Nothing's working!

Ben with 2 nice crappies

Fairly unbelievable however this is the best time of the year to be out fishing and I have been relegated to sitting looking at my boat, watching it rain.  Sunday was my day to head to Mille Lacs and fish with my friend Bill Lundeen.  Fishing on Mille Lacs has been phenomenal, or so they say as you definitely couldn't prove it by me.  Even though you legally cannot keep a walleye on Mille Lacs, the bite is reported to be very good as there are few boats on the lake.  This should be Bill's peak time at the bait shop however with few people coming to the lake to fish and the fact that you can't even keep one fish has really put a damper on needing to be at the store 100% of the time as his wife, Kathy can handle it for a few hours.   Our plans were made mid last week and I worked hard to put my boat back together, unfortunately on Friday my mother went back into the hospital so Sunday's plan was abandoned as my wife and I decided to drive to Eau Claire and see how well she was doing. So, no fishing last weekend but my buddy Kevin and his son Ben did call me as they went to Devil's Lake, North Dakota and I am anxiously waiting a report. Thank God somebody is thinking as I always like to have some pictures for the posts and pictures I got, first of my neighbor Brandon and the 14 inch Crappie he caught at his lake while trolling a rapala for walleyes then this one of Ben Taylor holding to nice crappies that him and his dad got at their lake, west of Mille Lacs.  Unfortunately the good crappie bite is close to being done but we might be able to find a few before the 4th of July, we will have to see.  We have one of our employees, Chad from China here in Minneapolis and the plan is to take him to Mille Lacs with my neighbor Lory and see if we can't get some nice walleyes.  I have taken our visitors to the big pond before and they always tend to be somewhat intimidated by the big water but we have caught some nice fish and here's hoping we give Chad an experience that he could never have in China.  I am sure he will be amaze at the water clarity, freedom to go anywhere on the lake, and just the simple overwhelming size of the lake as there are not many large lakes in China.

Brandon's 14 inch crappie!

So I mentioned earlier the fact that I got the boat together.  Well I didn't do too much stuff to it yet
there were some things that drove me nuts so I fixed them. First was to complete the installation of  a remote plug in for my Sonic Hub USB connections.  Because my Sonic Hub is tucked way under my dash it is all but impossible to plug in a auxiliary source into the USB ports.  Therefore I bought a dual USB socket that mounts into a panel, then plugs into the USB ports on the Sonic Hub.  I am pretty impressed as both ports work and the installation makes everything very clean for sure. The second thing I did was to put a similar panel mount socket that has 2 USB plugins but is a fast charge port for a cell phone.  I don't like those standard cigarette lighter socket plug ins as the plug in chargers tend to fall out.  With the new plug in situation I now have a secure place to plug in my phone to charge it and it is certified as a "fast charge" technology and can really recover a discharged phone quickly.  Also it is almost impossible for the plug in cable to become dislodged, which is very nice.  I also got a few types of charging cables in case my guests need a cell phone charged and because my Sonic Hub has bluetooth, I can run my phone as an audio source and be able to safely power it so the battery doesn't drain.  The third thing I got done was to finish installing my RAM trolling motor stabilizer.  After returning from Canada last month I noticed that my bow mounted trolling motor head was hitting against the gunnel of my boat.  the only way to secure this was to physically secure it without letting it travel to the boat.  I ordered on and mounted it, SWEET is all I can say.  I have a few more things to do to the boat this season, most are small cosmetic or ...Geez, it would be nice to have..........stuff.
I put my 22" pitch prop back on for this spring based on the performance of my motor last fall, after what I figured was a breakin period.  Although it does give better mileage I am probably going back to my 20" prop to get the RPM's back up to where they should be.  I wish they made a 21" prop!!!  I am still working on getting my Structure Scan 3D hooked up to see how that works.


Mom is doing OK but at her age it's going to be time to start making some life changing decisions on where she should live, how much assistance she needs, all that fun stuff.  The sad part is that I'm not that far behind her!  We did have our 14th annual ENA Golf Tourney last Friday and it looks like we will have another successful fund raiser.  In the mean time we are starting to discuss the location of our annual Jul fishing trip which the last few years has been at Lake Oahe in South Dakota.  I have been lobbying for either Upper Red Lake (Where we ice fish) or Devil's Lake, North Dakota.  Lake of the Woods has been kicked around but that might put some pressure on the boat situation because that is such big water.  I am sure we'll end up figuring something out!

One More Time



A nice mess of fish



Although we have lost most of our snow during the last week, it still been pretty cold at night, enough to keep the lakes safe.  Saturday was exceptional, actually our first official 50 degree day of 2013.  With the snow melting like crazy I decided to get my tractor out and open up a channel through the snow drift at my neighbors rear drainage area.  This allowed the water to drain off faster as I remember when he first moved in, the builder had not done his homework and in the spring he had a waterfall coming through his basement window.  With the weather nice, I decided to take a drive around the block where I ran into Petey.  A quick hello turned into...........well, ya wanna go out fishing this afternoon?  We agreed on a time, 2:00 which gave me about an hour to get things ready.  After deciding not to drive on the ice for fear the landing would not be in good shape, I loaded the Razor on the trailer, picked him up, stopped for bait and were soon at Pelican Lake.  It was pretty slushy yet the ice remained solid.  The fact that there were a few trucks driving on the ice did not

12 inch crappie

deter us from staying with our plan of using the ATV, I'm glad we did.  It was awfully wet as the ice was covered in large pools of water and slush.  Having marked our previous successful outing of last week on the GPS there was no need to reinvent a new hot spot.  Unfortunately as we approached the waypoint there were 2 guys sitting on the exact same spot.  They had drilled around 30 holes around the area and invited us to enjoy the holes however soon it became obvious why they had abandoned them.  Deciding to work to the south of their spot we drilled a number of holes until we started hitting fish.  I'm not sure they were too happy with us however we were pretty determined to get back into last weeks action, and that's just what we did.  Both Petey and I ended up with 45 sunfish and crappies including this nice 12 incher, my personal best from Pelican.  The sunfish were somewhat iffy and we tried to keep the largest ones ranging from 7.5 to 8 inches, not huge but cleanable.  Our plan was to be off the ice by 7:00 however that got extended to 7:30 because the bite was so good.  I suspect we caught at least 120 fish between the 2 of us.  It was pretty interesting being out on the ice as the water was draining through the various holes in the ice.  Like small whirlpools, it reminded me of a big bathtub with the drain plug pulled.  I even drilled a couple of holes where the water was deeper to see if I could get some of it off the ice.  As the water drains through the holes it helps improve the oxygen content of the area, something after a long winter of snow covered ice is probably appreciated by the fish.



Holy smokes Dave, Nice Crappie!



After my last weeks post, Petey decided to call me on my assessment of his fishing skills.  Reminding him that he did start out with a sinker on his line, this trip may have been more about of proving himself than anything else.  Well I have to say that if it was, he passed the test.  We basically tied for the total number of sunfish kept, Dave 17, Petey 16 and although he was 6 short on the crappie side, 3 to 9, overall he ended up with a respectable 42% of the catch, enough for me to leave him alone for a while!  I did catch this expression on his face and because I have control of the blog, he doesn't have much to say regarding why the surprised expression.  Therefore it was the reaction to the above crappie I caught.  Maybe that will get him to comment!!  Either way it's been a real pleasure going with Pete this year as we made it out 5 times together, more than with anyone else.  It's amazing since he lives down the street and we have been neighbors for over 18 years yet never fished together.  Maybe he finally figured out I was serious about this fishing thing.  I am looking forward to showing him the Mississippi River smallies and hopefully make it up to Mille Lacs a few times.  He's actually a pretty good fisherman so I suppose I should stop while I'm ahead. 

It's 5 weeks to opener, things are moving along with Team Walleye.  I am starting to get the boat ready by installing a new Titan tiller system which locks my engine in one place when I take pressure off the handle.  This should really help reduce fatigue on those long runs or when it is advantageous to trim the motor in to keep the bow down.  I'll report on that as soon as I can.  The firmware on both of my depth finders have been upgraded, the waypoints loaded in from my previous units are done.  There is still a lot of things to do in the next few weeks and hopefully the weather will warm up enough to make working in the shed bearable.

I Can't Believe it, Crappies!!



My first keeper crappie of the season

So, after chasing crappies on and off for the last 3 weeks, my neighbor Pete finally had the lead on the fish that we were looking for, a nice mess of crappies.  Based on our experience a few weeks ago when I went with him, he had better come up with something better than the last hot tip he got.  Actually I am a patient guy and trying new lakes is always interesting and one never knows, you could learn a thing or two.  Agreeing to meet at 12:30 on Saturday, he had minnows from the week before while I made an early morning run to my friend's Bill Lundeen to get my Vexilar and pick up some additional bait.  Having a cup of coffee with Bill and Kathy is a great way to spend the morning and with the new Mille Lacs regulations being discussed, we had plenty of things  to talk about.  After solving all of the days problems I grabbed a pack of Frosty ice jigs, a dozen waxies, my electronics, and a box of maggots then headed south.  Finishing up with a few things around the house I packed up my equipment, auger, and after deciding to fish out of one house, drove a block to pick up Pete.  Not sure how to get to his secret lake north of Princeton, we took the scenic route only to find upon arrival that there was no way to access the lake!  Discussing our options maybe his friend meant the lake across the street.  It certainly didn't appear that it was much of a secret as there were at least 200 houses and cars on the lake.  Well, it was the only lead we had and I wasn't going back to Green Lake again.  There was a vast area between 2 clumps of houses so we decided to look at this area as there was only one other guy in the area.  Asking how deep, he confirmed 17 feet, this was exactly what I was looking for.   Drilling about 10 holes to check things out, we got a good feel for the structure and started fishing.  Perch, perch. perch, they were everywhere and not a one over 7 inches.  Full of black spots, they weren't very inviting as we let all but a couple of the larger ones go.  As the sun began to set Pete decided we needed to be warmer so cleaning the snow off the ice, we set up his 2 man Clam and fired up the heater.  Although I don't mind fishing outside, once the sun went behind the clouds the holes started to freeze up pretty fast and I headed into the Clam.  As darkness grew I noticed marks higher up off the bottom, maybe 12 - 13 feet.  Bringing up my lure the fish struck but I missed.  With my waxie gone I knew that my lure had to change, a Frosty Ice jig with a #8 hook, something larger as crappies tend to simply inhale the lure and you need to set the hook as soon as the tension leaves your line.  That made a huge difference as the very next fish represented the first keeper crappie I had caught all season, not huge but a start!  For the next 90 minutes the bite simply got better.  As I kept hooking fish, I suggested to Pete that he change his lure as I thought the hook he was using was too small.  A quick change and he landed two immediately.  Unfortunately his urge to prove he could catch one on his own terms was way to much pressure and he went back to his old methods.  We ended up with 17 nice crappies ranging from 9 to 11.25 inches.  Crappies can be deceiving 

A nice batch of 9 to 11 inch fish

as an 11 incher looks just like one over 12 inches!  Deciding I needed a picture of our fish before forgetting we laid them on the ice for a pose.  As we were admiring our catch one of the fish nearest my hole took a flip, landed in the water and swam off before I could reach far enough down the hole to get it.  Damn, we'll have to stay to replace it.  By 9:30 we were successful in getting the one that got away, the bite had slowed so we packed up and headed to the bar for supper.  It definitely was my best day for crappies in 2 years as well finally broke my 2013 ice fishing drought.  One thing about larger crappies is they tend to swim up to the bait and just inhale it.  No tell tale tug, simply a slight movement of your line as the tension comes off the rod tip.  You better be quick and watch your line as they can spit it out as fast as they suck it in.  Although I used to be a big spring bobber fan, they can be somewhat delicate.  Learning from my friend Kevin, the master of line detection ice fishing, I'm getting much better with my Black Betty setup and not as good as him its close.

Just have to show another picture!

Dropping Pete off at his shed at 11:30, I decided to take care of the fish myself.  With a couple of smaller perch, I clean 19 fish.  On Sunday an impromptu fish fry developed at my neighbor Toolman Tim's where we fried up the fillets in my 20 inch frying pan while Pete's wife brought over the potatoes, I brought the beans and tarter sauce while Connie made a fruit dish.  It's amazing how many crappie fillets you can get in a 20 inch pan, we had them all fried up in about 10 minutes.  Nothing tastes better than a last minute fish fry with the neighbors!  The pressures on to do a repeat.  We had another 10 inches of snow early in the week and I expect the lakes to be difficult at best to travel on.  We are looking at rain on Saturday, maybe enough to knock the snow down and the prediction for next week is in the 40's.  The good news is we need the moisture as last fall was very dry, affecting the rivers and lakes.  With 10 - 15 inches of snow cover on most of the lakes, it will be interesting to see if I can get out this weekend and repeat my success.

A Fantastic Weekend

Saturday turned out to be one of those days where the stars must have been aligned just perfectly.  After shoveling snow again (the last 30 out of 40 days) I stopped by my neighbor Tom Olson to see if he was interested in heading out to fish Pelican Lake in the afternoon.  After finishing up the endless snow removal and filling all the bird feeders, I hooked up the trailer, loaded everything up and stopped by Tom's to pick him up.  Next stop was Cabela's to pick up some bait and check to see if they received in any more of there special 6 inch fillet knives, a heck of a bargain at $9.99.  Well, they did have the knives but no waxies.  A quick stop at the hardware store in St. Michael and we were ready.  I have described Pelican Lake as a prolific shallow lake about 15 miles west of my house.  The last few years have been fantastic, even as the fishing pressure seems excessive.  After the water had risen more than 6 feet, it has transformed from a rather worthless duck swamp to a popular fishing lake.  The DNR is still planning on draining it, Lord knows why.  I guess creating duck habitat for the few if any ducks that fly this far east anymore is more important than the thousands of people that enjoy this unique fishing destination.  With the lake in sight, it was the typical scenario, there must have been over 500 shacks on the lake.  These shacks seem to form little communities on the lake and I am not sure if they are really catching fish or just having fun.  I guess it probably doesn't really make that much difference.

My strategy is always the same.  Because the lake is no deeper than 12 feet, I find an area in the middle of nowhere and drill my holes.  Today would be no different, yep 10 foot of water and a hundred yards from anyone.   Although I have fished with crappie minnows, like back home, I prefer waxies.  Crappies, especially larger ones can be extremely lite biters.  The key is to keep your bait moving slowly down from about 3 feet from the bottom.  The fish will simply inhale the bait and the only indication will be the line going limp as tension is taken off.  Time is of the essence as they will spit it out just as fast.  I think too many people in Minnesota ice fish crappies with a minnow and bobber combination.  Although I am sure they catch their share of fish, I cannot believe it's as effective as waxies and line watching.   Proof is the nice 12 incher Tom is holding in the first picture.  Using 3 pound fluorescent orange line, he can easily work his bait and detect the slightest change in the feel.   On the lake by 2:30 and off by 5:30 we ended up with a couple more added to this nice pile of sunfish and crappies, all larger than hate 2 status (hate 2 keep em, hate 2 throw them back).   By 7:00 all the fish were cleaned and I was ready for the next event of the day.

The other reason to fish a local lake was to make sure I didn't miss the much anticipated Green Bay Packer vs the Atlanta Falcon game.  Being a bonafide Cheesehead, I proudly fly the Green and Gold on my flag pole, just under the Stars and Stripes.  Although my neighbor Tim and his family hates the Pack, he has a huge projected screen television, perfect for watching football.  With my neighbor Otto (another closet Cheesehead) we convinced him that Otto and I could turn his boring night into something a little more exciting.  Bringing over the Walter's Beer from last week, we settled into what would be a totally unexpected outcome, a blow out by the Pack.  Of course we knew the Packers could win however it was pleasantly shocking to see the final score go from being 3 point underdogs to a 27 point differential.  My friend Phil was at the game and the tee shirt I sent was a big hit.  It was amazing to see how empty the stadium was during the last half of the game.  By the 2 minute warning it was evident the only people left were the Packer fans.  You'd never see that at Lambeau, I don't care how bad the Pack were losing or who the opposing team was.  Everyone is talking Super Bowl and it's easy to jump on that band wagon as Aaron Rodgers is proving to be everything Brett Favre isn't, yet we still need to get by Da Bears.  Here's hoping you have sound as you will find a special song in celebration.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed as Sunday's schedule will certainly effect my fishing plans for this weekend!

First Ice, Double the Pleasure

The much awaited first ice fishing trip of this winter season finally happened.  As I had predicted Mille Lacs lake was ready for us as my neighbor Lory accompanied me to the lake Saturday morning.  I was originally going to just bring up my gear and use the 2 up Polaris Touring snowmobile that Bill and I own yet seeing how much gear we actually had, I reconsidered and decided to haul up the ATV.   The other advantage of this would be our starting point could be 5 miles closer to our destination, a definite plus.   As always a stop at Lundeen's confirmed our first strategy as we loaded up with some fatheads, rainbows, a couple of the newest secret baits, and some refreshments.  Our destination was the deeper areas just off of Indian Point.  The best place to start from was Dewey's, just south of the point where we knew there would be ample parking.  Surprisingly he had a road plowed out at least a mile and a half out onto the lake.  Not enough to get us at our spot, we paid him the $5.00 to park on the ice (a pretty good deal) and after loading up the portables, augers, electronics, and bait we were off.  Arriving in 28 feet of water I had marked from a previous visit we separated, drilled our holes and got down to business.  I was excited to try my new camera and was not disappointed.  I usually drill 3 holes in my shack; one on the upper right for jigging, one in the lower left as a dead stick, and a third for the video camera.   The camera itself is tethered to a cable that connects to a wireless remote control positioning tripod.  This allows me to us a small hand held control to rotate the camera in any direction.  Whats real interesting is the camera has a built in sensing device which has a direction indicator on the screen.  Once you locate your lure, it's easy to pan the lure in the other hole then return to your main lure.  Well the walleyes started coming in almost immediately.  The camera is a great way to study how they approach your bait, what kind of mood they are in, and their relative size.  It also helps to confirm your depth finder readouts as they relate to what's below.   The walleyes were not very large and almost in a negative mood.  I tried a number of lures with little luck starting from a Rattlin Flyer to a Hawger Spoon.  When the fish are negative often it takes a lure like a Swedish Pimple with a minnow head to trigger a strike, but that didn't even work.  Frustrated by their lack of interest I panned over to my dead stick pole with a plain minnow hanging from a bobber.  As the camera panned over onto the screen was a walleye just sitting there with my minnow in it's mouth.  A quick jerk and the walleye was off the screen and heading to the hole in the ice.  Only about 12 inches, it never the less was my first walleye of the season.  In the meantime Lory had already caught a couple of walleyes, but was not setting the world on fire.  I decided to move down the spot about 100 yards and after only 15 minutes Lory called stating the walleyes had turned on.  Moving back to my original spot I reset putting on a jigging rap, figuring a more aggressive bite was happening.  Lory on the other hand was catching them on a plain jig head and a whole minnow, and had 4 on the ice.  I finally got the hint and switched, catching a nice perch and 5 more small walleyes, while he ended up with 12 walleyes caught and a bunch missed.  All told we caught 18 walleyes total, kept 6 respectable fish and had a blast.  As usual the prime time was between 3:30 and 5:00.  Here is a picture of Lory with a nice eater.

Sunday was a cleanup day around the house and with things settling down, I decided to try the dusk crappie bite at one of my favorite early season lakes near Buffalo, MN.  My other neighbor Tom wanted to go with us on Saturday however his truck's timing chain had other plans for him.  Sunday was a better day for him so we loaded up the gear and headed out, arriving at the lake around 3:00.  We knew this would be a quick trip and if the crappies are in, it won't take long.   The fishing area is close to shore allowing us to simply walk to the spot.  Some guys were driving on the ice which was about 10 - 12 inches and I surmised they must have much better insurance than I do!  The sunnies were in like crazy so I took this picture of the camera view below the shelter.  There are at least 8 sunfish swimming by and you can see the one near the center about ready to inhale the bait (the small white object in front of it).  While watching the sunfish sort of disappeared as the next thing you saw was a large northern pike coming into view.  I guess those fish aren't that stupid.  

Sundown came however the crappies had not shown up.  Too dark for the camera I put it away relying on my trusty old Vexilar FL20.  Tom was determined to try some crappie minnows while my go to bait is a waxie.  In this fairly shallow water (about 12 feet) I like to work the water column as crappies can be about any depth this time of year.  Noticing a jiggle at the the bottom of the display I lowered my bait and was rewarded with that tell tale inhale of a crappie bite.  Setting the hook, it was a solid fish, just what we were looking for about 12 inches.  The real question would be if this was a loner or part of a school.  10 minutes later confirmed it was a loner.  I did manage a second smaller crappie and added it to the pile of 3 reasonable sunfish and the crappie.  Although we didn't slay them, it was still nice to get out 2 days in a row.   This weekend is Christmas and I will be busy visiting my dad, who turns 81 this year.  With a little luck I will be back at Mille Lacs on Sunday and maybe a couple more days before New Years.  BTW, I am keeping the Dean Martin Christmas song for another week as we did get another 6 inches on Monday, so enjoy!  Have a fabulous Christmas and hope each one of you has a good tug at the end of your line.

A Pile of Panfish

Omens of positive change can appear out of nowhere.  Last Wednesday night I flew to Denver on the 7:15PM flight out of Minneapolis.  Averaging over 30,000 miles per year, one hits the paltry Silver Elite Status at 25,000 miles per year which for the most part gives you a few extra benefits over least traveled passengers such as preferred seat selection, free baggage check in, bonus miles for each flown, and the occasional upgrade to first class.  The upgrades to first class are the grand prize however with so many people having Gold or Platinum status giving them priority,  us Silver guys generally do not stand a chance.  Well taking my seat in coach, I had an acceptable location, aisle-exit row when an announcement for David Anderson to please push the attendant button.  Quickly locating me, I was told to get my stuff, you are going to the east side!  First Class flying is a pure joy.  Free drinks, tons of room, unlimited snacks, first off, the only way to fly.   Generally speaking, online check in 24 hours before your flight increases your odds of getting that magical upgrade.  This has been an issue for me for the last 13 months as I was put on a Terrorist Watch List by the TSA and had to check in at the airport.  After about 6 months of dealing with the TSA and the airlines, I think that I have been vindicated!   The merger of Northwest and Delta had not helped the matter either.  Off the watch list, I am able to check in on line again, hopefully increasing the odds of being reassigned to the front.  Well, coming home late Friday, I checked in online earlier in the day and was lucky enough to get upgraded to First Class again for the return flight.  I knew fishing just had to be good this weekend!

I decided to meet my good friend Russ Clos on Saturday, who was fishing in a wheel house with his friend on a nearby local lake.  Russ and I experienced great fishing last year and had remembered where the "hot spot" was located.  Russ had sent a text message..........Bring beer and bait!  Obliging, I stopped to fulfill both requests before hitting the ice.  Arriving about 3:00, I found the boys exactly where I suspected and delivered the goods.  After about 5 hours they had around 7 fish with a couple dandy sunnies.  I like to spread out and proceeded to set up my portable about 60 feet away as we were on a pretty expansive flat.  My secret weapon for panfish is a simple pole with a spring bobber set up made by Schooley's.  Once one understands what the spring bobber is telling you, your success increases by a huge factor.  In addition I have made a custom rod with a Schooley's spring bobber attached to the end of the pole and a spinning reel for faster cycling of the bite.  Starting with a Purist lure, it fooled a few fish however they were pretty finicky.  Switching to a waxie proved more productive, enough to use up one container causing me to retrieve the frozen ones still in the truck from last week.  Didn't seem to make a difference, they loved them.   The first hour produced only a couple of fish with the largest being about an 8 inch sunfish.   With about 6 fish on the ice and another 20 released, they finally put the feedbag on around 4:30.  The day with a limit of sunnies (20) averaging close to 8 inches and the largest a tad over 8 1/2 inches, as well 5 nice crappies with the largest at 11 inches.  I would have to admit this was the best ice fishing for sunfish I have experienced in the 34 years I have lived in Minnesota.  I have caught as many but the average size has been less than desirable.  The crappies did not show up until after the sun went down and a total of 5 were all that expressed an interest.  As with the sunnies,  I was impressed with the size considering local lakes can be challenging.   The other interesting observation was the number of large sunfish that bit after dusk.  Generally speaking this is the realm of the crappie yet my last 4 sunnies were caught in the dark.  Go figure.  

This weekend is a make up snowmobile day with a few business friends, we will ride on Friday, returning on Saturday.  I am really looking forward to this as I do not get a chance to ride much these days.  Past years would see us going to The Snowy Range in Wyoming romping around the mountains at 10,000 feet.   My travel schedule has prevented a return for the last 2 years.  I have some great stories and pictures of those trips which would make a few great posts in the future.  Sunday is my neighbor Tim's annual Super Bowl get together, one of the larger neighborhood events of the year.  With a little luck maybe I can sneak out in the afternoon to see if the bite is still going before heading over to the game.  Speaking of luck, I also picked the Saints to be victorious for Sunday's big game.  Liking the underdog, I believe they will carry through the tough defense of their last playoff game with the Vikings.  First Class both ways, a great day of fishing on Saturday.............yeah California and Colorado, I might be unstoppable!

Rain, Rain, Go Away.........

Original plans to get out Friday and put a few miles on my snowmobile were squelched by 2 weeks of a prolonged January thaw making the trails less than desireable.  In fact it began raining on Friday night and didn't stop until Sunday afternoon.  Our snowcover took a hit however the good news is that the lakes shed most if not all their snow.  As much as I wanted to make it out fishing on Saturday, the rain was too much to deal with.  As intense as a June soaker, I did not want to deal with the mess.  Sunday  held a better promise of fishing without getting soaked.  My neighbor Tom is always ready to go so we hooked up and headed west to try the crappie lake one more time.  Heading out after lunch we stopped at the hardware store in St. Micheal and loaded up on a scoop of minnows and a couple boxes of waxies.  Tom was cautious as he was unsure of the ice conditions after 2 weeks of 30 degree temperatures.  Assuring it would be fine, I offered to drive.  Figuring about 20 inches of ice, it would be certainly be sloppy and needing a new truck, if I did go through it would be the perfect excuse. 

I started with a picture of my Suburban parked on the ice.  I have many good friends in California, Texas, Florida who think I am crazy for driving on the ice.  Sunday morning found me setting up a new Direct TV receiver, talking to a service center in Oklahoma.   While waiting for the system to run through it's paces I struck up a conversation with the technician regarding his location and what does he do.  He asked how cold it gets, responding that we can drive on the lakes.  The guy thought I was pulling his leg!  On Lake Mille Lacs along with other large bodies of water in Minnesota the resorts rely heavily on the winter ice fishing business by creating a sophisticated road systems often totally over 30 miles.  These roads provide access for ice houses pulled out onto the lake as well as revenue from guys like me who buy day passes for around $10 per car to use their systems to drive to our favorite locations.  Mille Lacs has no less than 20 resorts and business's creating roads and maintaining them.  I bet if you totalled them all there would literally be hundreds of miles of ice roads ranging from the main corridors over 100 feet wide to smaller side roads running to the various structures and favorite fishing spots.  GPS's have been a game changer as now everyone  has their favorite spot and can dictate the resort provide access to them.  Years ago when Liberty Beach would plow a road to the flats, it would be close and you took what was available.  Today they can strategically plow roads on the perimeter of the flats, offering a better idea of the layout and where to fish.  Back then we would simply looked for the dropoff where it would go from 25 feet to 35 feet in a very steep drop.  It could be anywhere on the flat, we just drilled on the top and bottom regardless.  I am not sure fishing is any better knowing exactly where we are at these days.

Back to Sunday our strategy was to fish until around 6:00.  We figured the Viking game would be close contest so getting home before half time would give us a chance to see Brett Favre hose it up for the Purple and Gold (BTW, this was my prediction before the game).  It was still fairly warm so we decided to drill a few holes and see if there were any active fish before setting up the house.  About 5 minutes into fishing I caught a nice crappie.  My next hole about 10 feet away yielded a nice sunfish.  2 nice fish in the span of 15 minutes, it was time to set up.  The ice was covered with a watery slush and the wind had switch to one of those damp, cold bone chilling winds from the west, it felt good to get inside.   Mentioning the wind switch allows me to have an excuse for the next couple hours of fishing.  We did catch a ton of 3 to 6 inch sunnies, another good sunny and closing in on dark, Tom caught a twin to my first crappie.  Thinking that would be a start to the crappie bite, nothing could have been further from the truth.  The picture is my attempt to imitate the great fish pictures that are featured on  MT Bucket's blog.  Stating he uses a standard point and shot camera, I tried his technique and it turned out almost as good as his.  You know what they say, imitation is the best compliment!  My apologies to MT.

Packing up and home by 6:30, I headed for my neighbors to finish watching the Viking game.  Dressed in my usual game attire of Green Bay gear, the insults started immediately upon walking through the door.  Although my neighbors like me, on game day all bets are off, especially when you are the only Cheesehead in sight.  After I reminded them how their success seems dependent on ex-Packer players, we settled down to watch Brent do what he does best, throw the game losing interception as his last play of the season.  Mourning their loss, I reminded my friends that we went through the same thing in 2007, 13-3 and the last play of the game, an interception to the Giants to end the run.  I truly understood their pain.  Frankly nobody sympathized with me as I grinned through the whole discussion.   Luckily the fact the Vikes beat the Packers twice this year was not even mentioned.......thank God! Check out Neenahpete for an interesting clip on our current hero. Hopefully next week I can get up to Mille Lacs and look for some big perch as the bite should be starting to pick up somewhat.

Oh The Weather Outsides Delightful.......

This Christmas was interesting for us in Minnesota. It started on December 20th with all the local weather broadcasters forecasting the next "Storm of the Century" starting on Wednesday night through Saturday. Two low pressure systems were set up to meet, dumping up to 24 inches of snow by the time it's done, or so they say. All this brew-ha-ha forced mom to cancel our traditional Christmas Eve in Eleva, moving it to Sunday. Well, the snow turned to rain and although the storm lasted almost 4 days, the totals were somewhat less than predicted. About12 inches here in Dayton, it only accumulated back home to the tune of around 4 inches. Either way my snow blower and ATV got a pretty good workout, as well the weather forecasters lived their fantasies. Traveling to Galesville on Saturday, it was Christmas Day with my sister-in-law. My present to Sue was to fix her gas fireplace that would not stay lit, then loading Microsoft Office 2007 on the computer. Christmas on Sunday turned out to be pretty good as everyone was not stressed to get everything accomplished in a short time. As a bonus I did get to visit my classmate and good friend Rick Semingson and his parents, Dunk and Mary. Rick is retiring this year, boy how time flies. We also visited my friend Kevin and Janet Aiona. Come to think of it Kevin is a year younger than I and is also retired! He had a nice bucket of sunfish caught in Alma a few hours earlier. The above picture is looking east from my driveway. We have a good 14 inches on the ground and it's time to get the snowmobile out and put a few miles on.

One of the things I like to bring my folks for Christmas is my now famous apple wood smoked turkey. Having a variety of smokers over the years I finally have a professional style smoke oven made by Cookshack. After trying a number of methods have settled into brining the turkey with Maple Cure from PS Seasoning, a Wisconsin meat supply company. Making a brine using 1 pound of cure to 2 gallons of water, I reserve about a pint of cure and inject it into the turkey before soaking for 24 hours. One of the best turkeys for smoking are Archer Farms Brand, butter injected frozen turkey's from Target. They produce the most moist finished product of any brand I've tried, butter just flows out as you make that first slice into the breast meat. Taking up to 1 hour a pound, apple wood smoke at 250 degrees, the picture is the finished product. I guarantee it tastes as good as it looks. The brine has cure in it and gives the turkey a ham like flavor that is second to none.

With the snow messing up my weekend schedule, my neighbor Lory and I got out on Saturday afternoon to see if those big crappies would show up west of town. Although we did not get the big snows as predicted, what did snow was heavy, wet, mixed with rain. These conditions make ice fishing interesting. The snow on the ice causes 2 major issues, first being that it insulates the ice slowing the freezing process. Without this latest storm, we would be driving on the lakes by now. The other issue is the weight of the snow will cause water to be forced up on the ice flooding the surface under the snow. Forming a layer of slush, it makes travel and setting up on the ice very sloppy. Any ice houses that were on the lakes prior to the storm need to be jacked up higher than this slush layer or they will freeze in solid. Driving to the lake we found the conditions as described. Pulling our gear, it seemed like we walked a mile up hill! 6 inches of snow, 2 of it was slush, 150 yards later we set up. Immediately the sunfish appeared and they were hungry. With about an 90 minutes before the sun went down the action was steady catching about 30 fish. Most were small but I managed to keep 4 nice ones while waiting for the crappies to show. As the sun set those 12 inch crappies where non-existent in my holes. Lory had slightly better luck catching one. Another mile back to the truck, we called it a day. Mille Lacs is in my sight this weekend and maybe another trip to to check out the crappies. This cold weather predicted for the rest of the week will certainly help the situation.