Fishing with Marcus

The Ice Cabin with Russ's shack in the back.

Last weekend was the third of four trips planned to go to Red Lake this year and it was the ideal opportunity to spend it with my 2 good friends from the Eau Claire area, Greg and his 18 year old son Marcus Kimblom.  Greg is one of those guys that you meet once years ago and have stayed friend ever since.  Looking back on the archives you will see that we fished Mille Lacs last July and did OK, this was their first adventure ice fishing where one stays on the ice in a heated shack, my Salem Ice Cabin.  Arriving at 8:00 AM on Friday, we headed north via our usual route, Hwy's 169 to 18 to 6 to Hwy 2 then up through Deer River where we secured bait, then onto Hwy 46 then finally the home stretch on Hwy 1 to 72 then to JR's.  My age is really starting to show as half way up I remembered that I forgot our fillet knives.  a quick stop at Kelliher and they had some cheap but adequate knives for $4.99 so we got one of those, at the worst case I can leave it in the house.  Better yet it is a lesson in not forgetting! Arriving at JR's Corner Access around 1:30 we hooked up the house to the truck and had one of the 30 pound propane tanks refilled.  I am always amazed at how little propane we go through yet maybe it's just that I don't fully understand how much is really needed, nevertheless we were ready for the weekend.  Russ Praught had been out in his house on Red since Thursday night and the plan was to hook up with him and fish in the same area.  We called Russ and got the lowdown, drive 6.5 miles west on JR's road where it comes to an end then turn right and go north about 2 miles, I'm on the right at the end of the road.  Because we drive slow on the ice, it takes about 30 minutes to get there, looking for Russ, I see his house off the road a bit, but his truck wasn't there.  Finally we see a truck, his white half ton Ford stuck in a drift.  Apparently he saw us and decided to help establish a track in the snow to make it easier to pull the shack closer to his.  Also, Russ had been tip up fishing to see if he could find us a good place to park, which he did.  It takes about an hour to get everything set up and by 3:00 we had the DirecTV hooked up, stuff put away, the house heated up nicely, and we were fishing.  Russ had his limit of walleyes and between the nice perch and the 3 of us, we managed to get enough fish to go back to JR's for a fish fry, which we did.  JR's does and excellent job as his cooks will use the special Zatarain's Gluten Free Fish Coating for my portion and of course fresh walleye, it doesn't get any better!!

Marcus With a Nice 21 Inch Walleye on a Rattle Reel

Getting back around 8:30, we still had time to get set up for the night and by 9:30 we were quite exhausted and decided to call it a night.  The fishing wasn't fast and furious but it was somewhat steady and between the four of us we had enough to go back in to JR's for a fish fry on Saturday night.  The satellite TV is nice as we got to watch the football games that were on, and as a bonus, the fishing shows in the morning.  Marcus was pretty happy, sitting in a nice comfortable RV with holes in the floor, fishing and catching a few walleyes, 7 hours from home with his dad, myself, and all the comforts one could want.   Greg and I put him on the knife sofa for sleeping arrangements figuring he is the youngest guy, he can chase those rattle reels at midnight when they go off.  Friday night was pretty quite but Saturday night presented a few opportunities.  In the end Marcus pulled in a couple of nice 20+ inch walleyes on the rattle reels, his first ever.  Apparently one of the lines broke just as he lifted it to the surface but was able to rescue both the fish and the hook.  I heard all of the commotion however decided that these guys could handle the job, which they did perfectly.  Missing another rattle reel things calmed down for the remainder of the night, however we did end up with 6 walleyes and a nice perch to clean in the morning.  We were surprised to see Russ took off quite early as he was gone when we finally got up.  As it is when we set up the house, it takes about an hour to get it back on the truck and ready to go.  It goes pretty good when you have a couple of guys you can boss around!  We finally got back to JR's around 10:30, parked the house on his lot, filleted the fish, and headed south.  My intent was to take them home via a different route, through Walker and Brainerd, stopping at Reeds so Marcus could take a look.  Getting home about 5:30 we loaded up his car and said good bye.  It was a great weekend and the highlight was having Marcus with.  This is a good experience, being with the boys, driving 9 miles out on the lake, having fresh walleye dinner every night while staying in a comfortable house right on the ice.  It's also good to meet other people like Russ and JR, two characters for sure.  It's great to give something back to the new generation, I can just hear it now, I'll be dead and gone and Marcus will be talking to his 80 year old dad saying, "Dad, do you remember the time we ice fished on Red Lake with your crazy friend Dave?"  I guess memories are a great thing to leave your friends!

Quick trip to Red

Sunset on Red Lake

At the last minute on Friday I decided to head back to JR's on Red to spend the weekend.  It was a hectic week for sure and I needed some time to clear my head.  Trust me, there is no better place to clear one's head than a weekend in the Salem!  Of course I did get some good inspiration from my friend Russ who was heading up in the morning and picking up our friend Mike at Mille Lacs.  Also our good friend Scott Anderson and a few others were joining us, my addition to the trip would assure Mike would have a comfortable place to sleep rather than in Russ's house which would have been pretty crowded.  Russ had gotten there about 1:00 and was set up southwest of Center Bar, which is about 6 miles across the ice towards the reservation line that divides Upper Red Lake.  I got out of the cities at about 1:00 so my ETA was going to be around 6:00.  This meant stopping to get minnows, bacon at Osseo Meats, eggs, and water for coffee. I arrived right on time.  I got my house hooked up and the furnace going and waited for Scott to arrive.  He was running late and I was very uncomfortable trying to find Russ out in the middle of nowhere.  Deciding to wait for Scott, he finally arrived at 7:30 which gave me time to fill up one of my empty propane tanks and unwind. Scott was in contact with Russ and knew where he was going which made it better for me, I just followed him out.  At some point we had to turn off the main path and cut through the snow, making our own path.  About 100 yards into it my truck got stuck.  Luckily Scott had a strap and he was able to pull me to my final destination about 50 yards from Russ.  Russ had already taken Scott's house out and had it set up.  It takes about an hour to get set up and the reports were that the night bite was hot.  Finally getting the house set on the ice, the snow banked up to seal the bottom, my DirecTV working, I was set for the night.  Mike came over and we settled for the evening.  I was so tired I never heard any of the rattle reels go off however Mike was good about it and had 2 walleyes and a perch in the bucket when we got up.

Texas Goodies

Saturday turned out to be a nice day as the wind had died and the sun was shining.  Through the night we had accumulated about 13 walleyes and decided to go into JR's to have fish for lunch.  They are really good at the resort in accommodating my growing sensitivity to flour and the hives I get from it. Last time I had given the cook some corn based fish coating and this time I brought a new fish coating device and some Louisiana Style Zatarain's corn based coating mix again. They did our fish in that and it was excellent, I think a lot better than what they use but again, I have little choice!  I bought a bunch of this coating for Canada as well as Leech Lake opener as we definitely have fish while on those trips.  I did go to the allergist last week and confirmed my status, you would think not eating wheat would help me loose some weight but that doesn't seem to help!  We left the bar pretty full and headed back out to fish the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Russ's brother Randy drove down from Lake of the Woods to join us, he has a new Ice Castle that is pretty nice even though he has had some issues with it.  Randy is a pretty good guy and very innovative.  He has a small snow blower he brings with to help bank his house with snow and then he clears a path between our houses so it's easier to walk.  After a game of Farkle (the official game that these guys play) I retired back to the Salem to watch the football game.  Fishing was still slow for me however the other guys seemed to do pretty good.  Apparently the trick was using a plain hook rather than an ice jig, I am not sure I get it however the results spoke for themselves.  A couple of things happened this trip.  First I broke cupboard door and forgot to bring any glue to fix it so I brought it back with me and my neighbor Tim Kuntz glued it back like new. Secondly my Strikemaster Big Volt, 12 Volt ice auger  had an issue with the main cable connector. I installed a standard Ranger type trolling motor plug into compartment where my battery is as it is hidden under the couch, and also put a trolling motor plug on the main cable so it's pretty clean.  Well the connector from the main cable to the power head had broken, I knew enough to get it working but needed a better fix so I got that done this week as well.  I got back on Sunday to go over to Tim's and watch my Green Bay Packers beat Dallas in a nail biter! Early last week I sent my two friends in Dallas some fresh cheese curds, some colby and aged cheddar from Cady Cheese near Spring Valley, WI.  Along with the cheese was a note telling them that this was something they could enjoy while watching the game on Sunday.  I receive this nice box of Texas Goodies the other day, their answer to my badgering!  My friends Joe Stanfield and Matt Davis are really great guys and any excuse to give them some crap is definitely done!

Finally when up at Red during the end of our December trip  the top cover for my stove fell down and pushed my stainless steel stove top coffee percolator off the stove and into one of our holes.  My brother Steve caught it but not before the lid on the brew basket fell off and sank.  I have been trying to get another lid but it is almost impossible.  The coffee pot is made by Tops Manufacturing and there is no website for them.  I know that this percolator is private labeled by a number of companies including GSI outdoors.  Well I e-mailed them and believe it or not they called me back and stated, yes we have them!!  I ordered a couple incase it happens again, I am impressed!  So my door is fixed, my auger connection is fixed, my coffee pot should be back in service next week, just in time for RedFest.  I am hoping to get on Mille Lacs this weekend, we'll see.

That Time of Year

Water covering the ice.

It's that time of year where one day it can be 10 degrees out and the next it can be 50.  Because of the late ice cover and the relatively mild temperatures, the ice thickness on Mille Lacs is about 24 inches.  This is pretty light as normally we would have around 30 - 36 inches.  Last Saturday was very nice out and we had .5 inches of rain around home which along with the warm weather basically melted all of what little snow we had on the ice and polled about 2 - 5 inches of water on top of the ice.  I met Mark Applen who had his house out a couple of miles out of Hunter's Point then because the road was open to the flats I decided to drive the extra 10 miles or so out to Sliver again.  This time I had my Lowrance HDS 9 with me which has the accurate map and it was pretty easy.  Mark's son-in-law, Brandon was interested in coming with so we headed off.  Hunter's stated that the road to the flats was ok however they were going to remove the bridges Sunday Morning so if I had a wheel house I needed to get off before 9 or I'd be stuck.  We were just going out for the day so that wasn't an issue however it was pretty sloppy all the way to the flats however the bridges were in pretty good shape. With all the water on the ice it was interesting to drill a few holes as the water could drain through those holes.  The action wasn't as hot as last week but we did get some fish, a lot of those 13-15 inch walleyes again, it was fun.  I am sure that this was my last trip out to the flats but at least I got to fish them a couple of times.

Hand Carved Birthday Present from my Cousin Paul

Tuesday saw me head back to Mille Lacs to help Bill prefish an area with his friend Don,  as he had a number of clients he was taking out on Wednesday and wanted to see if we could identify a bite.  We drove out of Mac's Twin Bay and fished around Hennepin Island in the 30 - 33 feet of water.  Bill must have drilled about 100 holes and all three of us basically skipped from hole to hole looking for active fish.  Unfortunately we didn't find many.  No small walleyes and I did hook a nice tullibee but it came off.  I did get a nice perch and Bill nailed a couple of tullibee's and a smaller perch but fishing was spotty for sure.  A cold front had come through and the ice had solidified pretty well.   Getting back to work, on Wednesday my cousin Paul Anderson stopped by to give me a birthday present that he made for me.  I was absolutely shocked at how nice of a job he had done on this, hand carving it from a pine board, adding a fly to the second hand, and the nice touch a Cabela's Mean Eye crankbait on the pendulum!   Wow, Paul and I were best friend growing up and his dad (my uncle) was really special.  I am really speechless and excited about my special gift that Paul has given me!!

Friday my brother Steve and I head to meet Mark Applen, Russ Praught, and his brothers to fish the Johnson Portside Perch Extravaganza.  It's a perch contest but rally it turns into a button drawing and they have some really nice prizes.  This is usually the last time I get out my wheel house as it's suppose to be 50 on Saturday.  I really love staying on the ice and my brother Steve enjoys going with me.  Too bad his son Kevin isn't around as I know he'd be with us.  Either way with the relatively warm winter and the unusually thin ice, ice out should be quite early this year and provide a fantastic opener.

Fishing in the Deep Freeze

Sunday morning Temperature -25.3F  Brrrrr.

Well, I went to Red lake last weekend for my third trip of the year and definitely the coldest trip I had been on and certainly it wasn't without it's problems.  My guests were my brother Steve and good friend Keith Holtan.  Steve drove up from LaCrosse, WI and we had to pick Keith up at his winter home in Brainerd.  Leaving about 9:30 we headed up and stopped at Bills to pick up some wild rice for JR and some minnows, plus I always like to stop and say hi.  The plan was to call Keith from Garrison however my cell phone decided to quit working about then and I got 1 last call in as we approached Brainerd. Luckily Keith was ready and it didn't take but 5 minutes and we were off to JR's.  Heading up highway 371 we went through Walker and stopped at Reeds where Keith's friend worked.  I found a nice shirt, we headed out towards Cass lake and the shortcut to Blackduck.  From there we headed up Hwy 72 and arrived at JR's about 2:00.  Hooking up the Salem we pulled it up to the access and had them fill our empty 30# propane tank.   With below zero weather scheduled we didn't want to run out of heat.   The other problem is that as stated earlier, my phone wasn't working and Russ was already set up and I had planned on fishing by him.  Luckily my brother Steve's phone worked and although I didn't have Russ's number, I had forwarded him a text from Russ and we were able to call him. He was out about 4 miles so we headed out.  We got about 3 miles out when we heard a big clunk as I looked back and saw the wheels on the Salem locked up.  Here the receiver hitch had completely pulled out of the hitch, apparently when I had Keith insert the hitch pin the hitch was not inserted all the way and the pin sat behind instead of through the hitch.   I was surprised that it lasted this far and thought that it would have pulled out right away.  The fact that it has quite a bit of tongue weight probably answers that but eventually we got everything hooked up and back on the ice road towards Russ's.  Also my friend Andy Achmann and his brother Pete were coming up so I remember my friend Jack's phone number and we left a message from Steve's phone to text us Andy's number, which he did.

My first Walleye of the Trip!

That worked perfect as Any and Pete came up on Saturday however had to replace a leaf spring on Andy's Ice Castle and that took about 5 hours in -6F weather.   When we got to where we wanted to set up out little incident a mile ago was evident as there was stuff scattered all over the inside as the inside doors opened up and spilled the contents. As I drilled the holes, Steve and Keith started jacking up the house to pull the pins on the axles.  With 3 guys, setup works pretty good and fast as I barked orders!  Once set up we touched base with Russ and Mike who was set up in the morning, the bite was going pretty good for them.  The plan was to see if we could get enough fish for us and go in and have a fish dinner.  The fish cooperated as we got 4 pretty fast including the nice on pictured here.  This fish basically inhaled my spoon tipped with a minnow head.  It was about 17 inches, perfect for eating.  We definitely got enough fish to eat as we only needed about 2 walleyes per guy and headed in at around 6:30, cleaned the fish and turned them in.  Along with Russ's infamous horseradish flavored tarter sauce, it's all we needed and ate fresh walleye on Friday night.  Getting a good nights sleep we got up to a good bite and by 1;30 in the afternoon we were ready to go in so we could eat and get back for the sundown bite and watch the Packer game.   Andy and Pete got their spring fixed and ended up setting up about 75 yards from me, which was good.  They came over to watch the game and have a few and talk about their struggles with the spring.  I know that year ice castles had spring issues and I'm glad they got it fixed.  The problem is that Saturday night thru Sunday morning was supposed to be cold, REAL cold, in fact at 7:30 game time the temperature outside the ice house was -15F.  As you see in the first picture, it got down to -24.3 F and my Honda Generator didn't like it.  It kept stopping after about 30 minutes of running in the cold, I'm sure the carb was icing up.  I wasn't sure what to do other than go out and restart it.  almost everything runs off my 12 volt battery and we were safe inside but it made me nervous not having backup power.  It stayed warm in the house but I still didn't sleep very well and got up at 4:00 AM and went outside and started my truck.   Steve got up about 6:00 and shut it off and by 8:00 it would turn over but not start, I had to get Andy to jump me.  I am sure that the battery voltage was too low and it was probably a little flooded.  We finally got it started, put the Salem back at JR's and headed south to drop Keith off and of course Steve had another 4 hours of driving.

Upon arriving at home I started researching how to keep the generator running in cold weather and found a couple of things, a cold weather kit that heats up the breather tube to prevent icing, also it was suggested that I cover it with a blanket to do the same thing.  I do plan on heading up the last weekend in January to fish and will probably pull the Salem home.  I would like to fish more on Red however it is 250 miles from Dayton and one almost has to take a day off to fully experience everything.

First trip to Red

 

View from my Chair in my portable 1 man

Working with my friend Mark who along with Russ brought their houses up to Red Lake last weekend and stored them at JR's while walking out to their fishing spots, we decided to head up on Friday, I'd drag my Salem up there, called my friend from Chippewa Falls, WI, Paul Wenaas and brother Steve from the La Crosse, Paul brought his ATV, we arrived at JR's about noon.  Russ was a champ and he and his dog Shadow rode up with me as I have had some medical issues a few weeks ago and my wife wanted someone to be with me, while Mark drove up himself.  Arriving at JR's I got my Salem house parked and got ready to head out pulling our portable fish shacks.  It was interesting as a large crack of about 50 feet opened up about 1/2 mile from shore and we were forced to fish in 8.5 feet of water whereas it would have been preferred to be in around 11 - 12 feet yet fishing till dark it was too dangerous to be wondering around in the dark. Mark and Russ was fishing close to me however I didn't have much luck, not even a perch!  Because JR'a or any resort for that matter was not allowing ATV traffic until the hazards were marked and the bridges over the cracks were in place, we walked out.  In the meantime Mark and Russ had caught some fish, while I was skunked. Between them and Steve and Paul we had enough fish to fry them up at JR's and a pizza filled us up pretty well.

 It was interesting as you can see in the picture, the ice was about 7 inches thick on Saturday and it might be ready to pull the houses out in another week.  In the meantime it was pretty cozy however I did go through 3 1#bottles of propane it wasn't too bad.  Also my Skinny Dipper I bought at the Blaine Ice Show got burnt so I had to order another one as they are pretty nice to have.  Saturday was nicer than Friday as the wind had switched from out of the west on Friday to out of the south on Saturday.  Saturday we were allowed to drive our ATV out and 7 inches of ice was plenty for that provided we drove slow still it was a slow weekend for me regarding fishing.  I think I had one bite, that was it! and it was on the rattle reel to the left (you can only see the line going down into the hole).  I marked plenty of fish but they didn't seem to like what I presented them with, who knows.  It still was fun!!!

JR's Corner Access (That's russ in the lower right corner!)

JR's Corrner Access is a great place to ice fish.  This year he redid the back cleaning area to accomodate more bench space for cleaning fish, took out the pool table and added a couple of new tables to seat more people.  It's simply a heated pole shed, I feel just like home there!  He just sells beer and Set ups so you can BYOB (Bring your own bottle) of whatever and buy a glass of ice or they cook our fish up for $5.00 a guy, served with a heaping pile of french fries what more can on ask! JR is from St. Joseph, MN just west of St. Cloud and is a great guy.  He treats both Mark and I like special guest everytime we arrive.  He loves my friend Bill Lundeen's wild rice so we brought him up 10 pounds of it this weekend, along with a quart of my fresh homemade salsa and I gave him a salmon fillet from my friend Kieth Holtan.  I was a nic wild run sockeye salmon fillet and Keith has met JR before and I am sure he wouldn't mind.  As well my friend Paul is going up to Alaska next year and I suggested he get in touch with Kieth for a great time.  JR really watches what he eats and is always appreciative of home grown food and naturally harvested stuff.  There are a lot of great people in JR's, met the guy I bought a custom crappie rod at the Blaine Ice Show, so that was nice.   Actually one of the bartenders up there is the grandson of one of our Team ENA members so we had a great time with him.  Mark and Russ are huge in playing FARKLE so on Saturday night after a hard day of fishing we had JR cook our fish and sat down for a couple of games of Farkle before hitting the sack which was good after a long walk and a good day of fishing.  A longwalk because we didn't leave the ice till after dark and Paul was driving the ATV and was naturally nervous about where he was going! Either way I can't wait to get back up to Red with my brother Steve and my friends from Sconnie and am looking forward to maybe heading up next Monday.  I am anxious to catch my first walleye of the season.

Red Hot Red

Parked on Red Lake

What a week of indecisiveness! Saturday I got a text from Russ Praught, he was in the tree stand and the talk around camp was the possibility of heading up to Red Lake with the wheel houses, bring the portables and either ATV out or walk out to the first break.  That first ice can be awesome and word was the Upper Red Lake was on fire with his friend catching 2 limits of 4 walleyes in a couple of hours.  Actually Mark Applen and I had discussed going up on the Friday after Thanksgiving and a quick call confirmed, he had a conflict on Saturday and had to be it town to attend.  On to Plan B, contact my good friend Keith Holtan to see if he had any interest.  Originally we were going to take Mark's wheel house up and leave it.  Plan B was to take my house up, park it on shore, and fish out of JR's.  Keith confirmed that he could go but would like to be back on Saturday which fit with my plans.  In the meantime Mark could not take the fishing reports and decided he would head up by himself early Friday morning and return in time for his Saturday night commitment.  On Thanksgiving the word came JR's were letting 1/2 ton pickups on the ice. So Mark headed out at 3:30 on Friday morning while I waited till 9:00, getting caught up on my extended trip back home on Thanksgiving.  Keith confirmed and I would pick him up around noon, we'd be at JR's by 3:00.  With the Salem hooked up I headed north first stopping at Bill's to get bait and propane before continuing on to Brainerd to pick up Keith.  In the meantime Mark called to confirm JR's were letting trucks and wheel houses out and he was on the lake making his way towards the rock pile.  That's a game changer as we would no longer need any portables.  As I pulled into Garrison a text from Mark confirmed, s
tarted at 11:00 and by 11:16 he had 2 fish in the bucket.  At 11:25 he repeated his text, 4 in the bucket, I'm done!  Uffda, his limit in 20 minutes and I'm still 4 hours away.  Arriving at 3:00 we said hi to the crew at JR's, paid Adam, and slowly drove on the ice heading west towards Mark. A mile or so down the lake we spotted his house and pulled up about 100 feet away.  Coming over to help we had everything set up by 4:00 with lines in the water.  I took all of one minute to have a fish in the bucket and with Mark anxious to get back to JR's for supper we went to work.  By 4:30 Keith and I had our 8 walleyes not counting the 6 or so we let go, time to go back in.  Geez, we had only been there 30 minutes and had to go.  Of course the strategy was simple, get back to JR's and clean/cook our fish before the crowd gets crazy.

40 inch Northern at Midnight

After stuffing our faces with fresh fried walleye and Russ's World Famous Tartar Sauce, it was time to head back to the Salem to settle in for night.  Keith and I decided to watch an Alaskan based movie called The Big White starring Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, and Woody Harrelson.  When my cousin Greg, Paul, brother Steve and I were in Alaska the discussion started about the best movies ever.  My choice was "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", cousin Greg's was "What about Bob", Steve's was "Second Hand Lion's" and Paul's was "The Big White".  These are all great movies and definitely worth putting on your list as I have all 4 in the wheel house.  In the meantime we continued to catch walleyes although not as fast and furious as a few hours later but it was OK as we were getting tired. Setting the rattle reels for the night it was time to get some sleep.   About 11:30 all hell broke loose on 3 of the 4 reels.  Keith had set the hook on a big fish and it decided to wrap around the remaining reels before it was subdued.  Pulling it out of the hole the fish kept coming and coming, all 40 inches of it.  A quick picture of Keith holding the fish after jumping out of bed and he let it go.  That's pretty exciting for sure.  Luckily the rest of the rattle reels were silent for the remainder of the night as we woke up at 7:30, ready for the morning bite.  Keith doesn't drink coffee and Mark showed up just in time to fill up my mug which was appreciated.  He had 3 fish and was looking for a 4th as he planned on leaving withing an hour or so.  The bite started picking up around 8:00 and we were able to help Mark with his needs and fill up our bucket with 8 really nice 17 - 19.5 inch walleyes by noon.  We continued fishing till 3:00 before packing up and parking the Salem behind JR's till next time.  After cleaning the fish we headed south for the long journey back to Brainerd, then home.  Although we only stayed about 23 hours with another 10 hours of driving and 2 hours of setting up and tearing down, it was quite a trip.  The walleye action was incredible and it was amazing to think we are at least a month ahead of where we were last year.

Successful Morning's fishing on Red Lake

Fishing on Red Lake has been nothing short of phenomenal, much so that the limits have changed for December 1st to February 22, 2015.  Because our trip was still in November we were allowed 4 walleyes under 20 inches and although 1 of those fish could be over 26 inches we would never keep one that big.  On Monday the possession limit drops to 3 and the length drops to under 17 inches. There has been a lot of fish taken out of the lake in the last couple of years and though the walleye population seems healthy I don't think it's going to bother anyone too much if they cut the harvest back somewhat.  With the Lake Mille Lacs restrictions of 2 fish between 18 and 20 inches, the change in Leech Lake and Winnibigoshish perch populations, and the huge increase in fisherman using wheel houses (Count me in!) Red Lake is almost the perfect storm.  A good population of fish, little structure so almost any spot can be a good spot, the ability to hold a lot of houses more than offsets the 4 1/2 hours of drive time.  I suspect that eventually things will change, the fishing will die down on Red,  Lake of the Woods - Leech - Winnie - Mille Lacs will become more popular and the hope is they become more wheel house friendly.  Right now it seems as though 50% of the wheel houses are at Red right now and will be for another couple of months.  I know that as the years progress it is much more enjoyable fishing out of my portable RV with holes in the floor than it is dragging the ATV and my Clam X2 Thermal, unloading it and finding a spot to fish.  It also nice to hit these further away lakes and have the ability to spend a couple of days enjoying the outdoors rather than simply loading and unloading your stuff and leaving right away.  I'll always have the portables as it's really not a bad way to fish, in fact I'm looking to upgrade my one man Clam to a fully thermal model as my go to panfish shelter.   I am finishing this post on a Delta Airlines A320 bound for San Diego for our annual fall TTA (The Transformer Association) meeting.  The 70 degree weather will be a nice change to the below normal temperatures we have been having in Minnesota.  No trip would be complete without something to do with fishing and Friday will be no different as my friend Bill Dull has arranged a half day charter off the coast of San Diego to fish the kelp beds.  This is something I have yet to do so I'm pretty excited.  Going with will be my Golden Brother CK from Taiwan as well as Chris and Jeffrey Chen, Randy Eller, and Lyle Shaw.  Here's hoping we'll have some nice pictures for next week.  Getting back on Saturday, Jeffrey is flying in on Sunday to visit our factory.  We are planning to go to the St. Paul Ice Fishing Show, it should be an interesting experience as Jeffrey i from Taiwan and I can assure you there is no ice fishing there!

Lake Oahe, Days 1 and 2



Steve with a nice Striped (white) Bass

Not unlike my trip last month to Canada, last weeks adventure to Lake Oahe was a return to a 22 year old memory of the last time I fished with my friend Roger Weber, of Aberdeen, South Dakota fame.  Besides re-living memories, our host Russ Praught let us on to the increased daily limit of 8/day and possession limits of 24 fish for walleyes caught on Lake Oahe.  Because the severe lack of baitfish has threatened the populations of walleyes, a special regulation was put in place to help reduce the numbers of predators in the system.  Of the 8 per day, only 4 could be longer than 15 inches, with only 1 over 20 inches.  The ideal catch of the day would be 1 over 20", 3 at 19" and 4 at 14.5" per guy.  The actual catch would prove to be productive however not as optimistic.  Russ and his group left at 4:00 however we weren't as anxious as my brother Steve, Mark Applen, and I headed out at 6:00AM.  Arriving 7 1/2 hours later, we were on the water by 2:30 and immediately found Russ, Nate, and Gary fishing in the bay.   Oahe is a large reservoir on the Missouri River that extends over 230 miles above the dam in Pierre, SD.  The fishing locations consist of finding flooded points and flat areas that offer structure to hold fish.  For the most part it is flooded canyons and sharp drop-offs that mark the old river channel, and often dropping to 90 feet deep in less than 50 yards.  My Lowrance has an Insight function that is helpful in determining structures as well one can sometimes figure out what's below by looking at the shoreline to see, is it steep or sloping?  Reservoir levels can

Mark in Striper Heaven!

fluctuate considerably so the reference depth contours of my map chip are based on the full pool.  With the water level down about 20 feet and assuming some inaccuracies,  the contour lines were off by up to 30 feet yet were good enough to provide an great reference for what was under the boat.  Russ was fishing in 25 - 40 feet of water in the bay and catching a few.  We decided to move to the Moreau River area around an island to try our luck.  We did catch a number of 12 -13 inch walleyes but through them back, looking for larger fish.  The plan for a fish fry that night didn't look so good as we only had 5 in the live well.  It would soon become obvious that if you wanted fish, those 12 inch walleyes would start looking better.  As the boat worked our way back up the shore line we entered a mud line (caused by the interaction between the waves and the current) and immediately I got hit. This was no walleye and soon I hoisted a 18 inch striped bass.  Looking at Mark who was in the front of the boat I yelled....ANCHOR LOCK as the Terrova can hold the boat in one position, I knew these fish school up and it could be a frenzy.  I was right!  Steve and I traded our jigs for crank baits and we were catching a 17 - 19' striper on at least 9 out of 10 casts.  Mark was going crazy as he had never experienced a hot striper bite and couldn't get over the amount of triples we experienced.  I took a video and uploaded it on YouTube, you can check it out on this link: Striper Fishing.  The action lasted for over an hour before we were forced to leave, my guess was we caught close to 200 fish.  We used to catch these fish on Lake Pepin but never this big and for this long.  It was a great day to end day 1. 

23" Walleye

Day 2 brought the hottest day of our trip, over 100 degrees by early afternoon.  Determined to stay cool and protected a long sleeve Simms fishing shirt and long Cabela's fishing pants were my choice of clothing.  The new modern fishing clothing are amazing even on a miserable day like Thursday turned out to be.  After deciding that yes, the Moreau River was nice, the walleyes were small and challenging to locate.  One of the features on my Lowrance Map software was fishing tips for areas and after reviewing a few notes about a bay south of Swan Creek, we decided to try a few areas before settling in on Fielder Bay.  As we entered the bay Steve noticed something moving on shore.  Needing a little break we motored over to the far shoreline only to find 3 horses standing at the edge of the water and shaking their heads up and down.  The oddest thing we had ever seen I took a video and again uploaded on YouTube, check it out on this link: The Nodding Horses .  It was as though they were saying......Yes, Fish Here!!!  Well, within a few minutes I landed what would be the largest walleye for the first 2 days, a 23 inch fat pig.  The horses were right, Fish Here!  We did get a few more walleyes however as it got warmer during the afternoon we needed to find something a little more productive.  Moving out of the bay and into the main river we noticed a boat fishing just south of an area called Slide Hill.  With my contour map I could see that it was working an underwater point in the 22 - 26 foot range.  The wind created a perfect drift as we started fishing somewhat shallower that our previous target depth of around 30 feet.  Immediately we started catching fish.  Walleyes, northern, sheepshead, catfish, smallmouth bass, perch, crappies, stripers, one never knew what you would pull up once the hook was set.   Still being somewhat particular with the size of our walleyes, it just didn't seem right to keep those 12 inchers but man, this was the majority of what we were putting in the boat.  It was a lot of fun catching a variety of fish and admittedly those larger catfish put on quite a fight, we still fell short of
our limit of walleyes despite the liberal limits.  Something was not right and we finally figured it out, it was us!  As we met Russ and his 2 partners Gary and Nate Fischbach back at the landing meeting at the very nice cleaning station it was obvious, if we were going to catch our limit it had to include a significant number of small walleyes.  As we talked to the locals who fished the area often, they acknowledged that the population of walleyes were skewed to the under 

Second day limit from Russ, Gary, and Nate

15 inch fish and the regulations encouraged the harvest of the smaller walleyes.  If you have ever fished Lake of the Woods in the winter, you will soon figure out that a 13 inch sauger is an average fish and fair game.  Setting our standards at about 14 inches cost us a day and a half of our possession limit and going forward we relaxed our expectations.  Besides, a 13 inch perch was always acceptable, tomorrow would be different.

Our first 2 days proved to be our exploratory phase of the trip.  Getting our bearings and fishing memories from 20 years ago, we needed to step it up if we were going to bring home any fish.  I always like to leverage myself with the locals as they can shortcut your strategy considerably.  Akaska, SD is a friendly town of fisherman with a great sense of community that is tied to fishing.  Cleaning my boat a couple drove by with their golf cart, the preferred mode of travel, asking how we did.  Explaining the small fish I was assured that the under 15 inch fish made up the majority of the population and we should really start keeping these. As well I related my story of fishing 20 years ago with my friend Roger and his home town friends the Kessler's, when George Kessler hosted Governor Mickelson of South Dakota.  The guy remembered the day the Governor came to Akaska, an effort from the local supporters to get the 9 mile stretch of gravel road from town to the boat landing paved with asphalt.  The shore lunch we had off a bay south of the landing was the inspiration for what now is known as Governor's Bay, named after that event.  It's interesting to realize that I was there for a small piece of history that was significant to the local area. Governor Mickelson tragically died in a plane crash on April 19, 1993 as it was a sad day for my South Dakota friends.  My experience was special as our shore lunch was spectacular, eating fresh fried walleyes and all the fixin's while the Governor told stories of the wild west, South Dakota style.  Later he offered to buy everyone a drink at the local saloon as we walked down the boardwalk to enjoy a beer with him.  Today that saloon is gone, the road is still maintained, and the memories are as they happened yesterday.  This week is family reunion time and I have much more to share for day 3 and 4, it will have to wait.