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.

Winter's Back

Today I woke up to the grim reminder that even though we have officially passed the Spring Equinox, winter still rears it's ugly head and has it's option of returning for another 30 days.  With 7 inches on the ground and a low temperature of 0 predicted for the morning, the wonderful weather I experienced in Texas is simply a fond memory!  We are entering the time of year I call no man's land.  The ice will be on the lakes till at least the 3rd week in April, yet too unstable to ice fish unless you go 300 miles north.  It usually takes a few weeks for the water to warm up but I am guessing it will be May before the boat will come out.  Along with the snow we got a pretty good rain, totally around 2.5 inches of total precipitation.  Of course this has raised the latest media hype regarding the flood warnings around Minnesota.  I don't recall it being at this level however based on the snow and rain, it doesn't look good.  Roads are closing and unfortunately a state road worker was killed when his excavator was trying to clear an ice dam when the water's current sweep his machine into the raging flood.  My good friend Kevin sent me an e-mail today with the current Mississippi River conditions at Alma, Wisconsin.  Fishing below the dam, he caught a real nice 28 inch walleye (Kevin, you need to take pictures!).  Kevin reports that the river flow is over 3 times the normal rate for this time of year and the fishing below the dam is pretty well over until the levels crest then settle down.  It's seems pretty early for these levels as I recall the middle of April was usually the peak of the high water.  As I have comment in a past post when I was young and living back home in Eleva, this would be about the time Kevin and I would start sucker fishing the Buffalo River.  It was an annual event that seems as though it was only yesterday we were fishing places like Bud's, the Culvert, Trix's, and Carp Sough.  A gob of worms and we were in sucker heaven!

Last week we did get a hint of things to come with a few days hitting the mid 50's, it temporarily melted a lot of our snow.  One of the things I have been working on has been my winter motorcycle project.  Last spring I bought a Honda 600 Shadow and after 3 months sold it for a Victory Kingpin.  A larger bike, I have been spending some time upgrading the looks and comfort by changing out the rear license plate holder, changing out the seat, adding a luggage rack and switching a few items with chrome versions.  Having put the bike back together it was nice enough Saturday to go for the first ride of the year.  I decided to check out the "flood stage" of the Crow River and put 45 miles on before discovering there was little evidence of what was to come but never the less it was a great excuse to get out.  My ride occurred between spending most of the day trimming my fruit trees.  March is the perfect time for this activity and I will elaborate on this later.  All I know is I must have cut at least a million branches!  The highlight of the day was seeing a flock of 35 Sandhill Cranes flying overhead.  Normally we see them in small groups seldom over 6 birds so this was a quite the sight.

Sunday proved to be somewhat cooler, a perfect excuse to ice fish for what might be the last time of the year.  Although the ice is still plenty thick the warm weather had deteriorated the access points enough to prevent one from driving onto the lake.  Loading up my auger, tackle, Vexilar, and bait into a pull sled, I headed for the north end of Pelican Lake where a short 1/4 mile walk put you on fishable waters.  The first thing I noticed were most of the holes were wide open.  Water form the snow melt tends to drain into these holes and keeps them open.  Walking from hole to hole I spent the first hour trying to figure out where the fish were.  After about an hour and 30 holes fished, I finally hit upon a couple of fish and parked myself in 10 feet of water.  Catching a fair amount of fish I only ended up with 1 nice crappie and 1 nice sunny as the rest were pretty small.  The weather made the area around the lake extremely foggy yet the geese and swans were making their presence well known.  With no wind, it was a very peaceful afternoon.  With temperatures falling for the next couple of days, I might be able to sneak out on more time, maybe looking for those Jumbo Perch on Mille Lacs that have eluded me the last few years.