Another Deer Hunting Season

$3800 of damage by a buck that must have had other things on its mind!

The 2019 Minnesota Deer Hunting season is pretty much over for me this year.  The ultimate irony occurred as driving to our hunting land on Saturday morning, a mile from our destination a buck ran smack into my GMC truck's front driver's side door before bouncing off and hitting the back quarter panel on the truck.  It sounded like the buck hit pretty hard so turning around and heading back to the scene of the collision, maybe I could tag a deer without even having to pull the trigger.  Approaching the scene,  the buck wasn't there however a quick look up and it was running on the shoulder ahead of me.  Originally thinking it might be injured, honestly I have never seen a deer run so fast.  After about 100 yards it veered off into the woods.  It didn't look like it suffered too much but I can't believe it wasn't pretty sore after that! Saturday was nice and warm yet it did start snowing mid afternoon.  Not willing to climb a tree stand anymore, I hunted out of a standard ground blind.  I saw deer and heard them behind me yet either it was too dark or I could not see them.  The pheasants were pretty active, and the Tundra Swans were really flying around as the lakes continued to freeze.  Although there was not a lack of deer in the area as the land we hunt is in an extensive harvest zone yet with so much corn standing in the fields, the shooting shut down pretty fast as those deer are pretty smart, except the one that ran into my car. 

Deer trail in front of my stand

Deer sign is all over as I set up my stand in a corner of a field/swamp/woods edge with a well used deer trail went by.  Unfortunately one never knows if these are trails used to move from one area to another at night.  Sunday morning there was a number of fresh tracks in the trail however as we used to say in Eleva, it's tough to make track soup.  Sunday was about the same, a few shots heard but it was pretty quiet from about 7:00 in the morning on.  Obviously the deer were deep in the corn as after talking to a number of hunters, the story was all the same, pretty slim pickings.  The snow had made the roads quite slippery as we passed a pickup truck that has spun out and rolled over in a ditch, just south of Richardson Corner.  The weather was headed for a significant drop in temperature in the next few days as throughout the day it was getting colder.  Even though all the lakes and swamps in the area were froze over, the predicted over night lows in the single digits, would definitey finish the job, and pretty early this year.  Staying at Jack's cabin on Platte Lake, one could walk on the lake without cracking the ice. 

Satellite view of Upper and Lower Red Lake

Speaking of cold weather and ice, Red Lake is progressing quite well for this early in the year. this is a satellite view of the lake from Modis Today.  It shows that Red Lake is completely froze over however it is very vulnerable to winds and changing temperatures.  This was a picture from Tuesday, November 12, it was reported today that a number of ice fisherman had to be rescued from unstable ice conditions on Upper Red Lake.  A few years back Mark Applen and I were able to drive out with our wheel houses on the day after Thanksgiving, and this year it is looking promising as the 10 day forecast has the daily temperature below freezing.  Although we are not in a particular hurry, as long as it is going to be cold, one might as well be fishing.  It will be great to see JR again but safety is always a priority.  That is of course if and when I get my Salem Ice Cabin back from the shop while my Ranger is still getting it's axle replaced, then it needs new tires and a few other things taken care of.  For now it's simply a waiting game, get the Salem, Get the Ranger put to bed for the winter, and wait for safe ice.

Every Other Week

Ben and a nice 27 inch LOTW's walleye

The schedule is working out such that my fishing outings at Red Lake turn out to be every other weekend starting December 14, 28, January 11, and the 25th will probably be my last trip.  So last weekend with the nice weather, there was an attempt to get some things done.  The rainy weather we had after Christmas really messed things up and the 45 degree temperatures of last weekend helped to loosen things up a bit and get the sidewalks and driveways cleared of ice.  Whilst I was busy chipping away my friend Ben Aiona headed up to LOTW (Lake of the Woods) with his wheel house and to my surprise fished out of Morris Point Resort, on the south side of the lake.  Lake of the wood has been a lot like Mille Lacs, very slow to embrace the technology of portable wheel houses as their business model has been more directed towards semi guided trips where the resorts would charge you so much a day for lodging, a ride to and from what we would call a skid type ice house, fish until sunset then a ride back into the resort for lodging.  Most if not all of the transportation would be via a vehicle called a Bombardier which is basically a van with skis in the front and tracks in the back to push it along.  The advantage is that they could charge by the person, usually around $80 - $100 a day for the combination of everything and unless you had a snowmobile, it was usually difficult to travel via your own vehicle to get anywhere on the lake.  Today things have changed from 20 years ago, most serious ice fisherman have their own wheel houses (Like myself) and they are getting more family focused whereas they have dual use as an ice house in the winter and a camper/RV in the summer.  Wheel houses were the curse for the traditional resort operator as now their customers had their own accomodations.  Red Lake was probably the first lake to really popularize the welcoming of wheel houses, for no other fact than they did not have an established resort business that counted on the combination fishing model.  It is amazing to see Red lake, often times there are thousands of wheel houses parked across the lake.  Many of these guys were ardent Mille Lacs, Leech Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Lake of the Woods fisherman.  Honestly a few resorts on these lakes worked with wheel houses however many of them viewed them as the enemy to their livelihood.  Unfortunately this form of ice fishing is here to stay as more and more resorts are seeing this as a sign to help develop a better business model using individual houses.  Traditional means of ice fishing requires a lot of work and maintenance yet with wheel houses one only needs to offer a decent road system and take advantage of the needs of these guys, stuff like propane, fish cleaning, a place to sit and eat.  I definitely can't say which is a better model however it is becoming more obvious that things are changing and those who adapt are the survivors.  Based on Ben's report I would like to get up there and fish, maybe in March as Morris Point was one of our places I used to fish with my friend Mark Mayerich, where we would use our portable ice houses and stay in their facilities.  Ben did very well, a lot better than we have been doing on Red.  Although he caught a lot of fish, many of them were small but mixed in was enough to take some home as well a couple of dandy's including this 27 incher.

Upper Red Lake (BLue) is Fishable Area

Friday I am heading back to JR's for the weekend with my bone collector friend Greg Kimblom and his son Marcus.  My friend Mark Applen went up last weekend and really did not do very well.  I question his going up alone, with the snow on the lake, it's sort of dangerous, as he told the story of getting really stuck in the snow and what we call "Shale" ice, flat thin sheets of ice chunks that blew together then froze, hard for the truck to get any traction and he claims that the rear end got hung up.  This is why I carry a set of easy to install chains with me, just for these situations.  Luckily I have never had to use them except once, and I guarantee that they are nice to have when one needs them.  He has some commitments this weekend however our friend Russ is heading up on Thursday and hopefully he will have a better report as his strategy is to fish south of where we have been since December 14th, near the rockpile in shallower water.  Our theory is the vehicle traffic to Center Bar just keeps pushing the fish west into the Reservation side of the lake, so maybe a little further south might just be the ticket.  It hard to say and it isn't too bad to move yet it does take an hour to set up and an hour to pack up so the older we get the lazier we are! I think if I had the energy it would be more successful heading to Lake of the Woods, yet that's another hour's drive north and a new experience to learn.  Maybe in March, like the good old times!  Here's hoping for a good report for next week.

Missing Deer Hunting

Ben's first Buck!

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

Freshly frozen salmon fillets!

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

Better Late Than Never

Phoenix from the plane

It has been a whirl wind of events in the last 5 days.  Last Wednesday thru Friday was spent in warm Phoenix Arizona for our annual fall TTA meeting at the Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch.  It was very nice there although there was little time to do anything interesting and little water to plan a fishing trip with my friends like previous years.  It was interesting as the weather was somewhat cooler than normal in Scottsdale and back home the weather was warmer than normal however we had a number of interesting speakers and learning sessions.  The most interesting topic came on Friday morning when the gentleman from ITR gave his annual economic forecast and it certainly didn't look good for 2030.  Hopefully I will be retired by then!  Phoenix is quite dry and unless you are on a golf course or irrigated farm land it pretty brown.  Some people claim the bass fishing is quite good in some of the reservoirs however when I travel my intent is to fish for something I cannot catch in my backyard, like last year's Goliath Grouper.  In March we have our annual APEC conference in San Antonio, TX and we were talking about seeing if we can get back to the fish camp in Cameron, Louisiana.  Now that was a fabulous trip and amongst our friends, we all would love to get back there to catch some nice redfish, I guess we will have to see if we can get our friend Joe to set it up again.

Pistol gripped Ice Rod

As stated last week, myself and neighbor Lory headed to the Ice Fishing show on Sunday.  It was packed but is well worth the time and effort to spend it with the various vendors and resorts.  One area that caught my eye was ice fishing in Door County, Wisconsin in March for both large walleyes staging to spawn and also fish whitefish in the deeper waters.  I really enjoy catching tullibee in Mille Lacs, which are technically cisco's, a member of the whitefish family.  Lake whitefish are larger yet share the same traits of following your bait and fighting hard. I'll start thinking about this after the first of the year.  In the meantime I did buy some things for this years upcoming ice fishing season.  First it was an unusual ice rod with a molded handle.  It is an interesting pistol grip which affords you to hold the rod in a more natural position for your hand and arm, thus minimizing the fatigue. It feels really good and I am anxious to catch some Red Lake walleyes with this!  The other thing I bought was a pop up Eskimo insulated portable fish house, I call them hub styles.  My ground blind I use for deer hunting is made the same way, the frame is attached to a center connection point then one simply pops it out to set up.  Years ago I had bought one from Cabela's which included a sled, hand auger, the fish house, a couple of collapsable chairs and a cover for the whole thing for about $150 on clearance. I liked it however it was not built very good and after a couple of years it broke.  I told this to the guy at the show about it and he wanted to take care of me however I suggested that it was a cheap house to begin with.  I like these houses as they are fairly light, can fit inside the back of my truck very easily, big enough for 2 or 3 guys, don't take much to heat, and the quality of the frame systems looks much improved.  They had a lot of dealers selling them at the show however at this late time, no one had the one I wanted in stock.  The Eskimo guy new just what to do for me.  Normally the model I was looking at was $329.  Reeds had it in at the show for $289.  The Eskimo guy brought me to the Cabela's booth where they were simply price matching plus a discount so they signed me up for the same thing for $232, however I needed to pick it up by 7:00 at the store near my house.  Lory and I left the show and headed for the store where they gave me an extra $30 off so I ended up buying it for $202, not a bad deal at all!  I had enough Cabela points so I paid it from there, no cash out of my pocket!  While looking at some stuff my friend Ben Aiona spotted us and said hi.  His dad Kevin, my great friend from Eleva, was on his way up so we hoped we would meet him, eventually we did.  Both Lory and I had a great time, I bought a few things, got to talk to a few guys, including the owner of Vexilar, that was quite interesting.  Tom Zenanko was in the booth and I was telling him that our company was instrumental in getting his Clear Water Classic to market via designing the output transformer that drives the transducer, we ended up making 15,000 before it went to China.  It was a good conversation.

South Shore of Red Lake via JR's, lots of open water!

Well Red Lake has went backwards the last 2 weeks with the warm weather raising chaos with the ice conditions up there.  3 weeks ago it looked like we were in for an early season and I would be dragging my wheel house to JR's this coming weekend.  The opposite happened and the ice conditions deteriorated as the warm weather took it's toll.  Last weekend a young couple drove their ATV into the water and they along with their ATV were eventually found at the bottom of the lake. Sorry but I know things happen however this early in the season, there is no excuse for recklessness.  If you are going to venture on questionable ice at least wear a life jacket and have some ice picks with you.  There is no fish worth dying for.  I will simply leave it at that.  The good news is, after today the temperatures will plunge into the single to below zero range at night with highs in the mid teens during the day..........cold enough to start making an inch a day of good ice.  It is supposed to snow there and that will not help anything yet I predict that by December 16th things will be in full swing as I will haul my wheel house up for that weekend and get ready for the week after Christmas.

Deer Hunting Success

Flock of Migrating Sandhill Cranes Passing Overhead

My measurement for deer hunting success these days consists of whether I even get a chance to get out in the woods any more and has little to do with if I actually shoot a deer or not`. Oh well, I usually have enough friends that have been successful and quite honestly get enough venison to satisfy my cravings. Last week's post talked about making my late brother-in-laws absolutely fabulous venison bologna recipe and it looks like neighbor's Pete and Todd have enough to supply the deer meat with me supplying the recipe, know how, sausage stuffer, smoker, and vacuum packer, it looks like we are set for a fun day of bologna making.  As stated, Rich's land is really wet, the wettest we've ever seen. Like the last 3 years we hunted Jack's neighbor's land, Loren's.  Loren is Jack's neighbor at his cabin on Platt and is a fabulous guy.  There is quite a few deer around however I think that if we want to get serious about hunting his land, we need to make some decent tree stands as the ground blinds are nice yet the view is limited.  Admittedly the ground stands are nice, especially this year when it snowed about 4 inches on Friday night then rained all day on Saturday.  Actually the snow had collapsed the roof of my stand when I arrived on Saturday however it didn't take long to pop it back out and get the heater started.  It's pretty comfortable inside and I had a nice view of the clearing in front of me.  There was a lot of standing corn in the area and was little shooting in the morning.  We saw fresh tracks in the snow as we drove in along the corn however heading to our stands, we were the only ones making tracks.  Of course with the fresh snow on the ground, anything walking did not make any noise so it was difficult to hear anything.  Except around 10:00 Saturday morning, a God awful racket was to the north of me coming closer.   They were much louder than geese so I stepped outside to see a flock of 51 sandhill cranes come flying over.  They are beautiful birds and it was interesting to watch them, they would fly a few hundred yards then pick up an updraft where they took advantage of it as the entire flock circled to gain altitude.  They did this a number of times before I was unable to see them anymore.  The cold weather has frozen the swamp so it looks like we will be able to hunt the high ground by Rich's (Now Brett's) this weekend.  Maybe I'll actually have some venison to contribute to the bologna making party!  If anyone wants the recipe let me know.

Pretty Much Says it All!

This week has been very stressful as I lost my phone while in Costco picking up steaks for last week. Losing a phone is almost as bad as losing your wallet these days.  With the help of my friend Welly we were able to lock up the phone via the internet and locate it.  I have learned that this "location" is not very accurate and is based on how well it is receiving a GPS signal.  Well my wife happened to call Costco on Sunday and even though we went there on Friday to see if they had it, apparently the left hand doesn't talk to the right hand very well, I think they did have it but what the heck, I got it back.  It is a pain to unlock it as you basically have to start all over again, uffda.   Then on Saturday I called my wife via my OnStar in my truck............more good news, the well stopped pumping water.  This happened in 1999 and e had the pump replaced, that one lasted 7 years, this one was going on 19 years, I guess that's double the original.  I called the guy and he came out on Tuesday morning, did a few things, pulled the cover off the well and VOILA there was a dead mouse laying on the wires it chewed on. I guess that was a fitting ending to it's life but the good news was the fix was relatively easy.  A new splice, some adjustments to the cover so this would not happen again, and $200, we had water again.  That sure beats filling the toilet tanks by hand or paying $2000 for a new pump to be installed. So everything is almost back to normal again.  It looks like I will be back up with Jack and try my luck deer hunting this weekend.  the latest satellite pictures show Upper Red Lake pretty much froze over and the temperature tonight will be around 5 above zero so it won't be long now!  I guess the picture above says it all.

A beautiful lady for sure!

As a parting note there was some sad news from my home town of Eleva this week, our good friend Joanne Strong passed away this weekend from Pancreatic cancer.  Joanne was what Eleva is, a beloved resident who was a dear friend when I grew up in town.  As a teenager I worked at Wenaas Mobil and Joanne always had something wrong with her car like a flat tire or the muffler was loose.  I would fix it and tell her to simply get out of here as she never had much money!  She worked at the service bar at Wagner's 66 1/2 Lanes in Eau Claire (Click on her name to see her obituary) and it was a time when bowling was actually something to do on a Saturday night.  Yes, like the obit says, she made the best Bloody Mary's as I'll never forget the time my brother Steve and I went up to bowl.  Danny Van Pelt, another good influence in my life, loved Vodka Gimlets with olives and he had graced me with acquiring the taste of them while we were in Canada with the Tollefson's.  I remember making them for him by chipping ice off the big block we bought in town before we went on the lake (Actually it was cut lake ice).  This was my choice cocktail that night.  Joanne made the best and the more I had the better I bowled as I racked up 4 strikes in a row, a spare and 4 more strikes in a row finishing with a score of around 240, the absolute best I had ever done.  I blame my good score on the gimlets that Joanne was giving me!!  Thank the Lord Steve drove home that night.  One day she needed a different car so her step dad, Stanley, Joanne, and myself (they respected my opinion) drove to Mondovi to look at what I remember was a 1965 Dodge Dart.  It was like new on the inside, some rust on the body and it was powered by the famous slant 6 engine.  I noticed some hesitation in the transmission, he wanted $125 for it, I told Joanne that the tranny sounded rough but we could put one in from the junk yard later if needed, offer him $75.  The guy took it and Joanne drove that car for at least 6 more years without a problem.  Even the last time I saw her she still remembers that day we went to get the car.  I am planning to go see Joanne one last time, unfortunately it is a cruel reminder that we are all getting older. Maybe I'll have a gimlet tonight in memory of my dear friend Joanne, I am sure that the people of Eleva will definitely miss her.  Here's to a grand Lady, Love you Joanne!

December's Cold Moon

Full Moon Over the Pole Shed

The Native Americans had a tradition of naming each of the full moons such as March's Worm Moon or October's Harvest Moon.  December's Full Moon bears the name of Cold Moon and occurred on December 16th of this week.  Interestingly enough the shortest day of the year is the is December 21st and the full moon on the 19th will represent the longest moon lit night of the year.  This week is as crazy as they all seem as Sunday was filled with picking up Lory at the airport port as he returned from his trip to China.  This was at 2:30 in the afternoon, brought him home then turned right around and drove back to pick up 2 business associates from Taiwan at 6:30.  The Taiwanese are not used to the cold and it was quite entertaining to see their reactions.  Two days of meetings with them, dinner each night, Wednesday would see me boarding a flight to Denver (where I am writing this from).  When I travel to China visiting them at their factory we have a tradition of going to the 101, a Taiwanese based  restaurant near the hotel.  The food is excellent and if you look back at some of my previous posts their is a picture of me with the owner.  While here I wanted to take them to a genuine Minnesota place to eat and decided on the  Tavern on Grand in St. Paul.  I believe they serve the best walleye around town and offer it in various forms such as walleye cakes, walleye spring rolls, pan fried, blackened, broiled, and served with deep fried dill pickles or their lefse dish, you can't beat it.  Scrambling to get things done on Tuesday night, I rounded the corner by my garage and was taken back by the beautiful scene created by the full Cold Moon's effect on the new fallen snow.  Grabbing the camera I snapped this picture, a winter wonderland right in my back yard.  If you see notice the bright object just down and left of the moon, this is the Planet Jupiter as they travel together through the night.  Wow.

Nice Sunfish

With the cold weather and snow it's was questionable whether I's get out ice fishing or not.  With a ton of snowplowing to do before Sunday. Luckily my neighbor Tom stopped over about 1:00 to see what was going on, that's all it took as we planned to go to Pelican for the evening.  Not sure of the ice or snow conditions we loaded up the Razor and headed out.  Approaching the lake there were trucks on the ice!  I have been keeping track of ice conditions up north at Mille Lacs and Red Lake, with the snow it hasn't froze much at all.  Well, I'm not driving on the ice so we pulled off the Razor and headed to an area we have done pretty good in the past, about 3/4 mile from the landing.  Drilling our holes I was pleasantly surprised at the 16 or more inches of ice.  Even more interesting was the ice was virtually devoid of any deep snows.  I have at least 6 inches in the yard but there was about an inch on the ice.  It was actually evenly distributed so it wasn't the wind that blew it off.   I suspect the early snow caused water to cover the lake and it refroze allowing it to create the fairly thick ice so early.  Honestly, I would not have been afraid to drive out but with another week of cold weather, it's should be perfect by now.  We did get a lot of little ones however both Tom and I each nailed a nice sunfish.  OK, only about 8 inches but heck, better than 99% of what we've been getting the last couple of years. 

Returning on Friday, Mark and I are planning on going to Red Lake Friday afternoon to pull the wheel house up to JR's.  A text from him yesterday didn't sound very good as the resort was pulling all wheel houses off the lake and restricting travel via snowmobile or chained ATV's at this time.  Apparently the slush is real bad and has created an undesirable situation.  Now if they didn't have any snow and accounting for the low temperatures, the lake should have 20+ inches of ice by now.  The snow unfortunately insulates the ice from freezing very fast so Pelican lake here next to home has much more ice than Red Lake which is 4.5 hours straight north of here.  Even with the many sub -20 degree nights, it's still not making ice like we need.  We are keeping daily updates and if we get the all clear, Mark and I plan on leaving Friday afternoon.  If not, well hopefully after Christmas will find better conditions.  All I know is the fishing reports from Red are excellent and we are missing out!Merry Christmas to everyone and we'll see what the weekend brings.

Happy Thanksgiving

Mille Lacs Ice, as far as one can see!

Another Thanksgiving is upon us, this year arrived much quicker than the last one.  I guess having spent a Saturday afternoon in the emergency room give one a lot of time to think about the things that we are thankful for.  Good health is right on the top of that list!  It's been interesting since the neurologist gave me a clean bill of health with the simple suggestion to take a full aspirin each day, my bouts of short lived dizziness have all but disappeared.  Lasting between 10 seconds and a minute, it was a common once a day occurrence but now it's been over a week.  Maybe it's just all in my head!  The other thing to be thankful for is early ice.  Every year we are subjected to different conditions, the earliest I have been safely ice fishing was November 17th while in the late 1990's we were still fishing from the boat on Mille Lacs, all the way to December 6th.  I still remember how we hammered the walleyes on the north end of the lake fishing the sand drop off with nightcrawlers, quite the experience.  On Saturday my wife and I drove to the Onamia VFW to help celebrate a friends 50th wedding anniversary and spend time with our friends Bill and Kathy.  On the way home, just past Chico's Place the car thermometer hit -1 below zero and it's been cold every night since.  Even this morning I had 2 degrees above with one exception, the wind was calm.  With the last 4 days of big winds, even with the low temperatures the wave action delays the freeze, especially on a big body of water like Mille Lacs.  Well, last night she tightened up as the picture shows ice as far as one can see.  I have heard of 4 inches in the bays were the water has been calmer the last few days but fully expect that by Sunday there should be walkable ice on the pond.  The weekend plans are to head up to the deer hunting camp and remove my ladder stand.  With this cold weather the swamp will be frozen making it much easier to drive the ATV back into the woods to haul it out as it's quite heavy and bulky.  That should leave some room to hit a local lake on Sunday with the hopes of getting some panfish.  I have all the gear ready, it's just a matter of getting out.  I did buy a Thorne Brothers custom panfish rod at the Ice Fishing Expo a few weeks ago, coupled with the new Clam inline reel and 3# Sufix orange Ice Line it looks like it should work very well.  Hopefully I'll have a report early next week.

They just can't leave them alone!

So what's not to be thankful, well how about the assault on my trees by the local whitetail bucks needing to scratch their horns.  Our house is situated on 5 acres of land, just a lot off the Mississippi River.  Ever since the day we moved in the deer find the garden, the apples, and the trees are fair game in there quest to be deer.  Over the years I have lost a number of trees to these antler rubs, enough to think that I would know better than to leave the bark uncovered.  The problem seemed to go away during the last few years so one forgets.  Hopefully this tree will make it as the scrape is only on one side and does not encircle the entire tree.  Either way it will show some damage and maybe 10 years from now that damage will have weakened it enough to blow down in a good storm.  Wherever the outcome, I'd still would have liked to see the deer that did this and maybe need to find my trail cam and take some pictures.  When I first moved in we saw big bucks all the time however they seem to be more nocturnal these days.  With the ground frozen and a wetter than normal fall, the garden cleanup will just have to wait till spring.  Most of the leaves are finally off the tree yet it's too cold to chop them up with the mower, that will have to wait for spring as well.  I finally removed the mower deck from the John Deere and installed my snow blower, hopefully we won't have to use it for a while.  The chains and back blade are on the Ferguson as that's ready to go for the winter season.  With a few odds and ends to wrap up, I think we are set for the winter.  I'd still like to make some vension sausage with the trimmings from the early November deer hunting success, maybe a good snowstorm project.  I am also planning on trying to fish more with my friend Kevin and brother Steve.  They seem to always do well with the big sunfish as one has to travel a couple of hours anyway to find them, I might as well join them.

Mark Applen and I are already planning the annual "go somewhere and ice fish" trip that happens between Christmas and New Years.  With the success we experienced at Upper Red Lake, it's on the top of the list for this year.  Last year's trip was hampered by late ice as we were one of the first houses out to the offshore hump a number of miles from shore.  I think this contributed to our fantastic fishing we had however this year with the early cold weather, I'm sure the fish patterns will be well established before we get there.  The nice thing about fishing Upper Red Lake is if in fact the fishing isn't that good you are only an hour from Lake of the Woods or Winnibigoshish, which can also be fabulous fishing.  I am in San Antonio next week and hope to have something written by the time I leave.  The Packers play on Thanksgiving and let's hope they do better than their performance against the Vikings last Sunday, it was pretty pitiful from a Cheesehead's perspective.  Have a great Thanksgiving and if your ice fishing, be safe as that water is pretty cold.