Back in the Snow Again

Glaciers and the Driftless Area

I am trying to stay positive about the current state of the weather here in Dayton, MN but it's getting harder by the minute.  Of course with the snow piling up by the minute certainly doesn't help.  I try hard not to be too political as this is a blog about fishing yet those who know me understand I have some passionate views on things and one is Global Warming.  Now I actually believe that Global Warming is happening, in fact I am pretty sure it's been a positive for the last 10,000 years.  The last Ice Age was the Wisconsin Glaciation period when most of Minnesota and Wisconsin were covered by ice over 3000 feet thick except for an area called the Driftless Area.  My home town of Eleva, Wisconsin is in this area, often called the Coulee Region and consisted of a number of bluffs and valleys where we fished and hunted, a sportsman's paradise.  Most of the lakes in Minnesota as well as the Mississippi and Minnesota River valleys were formed during the current warming period we are in today.  If you dig down a couple of feet anywhere on my property you will run into sand and gravel deposits left from the last glaciers.  Well, if Global Warming is happening, I'd love it to move back to Minnesota for a couple of years.  Our 2013 Minnesota Fishing Opener was significantly delayed as the ice had not gone out of Leech Lake by May 11th.  This year has the feel of a repeat performance as the lakes like Mille Lacs and Leech have significant ice on them. Minnesota's fishing opener is on May 10th and I know a lot can happen in 3 weeks but I tell you, this is getting old! The forecast for Leech has night time temperatures in the low 20's until Saturday where it gets back into the 60's for highs.  We will have to keep our finger's crossed for sure as I would sure be disappointed to miss 2 fishing openers in a row because there was still ice on the lake.  As a note, I don't have any problem with some ice as one of the best ever openers for catching fish was when the Narrows Area between the main lake and Walker Bay had significant ice, enough so resorts on that side could not launch boats.  We nailed the walleyes and as well, one could literally scoop up the "ice cubes" out of the water and throw them in the cooler to keep the beer cold.  I guess you could say it was a perfect combination!

Saturday I attended the funeral of a friend, Mike Melleen of Onamia, Minnesota.  Mike was quite a fisherman on Mille Lacs Lake where I had met him at Lundeen's Tackle Castle a number of times before I really got to know him.  I guess you cannot be in Onamia without noticing the Meleen name.  A fixture in the area he originally built the Meleen's Holiday Sports (now the BP station across from Bills), Trophy's Sports Bar, and various business's in the area.  I got the chance to fish clients with Mike a few times and one of those days really sticks out in my mind. Check this post from 2012. We had fished the day before with 5 other guys, 2 in my boat and 3 in Mike's.  I had been doing really well off of Sherman's flat and decided to fish there first.  After getting a number of nice fish by 12:00 one of my guys had to leave so I brought him back to the landing.  In the meantime Mike headed north and by the time I got back on the water they were at the Blue Goose having lunch.  My guest suggested we meet them there, a nice 20 minute boat ride from the landing.  Once lunch was finished we headed straight east to a flat I had never fished before and we started hammering them.  By the end of the day we had caught over 50 fish for our guests before bringing them back to the landing.  The next morning was set to leave from Izaty's resort on the south side.  He still had the 3 people from the day before while I still had one.  We fished like crazy that morning but didn't catch a thing.  By 11:00 it was back to Izaty's for me to drop my guest off and pick up 2 more for the afternoon. They finally showed up around 1:00, invited me for lunch before we took off around 1:30.  My conversation went something like this..."Well, we fished the south end this morning and it was pretty slow.  I am confident the bite is still going on the flats, the waves aren't too bad and it would take about 30 minutes to get there".   Luckily they agreed that if we were going to fish, we had might as well catch some.  Off we headed back to Sherman's flat were we immediately started catching fish.  In the meantime, no Mike.  About an hour later he calls to tell me he's struck out so far.  Telling him we are hammering them on Sherman's, he shows up just as we pull one in.  As suddenly as he shows up he leaves, getting out of my way before returning 15 minutes later.  "Mike, anchor right here!" which his reply was that he did not want to horn in on my success.  Reminding him that we are working as a team, please anchor and I'd work around him,  really it was no problem.  Well once anchored it was like fishing wash tub as my first pass brought a "We got 3!".  The second added another 4 to that number, the third pass brought his total to 12.  We left 2 hours later with another 45+ fish caught between us.  At the dock Mike, who when it comes to fishing is as competitive as I've seen walks up and said to me "Dave, you saved my day, Thank you".  I know damn well I didn't save his day yet to receive a compliment from him was priceless and I'll always remember that time.  Later we worked together at Lundeen's while Bill and Kathy attended their daughters college graduation, it was a lot of fun hanging with Mike.  At the funeral I had learned many things about him I never knew but the most impressive was his sort of pragmatic attitude about things.  What ever hand you are dealt in life you have to play it.  I had heard him say his line "You gotta do what you gotta do" but he really lived it.  I was glad to have come to know Mike Meleen.

April 17, 2014 with 12 inches of Snow....Uffda

I was going to post this last night however when I got home it was snowing more significantly than when I originally wrote the post, enough so to take a picture of my plight!  By 8:00 this morning we had accumulated close to 12" of snow.  I quick took this picture of the end of my property where I have a road going back to the bee hives (something for next week's post).  My thought was to simply not do anything and wait till the weather melts the snow but as you see it got to be too much.  Unfortunately I removed the snow blower attachment and chains from my John Deere lawn tractor so I decided reattach it.  Luckily it's a quick hitch and only takes about 10 minutes to attach.   Thinking I could get by not putting on the tire chains on the tractor it only took 50 feet to get stuck so it was back into the shed to finish the job.  The weather forecast claims the rest of April will have above normal temperatures including 70 degrees for Easter Sunday, we'll see. The Ranger 620T is slowly starting to wake up from it's long winter's sleep.  I am enhancing my Sonic Hub audio system with a new input for my bluetooth receiver giving me more choices for my audio system.  Another project is trying to connect my Suzuki engine interface port to the Lowrance HDS12 so I can better track the engine functions and admittedly that's not going so good!  We have ordered our onion plants from Texas and here's hoping the garden will be dry enough to get in and rotor till.  Like I started the post, I hope it doesn't take too long!

Frankies Live Bait and Marine

While watching the fishing shows on television this weekend I saw a commercial that really made me smile.  The star of the minute was Frankie Dusenka Jr from his business bearing the same name, Frankie's Live Bait and Marine of Chisago City, MN.  It gave me pause to think about one of the truly great boat dealers I have ever met, one I have been doing business with since 1989.   Thinking back Frankie has been an important part of my fishing experience for 24 out of the 30 years I have owned a boat.   About the only thing that has changed is we both have a lot less hair and it's gotten more gray!  The way I am treated as a customer has never changed.  My first experience with Frankie was in the summer of 1989, I had a 1986 Lund Nisswa Guide with the "new" Mercury Classic 50 outboard motor.  The Nisswa Guide was Lund's fiberglass boat, at 16.5 feet it was super wide and heavy.  To heavy for that motor as one afternoon on Mille Lacs the waves were 3 feet and I could not get the boat on plane.  Mark Taylor was with me and after turning down wind we finally got her going before swinging around back to the landing.  That Monday I checked out the Sunday paper and there was an ad "Non Current 1988 Suzuki 55 hp Outboard Sale, 651-257-6334".  1988 and 1989 were tough years for the marine industry and many dealers had either gone out of business or had a ton of inventory.  Frankie's had a number of these and although I wasn't excited about owning a Suzuki (Heck, I didn't even know they made outboards), the price was very attractive and they would take my outboard on trade.  It was a done deal.  Frankie assured me that I would not be disappointed and he was right, that 55 woke up the Nisswa, it was a new boat.  In January of 1990 I had the opportunity to buy a Ranger 680T without a motor.  I put that Suzy on the Ranger, sold the Nisswa and wow, did that boat move.  The 680T was a nice boat but in the big waves of Mille Lacs it was somewhat inadequate.  In the spring of 1993 I drove back to Frankie's to talk about something different.  I left ordering a new Skeeter 135T with a 75 Mariner, trading in the Ranger.  Now Frankie is an optimistic guy and I was assured that it would be delivered by Minnesota Fishing Opener.  I soon learned that it was more related to whether the factory had a full load coming north from Texas than one guys expectations.  After calling Frankie to discuss he said that if I wanted to get the boat, he could refund the transportation charges.  My brother Jon was unemployed at the time, gas was still about $1.25/gallon, I offered him the full $300 and he went and picked it up in Kilgore Texas.  With just a few days to spare, Frankie's got her rigged up in time for my annual Leech Lake Opener.  The next year I ran over a plastic bag which sealed my water intakes and my new outboard froze up while traveling full throttle 7 miles from shore.  I got her started and got back to the landing and dropped it off with him, yep the pistons were scored.  After contacting the insurance, we worked a deal where he put on a new 1994 75 hp, it had 6 cubic inches more than the 1993.  We re-propped it and I ran it till 2001, when at a walleye show Frankie grabbed me and showed me the new Ranger 620T he just got.  He was right, I needed that boat and he was willing to sell.  He quoted me a price, $26,500 with a 115 Suzuki, dual axle trailer, and could order whatever color I wanted.  Giving me almost what I paid for the Skeeter I still decided to check around.  Crystal Marine was the big Ranger dealer in town so I checked, $29,000 with a Yamaha and a single axle trailer.  After telling him he was really high priced the next comment was he wanted to beat Frankie, I'll match his price.  To late, I don't play that game. 

The Dusenka's have always treated me as their #1 customer.  I can assure you that they have customers of a much higher profile than me, as being the 1st or 2nd largest Ranger Dealer in the World doesn't come from me!  Frankie's wife Deb, runs the service department and many times I have called to inquire on parts and she will always order them for me without regard.  Frankie's brother Brad runs the bait shop and in both 2002 and 2004 he advised me on our fishing trips to Alaska offering to use his boat on the Kenai.  It was the difference between a nice trip and a great trip.  They do all of my repair work and in 2009 my '01 Ranger tilt switch stuck causing my outboard to tilt up to the point where it broke off the tiller handle.  Back to Frankie's, they fixed everything and when I picked it up we began to talk about a possible trade.  I left buying a 2008 Ranger 620T with a 115 Suzuki, exactly like my 2001 only updated with a longer shaft motor and a better trailer and one heck of a price.  In this age of come and go marine dealers it's really nice to have someone you can go to who you trust, that treats you like their best customer, sells top quality products, and is always looking out for your best interests based on a number of things....usually the way you fish.  

So I did get out this weekend, on Sunday afternoon my neighbor Tom and I drove to Pelican Lake to see what was biting.  The ice is pretty thin for this time of year guessing not more than 12 inches.  Because of this we decided to go on the north end and walk out to our spot.  There were plenty of guys including Chad Bentley, a friend I snowmobile with out west who I haven't seen in a few years.  This end of the lake is about 8 - 9 feet deep and arriving at around 3:00 we figured the crappies might be hungry.  My friend Kevin felt sorry for me from last weeks trip so he sent me a Jason Mitchell Meat Stick, an excellent panfish rod.  I mounted a smaller fly reel loaded with 2# test orange colored Suffix line and was eager to try it out.  We caught about 40 sunfish, some were almost big enough to keep but honestly, I have enough fish in the freezer for a while.  Tom did get this 2 pound largemouth that put up a nice fight but that was about it.  This weekend is the end of walleye season so I might head to Mille Lacs for one last try.  Lake of the Woods is still open until April 15th and a trip north might be in the future.  The weatherman says that Sunday could see our first significant snow of the year but I have heard that before.