting the snow.  Expecting the landing to be in some state of slush, mud, and water, I was pleasantly surprised how good it was.  With few on the lake we drove to an area where I have done well in the past, 9 - 10 feet with weeds scattered.  With the wind howling out of the north, we drilled 4 holes using the truck as our wind break.  With about 6 inches of snow on the ice, another 4 inches of frozen slush, there was still at least 26 inches of ice as the auger drilled right

A bonus bullhead!

up to the handles.  After cleaning the holes, the fish started biting right away.  Nothing big but the action was good.  Within a couple of hours we had the bottom of our pails covered with sunnies and crappies, the largest being about 10 inches.  As the sun moved closer to the west it was time to put up the shelter and get warmed up.  The fish kept biting as we sorted through 14 crappies and 11 sunnies, nothing extraordinary but based on my year, I'll take it.  Pelican Lake does have bullheads in it and although I have seen them on the camera, had never caught one through the ice.  Well, there's always the first time as I coaxed a fish to come up and hit my ice jig, a sure sign of a crappie chasing the bait and pulled out this ugly bullhead.  Now, suppose I was from Iowa, this would have been a trophy but it wasn't what I was looking for.  Oh well, it did hit pretty hard.  I forgot my camera so I did this self portrait with my new "smart" phone.  It has 2 camera's, one on the screen side and one on the back.  Although the quality is not as good, the image on the screen allows you to at least attempt to get a good shot!  The other thing that I have enjoyed while fishing with Petey this year is to see him advance in his ice fishing skills.  Now I am not about to say that I am a better ice fisherman than him however I have been able to pass some of the things I do to be more successful.  For instance, I was looking at his depth finder and noticed that it seemed to have the sensitivity turned up quite a bit for 9 feet of water.  Disputing my thoughts, he showed me what we were looking at, the sinker above his ice jig.  Sinker........what the!  Complaining that the ice jig didn't sink very fast, he needed the sinker to get it down, all I could say was Uffda!!  The object of shallow water pan fishing is to slow the lure down, keep it light so when the crappies come up and inhale the bait, they don't get knocked in the head as a result.  Anyway he later admitted that the sink rate wasn't that bad as he started to catch more fish.  On our last trip I showed him how using a Frostie jig with a larger hook would increase his hooking percentage, which it did.  Petey's a good student, at South Stanchfield his catch rate of what we cleaned was 11%.  Sunday's trip yielded 25 keeper's with Petey's share at 8, a whopping 32% of the catch, a 3X increase in adding to the next fish fry.  At this rate I might have to start fishing alone again!



The snow is still here.

As I indicated, winter still has a pretty good grip at the house.  I snapped this picture on March 26th, the snowdrifts are at least 3 feet high along the road and the blanket is a good 8 - 10 inches.  With the temps heading in the 40's this weekend things will start to loosen up.  The weather is absolutely perfect for sap flow from the maple trees as my neighbor boiled up 65 gallons on Sunday and has promised me a pint.  Another advantage of a cold March is the apple trees will have plenty of rest and their bloom should happen as normal.  Last year's unusually warm spring and a colder than normal May raise havoc with all of my fruit trees as the crop was no existant.  I predict a bumper crop of apples, pears, and raspberries for 2013.  The snow will really help the moisture and with the amount up north, the river should get back to normal.  Time to organize the tackle boxes, clean up the reels, replace the line, and get ready for opener which is only 6 weeks away.  We ordered all of the Team Walleye hats and shirts this week as Mark Mayerich and I continue the countdown to the successful organization of our trip.  All I can say is we sure miss Ron Edberg.