Busy Getting Ready

My long lost friend, Tom Emmons

The last week has been a mad scramble to get everything ready for Saturday's Minnesota Fishing Opener.  As stated our large group is not going until October so just a few guys and I are going.  Our Governor just announced that people should stay within a full tank of gas when deciding to go to a lake, well I can get 14.5 MPG if I drive 50 mph, 26 gallon gas tank gets me 376 miles round trip.  Brindley's Harbor is 352 miles round trip so I should be in compliance with the Covid19 police.  Getting the boat ready has been quite a chore as it was pretty dirty and disorganized.  The boat is equipped with Sirius/XM Weather (Inland Marine Package) that can be shut it off in October and reinstated on May 1st.  Usually it's pretty easy to reactivate as it just takes a phone call to their automated system, request a new activation signal, and voila, it starts up perfectly.  Well not this time!!!  After 3 days of going through the motions with no tangible results a call while in the boat took place yesterday.  After logging into my account and printing the data the person asked me for my Radio ID number.  Heck it's the same as it was last summer.  Of course one get's this....Sir, I understand but I need that number!  No what.  Admittedly every year is more of a challenge as it has been 7 months since one has operated that equipment so it takes time to figure out where to find things you need.  While on the phone and frantically pressing buttons, under the settings/network there it was, a heading called Sirius Status.  Punched that and voila, up comes the Radio ID plus the current status of the signal, INACTIVE was all over the place.  After re-looking at the data it appears as though they deactivated this radio on 4-27-2020 and activated an old one of mine.  Well Sir, there will be a $15 dollar service charge to reactivate your current radio.  M'am, not to be argumentative however I did not call to deactivate the radio in the first place.  In October I called to deactivate it with a request to turn it back on by May 1st.  It looks like they reactivated it on 4-17-2020 but must have done something wrong.  the customer service lady waived the charges, reactivated the right radio then sent a signal.  You could watch the status change on the screen and finally it was on!  There was this problem with the Sirius being attached to the wrong USB input to my audio system but that was straightened out easier than what was assumed!  I hope it's not this difficult each year going forward, as it was frustrating.

Leech Lake Eelpout

Thank the lord someone had some patience, hint....it wasn't me but I was nice!  One thing that I did was to go through all the SD cards that I had in my storage cases.  They are a collection of files and updates that are associated with my electronics and become my library for data in case I lose them because of a malfunction, I can reload them or reset the software to a previous version.  One of the cards was full of pictures I had taken with my camera back in 2010 and 2011.  Pictures are interesting, the old film type, you would take a picture, get the film developed, print them and throw them in a box never to looked at again.  Today the process is easier but the results are the same.  You take a picture, it is now a digital file, stored somewhere, never to be looked at again!  They are more convenient as you can send them easier and move them around.  Well there was 3100 pictures on that card and many brought back some good memories so I thought I would share.  The first is a picture of my good friend Tom Emmons. He was a great guy, a great friend but unfortunately had some issues he was dealing with. He did not deal with them very well and he is no longer with us.  The next picture was in 2011 on fishing opener and I had caught an eelpout.  We don't get many of these and they truly are a colorful fish and very good eating.  It was probably the last eelpout that I had caught.  we did get 3 of them on Lake of the Woods this year but none were on the end of my line!

Steve's Lingcod

Speaking of odd but colorful fish is this picture of my brother Steve holding up a Lingcod he had caught when we were in Alaska.  This was a nice sized fish and they have a gapping mouth that seems like they could swallow anything! Notice the bulging stomach as these fish really are just big eating machines. The fish this is about as long as Steve is tall is and probably over 50 pounds, as you can see he is struggling a bit to hold it for the camera!  This was in 2012 and we are fishing out of Homer, Alaska.  We often talk about going back before we get too old but I keep saying that we should go south, not north to catch some peacock bass or other tropical species.  Now that Steve was relieved of his job, both him and I have a lot of fishing to catch up on this weekend.  For fishing opener it looks like the weather will be on the colder side with lows in the upper 20's in the morning.  This is fine although my friend Kevin called me this morning worried that the harbor might be frozen over.  I laughed as we got down to business of what food to bring.  the steaks are all ready for tomorrow night, fish on Saturday and maybe Brat's on Sunday.  With 5 guys it isn't so hard to figure that out.  Now all that is needed is to make sure we have enough warm clothes for the morning.  I guess clothes are pretty easy to figure out!  Either way it should be a great opener, if nothing else but to spend it with good friends.  Hopefully there will be a good report next week.

Finally.............



Swans in the Mississippi River

 A quick post to report on last Saturday's first ice fishing outing on Mille Lacs.  Because Bill had a number of items I ordered for Christmas, a quick trip to Mille Lacs to pick up the stuff and fish the evening bite was in order.  Reports of 8 inch ice were common so I loaded the ATV, gear, and headed north.  One interesting thing that I noticed on the way up was the significant amount of Trumpeter Swans in the Mississippi River between the house and the 101 bridge.   They were scattered along the river for 7 miles in groups up to 30 birds.  These birds make their winter home below the warm water discharge of the power plants near Monticello.  I believe the estimate is over 2500 swans winter there, I know there were at least a couple of hundred along the shallow areas of the open water.  With the cold weekend, I am sure that the river has froze shut forcing the swans back upriver to the warmer water.  I arrived at Lundeens and spent some quality time unwinding first.  Not in a hurry to get on the ice I complimented Bill on his great influence on me.  Lately I have been waiting till the last minute to do things.  Knowing that I was heading north, Friday night was the time to take the ice auger out and get it started.  Last spring saw a new gas tank installed by myself, didn't really think nothing of it.  Well, after pouring gas into the carb for the 5th time, it was obvious there was something wrong.  After an hour I called Bill and asked if he had any new Strikemaster's.  He finally talked me into not giving up and within the hour had figured out how hosed up I had made it.  Freezing cold, I reassembled the gasket, heat shield, gasket, spacer, gasket, carburetor, governor assemble, gas tank, and air filter perfectly and it started right up.  It probably would have been much easier in 70 degree weather under less duress!


26 incher with a little body



Arriving on an inshore hump I set up in 20 feet, working the edge.  With some of the ice still heaving and cracking, it was smart to stay closer to shore.  After drilling a number of holes and setting up my dead stick line, it was outside to hole hop.   At the last Eric Applen Golf Tourney I had purchased a new Showdown for hole hopping,  a nice unit but takes a little bit of time to dial it in right.  Coming back into the shack and setting it in the dead stick hole, I noticed the minnow line was pretty large.  Thinking the gain was too high I began to look at the settings when I noticed the bobber was completely out of sight..........Duh!!!  Setting the hook on this nice 26 inch walleye, not bad for the first fish of the season.  Not unlike a lot of fish caught this year, this one was pretty skinny.  Resetting the line, outside again to hole hop, returning to warm up I put on a Slender Spoon as the sonar's were not marking much fish.  Dropping it down, these take a while to get to the bottom however as is descended a line came up to meet it, wham a 24 inch walleye!  Finally around sundown a third mark appeared and aggressively hit my lure.  Man, another nice fish until it came through the hole..............dang eelpout.  This was the first one I had caught on Mille Lacs in over 5 years so it was good to see.  They have a beautiful brown coloring and although great to eat, I put this one back.  Leaving at 5:30, 3 fish in 3 hours was good enough.  Arriving back at the landing another surprise was waiting, the front tire on the truck was flat, we won't even go into that.



A beautiful eelpout



Today I am heading to Red Lake with my friend Mark Applen.  He has his wheel house parked at a resort and with a little luck we can hit the night bite.  If the fishing is good we will stay there and if not the plan is to head north to Lake of the Woods.  Either way I am looking forward to spending a few days with Mark and hammering some walleyes that are hopefully fatter than the ones I have been catching.  I have a few new lures to try out and it will be a great way to end 2012.  Next week the lakes around home should be ready for some panfish action.  Have a great New Year and here's hoping next weeks report is successful.