More Like It!

First Nice smallie in the Boat

With the better part of August relegated to the garden and the higher water, the plans to fish the Mississippi River didn't materialize as much as I had planned on it.  Also the closure of Mille Lacs, we fished the river quite a bit in July however with the warm water temperatures and the expectations of a normal bite never materialized.  Last Sunday my good friend Lory Brasel was in town so we decided to try the last part of August bite on the river.  Heading out about 1:00, I grabbed the nightcrawlers from the refrigerator but one whiff and it was apparent this was going to be strictly a crankbait trip.  They might have worked for catfish but I didn't want to deal with that smell all day!  The water was up about a foot from a "Normal" flow which was not bad as the thought was the smallies would be pushed against the bank more.  The plan was the usual routine, motor up about 4 miles just past the last island before the town of Dayton, hug the north side of the river casting various crankbaits.  The water was definitely fast and dirtier than normal but still inviting enough to try our luck.  As stated in faster water the fish tend to be up close to the shore, taking advantage of  current breaks available as well the become a great ambush point for stuff coming down the river.  My bait of choice this year is a somewhat larger square bill crankbait.  I like the way they cast and tend not to get too hung up on the bottom.  Being a little heavier, it is easy to place them right at the edge of the water then crank out.  Within 5 minutes there was a nice smallie on the line.  Of course one is never ready for that first fish and by the time we got out the net the fish came by the boat, took one last leap and spit the bait out, LDR (long distance release).  The rule in the boat is if you get a good look at the fish, can identify it, it counts as one caught.  Trying to save some of the good spots for Lory, we came upon a smaller current break when Lory pulled one as he retrieved it down the break.  Again another nice smallie about the same size as mine, maybe 17 inches, got the net out but before we got the net in the water another LDR.  Never the less it was fun!  Lory had a smaller profile crankbait with a larger lip to help get the bait down.  A few minutes later he was fighting a fish again, this time it was a 13 inch walleye.  We occasionally get walleyes when casting the shore and this would have been the 3rd such as typically they are in the deeper holes, something that's on the list to learn.  Quickly he pulled it in and released it.  Next was my turn and this time we were successful in landing the fish.  Although not huge it was still a nice smallie for the river.  We were on a good pace, a fish every 15 minutes.

6 inch Smallie on a 2 inch crankbait

Sometimes it never fails to amaze me how small a fish can be verses the the size of the crankbait it hits.  Lory was casting about a 2 inch Bandit and this 6 inch smallie hits it with vengeance.  Honestly it's quite amazing and sometimes it verifies that many of these fish simply strike out of reaction.   We released this smallie but took a picture to show just how aggressive these fish can be, heck the bait is one third it's length.  Reminds we when we were fishing for ocean run stripers in Massachusetts and catching 26 inch fish using 14 inch mackerel for bait.  The fast current made for a quick trip and without any live bait we made it down by Kings Island, just across the river from Blair's house where I land the boat.  There is a small channel that surrounds the island so we decided that with the high water, we'd boat around the island, which is privately owned by Vista Outdoors, they acquired the property when they bought Federal Cartridge in Anoka.    Only about 20 feet wide and a foot and a half deep there were a few guys casting for northerns with some luck.  It is kind of interesting idling through the channel as the roar of cars from Highway 10 is present.  It's sort of a dichotomy of things, you feel you are in a remote area with civilization right in walking distance.  There are 2 duck blinds on the property and you can get a permit to hunt ducks along the river, I hear them shooting all the time.  I guess it's nice to have somewhere close where you can do these things.  

The plan is to try and get out on the river a few more times as it is really a unique experience.  The tomatoes  are really coming in and although I still have salsa from last year, it's not what I would say the best and continue to experiment with my formula.  Wednesday was salsa night and it seems as though the correct ratio of spices seems to be coming together, about time!  The real problem this year is trying to find canning supplies, jars and lids.  It's insane for sure.  I think it will be fine as I've picked up a few things here and there.  One shout out to Lynn Brasel, Lory's wife.  After our fishing adventure on Sunday we were invited over for supper.  The Brasel's provided the salmon and a special treat, fresh Chicken in the Woods mushrooms they picked on their farm near New York Mills.  For our part we provided scallops, wine, and a bag of my frozen sweet corn.  One of the results of our fabulous supper makes me want  to share Lynn's way of serving it, she cooked the corn then added butter and cream cheese.  Uffda, my new favorite way of preparing corn, and  have lot's of it as last month I made over 90 bags (about a quart), happy eating for a year!  This new format is getting better  but still am struggling a bit.  Oh well.

The River is Hot!

Dave's first Smallie!

Last week was spend getting the Jon Boat ready to fish the Mississippi River behind the house.  It hadn't been run in almost 2 years as it never made it on the River last summer.  New plugs and gas did the trick and by last Friday it was ready to go.  At the same time my friend David Grant texted me Friday morning...............you wanna go out on the river tonight?  Well, not finding any excuse I said sure, meet me at the pole shed about 5:30.  We hooked up the boat to my Razor and off to the landing on my neighbors property.  I asked Dave, bass fishing or Lazy man's fishing.  He wasn't too sure so we decided to go both.  Heading up river about 4 miles, we got in front of an island just south of the City of Dayton then drifted down the north side of the river casting crankbaits for smallies.  Dave is pretty good with a casting rig however it took about a half an hour to drill it into his head that when river fishing the fish face upstream so you need to cast above where you want the lure to go then drag it either into them or across their face.  We drifted stern first so I could maintain control with the trolling motor and I think he was in normal lake shoreline fishing mode where you sort of leap frog in front of each other.  While drifting it's really about the spots and one casts tight to the shoreline then drag your lure to the waiting fish.  I assured him that there was no way I could cover every spot and that I would definitely leave you with at least half the good areas..............STOP casting in front of me!!! Well it took about a half mile but being a smart kid he finally figured it out as I pointed out the choicest places to cast.  Bang, a nice smallie grabbed his firetiger Bomber A.  This was not only Dave's first river fish but his first smallie and the fight was on.  These river fish dang near jerk you rod out of your hands and they don't have to be that big.  He was pretty happy about it and even more so after he got the hang of where to cast, we must have gotten 15 smallies in an hour and a half, including a huge one that I estimated in the 20 inch category that took a swipe at my crankbait.  Dave did pretty good for a rookie and we had a lot of fun.  Well it was about 8:00 and I suggested we

Dave's 15 pound channel cat

try Lazy Man's fishing, where we anchored in the pool just below Cloquet Island on the river and fished the bottom with nightcrawlers.  It is one of my favorite ways to fish, I suppose because it really isn't much work.  The pool is around 12 feet deep and has a current edge to it, we fish right on the edge in the calmer part of the current.  One of the things I like to fish with are circle hooks.  If you have the right ones, the fish can swallow the bait however because of the hook shape, it will not become lodged in their throats but catch on the side of their mouth and literally rotate around and hook the fish in the corner of their mouths.  It is very easy to remove the hook and release the fish with little effort without hurting them.  The first bite we got was a big fish, it had taken the hook, swallowed the bait and was heading down river when the hook simply hooked itself in the fishes mouth, no hookset was needed.  I handed the rod over to Dave and the fight was on!  Although last week he got a 22 pound salmon, fighting this fish from an anchored position was a battle unique.  Getting it up to the surface it was a huge channel catfish, maybe 15 to 20 pounds. These fish really fight but those circle hooks work great and it was easy to unhook and have Dave pose for a great picture!  I was another first for him, earlier in the trip his first smallmouth bass and now a significant channel cat.  You probably can tell by his smile that he was having a good time.  We went on to catch another smaller catfish and a first for me in the river, a bullhead, but time was getting late and we had to head back and try to find the boat landing.  That was another adventure as the landing was very slippery and we barely made it back. Back we did though and I would classify it as a great trip for Dave to experience river fishing. He commented that it was hard to believe we were 25 miles from Downtown Minneapolis, but the river is simply a diamond in the rough, and of course it is in my back yard.  Admittedly it also good for my ego, to help pass on some fishing knowledge to a kid that is two generations away from me.  I am thrilled that he likes fishing with this old man, it truly makes one feel young again, thanks Dave!

Todd's first Catfish

As state before I do like fishing the river with night crawlers, it reminds me of my childhood growing up in Eleva when Kevin and I would fish the river all the time, often in August we would go to the chicken plant and get some chicken livers then go below the Buffalo Bridge (the Highway 93 bridge going south across the Buffalo River).  One other option that I have near home is to fish the river from my neighbors dock, it's pretty relaxing, no need to haul the boat down, just drive to the dock, bait up and cast out then set your pole into the dock poles (which make excellent rod holders) and wait for the bite.  This time I asked my neighbor Todd to join me.  He had never been river fishing before, especially like this.  I was showing him the string of bubbles breaking at the water's surface, that's a carp working the bottom.  I don't think he believed me however about 10 minutes later one of the poles doubled over and was pulsating pretty hard.  I grabbed it and gave it to Todd, here you land the first fish.  As stated earlier, the circle hooks will set themselves as the fish pulls against the current and away from the line.  He had a huge carp.  The problem is that we did not have a net and the deck of the dock was about 3 feet above the water.  We could see the fish next to the dock and the only opportunity to handle the fish was to get on the shore and wade through the mud however buy the time we figured it out the hook broke and the fish swam away.  I had made the hook snells with 10 pound mono so lifting a large fish like that was out of the water and 3 feet up would surely snap the line, although it did anyway!  After re-rigging the the pole we casted out again and it wasn't long before the pole bent

over again, This time I wasn't about to lose it.  I let Todd reel it in while I waded in the muck to grab

Golden Redhorse

the fish.   Dang, this fish was another nice cat, I estimate around 18 pounds.  I got it cleaned off and had tod hold it up for a picture before releasing it.  We were on a roll!  Shortly after that we hooked another fish, this time it was what I call a river redhorse as the fins were very dark reddish in color, just like we used to catch in the river back home.  Next was another huge catfish, about the same size as the first one.  Next on the list was a Golden Redhorse, a beautiful bottom feeder, they put up a great fight and their coloration is a stunning golden color.  For some reason I really like catching these fish, and of course beauty is in the eyes of the beholder but they are truly a gorgeous fish. Fishing until dark our final total was 3 channel cats, all at least 15 pounds, 4 redhorse suckers of which 3 of them were the golden type, 2 rock bass which quite honestly I have never caught in the river, and the 1 nice carp, a total of 15 fish for the 2 hours we sat on the dock.  Not bad as those big catfish took about 10 minutes to land, unhook, take pictures, and release.  This time we didn't think of it however I have a new telescoping landing net in the boat that would have worked out just great for this, oh well the muck did wash off pretty easy.  On the way out we stopped at the neighbors house and showed him the pictures, I think he was impressed.  Either way I will probably head back out to the river this weekend as these last two trips have reminded me how much I truly enjoy the simpler aspect of fishing the river.  And besides, one never knows what one will catch, the most exciting part!  I know that this time I am stepping up the size of my snells to 15 pound test!

Repeat of 2013!?!?!?!

New Boat for 2018 Minnesota Fishing Opener

Well last week it was complaining about the weather however this week it's getting ridiculous!  With 12 inches of snow predicted for the weekend and next weeks forecast in the mid 40's, almost 15 degrees below normal, everyone is starting to discount fishing opener because it would appear there is little time and little warmth to effectively cause the ice to go out on Leech Lake by May 12, the date for Minnesota Opener.  Even more interesting is whether or not the ice will be off of Lac Seul in time for the Ontario Fishing Opener scheduled for May 19th, the very next weekend.  Well, a lot can happen in 4 weeks as one of the best Minnesota Walleye Fishing Opener was when the ice went off the Saturday of opener, there was quite a bit of floating ice, especially off of Pine Pine, down from Brindley's.  Actually one had to stay on the main part of the lake because of the ice.  Never the less, the walleye fishing was fabulous.  It really doesn't matter if there is some ice on the lake however in 2013 the harbor at Brindley's was froze completely shut, one could not even launch a boat.  Hopefully it will turn around but to be quite honest, it's looking more desperate with every day and weather forecast!

Jerry's 20 inch Sauger

So some people are getting out on open water!  I have had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman, Jerry via  Walleye Central  where there are a number of forums that walleye fishing topics are discussed.  Most are pretty good but like a lot of things, often you have to wade through the BS!  Never the less my discussions regarding Lac Seul lead to Jerry requesting my help with an issue regarding navigation on Lac Seul.  After a number of tries, I finally managed to successfully fill his needs.  At the same time he had sent me a beautiful collection of his own hand made jigs and admittedly they are very good.  Being a fan of the B Fish N series H2O Precision Jigs, they are great for plastics as they have a wire keeper that really does a fabulous job.  Admittedly it brought me back to a time when Kevin and I made our own jigs for fishing walleyes in the backwaters of the Mississippi between Wabasha, MN and Alma, WI.  The jigs received are perfect plus the colors are excellent, he told me that he does his own epoxy powder coat on them.  Pretty impressive as we simply painted our jig heads by hand.  After he confirmed that my strategy worked he sent a picture of this beautiful 20 inch sauger that was caught on the Illinois River a few days ago.  A sauger is almost identical to the walleye however it's coloring is somewhat different and freshly caught, I think they are a stunning fish.  They tend to inhabit rivers and will tend to be in the deeper water than walleyes.  One tends to find them a little more south than walleyes, yet we have caught them on Lac Seul in Canada.  A 20 inch sauger is a really nice fish as they tend to be smaller than walleyes.  Either way it's a very nice fish and it's great to see that someone is at least enjoying the soft water.

Ben's nice Mississippi Perch

My friend Ben Aiona was out on the Mississippi River with his new Ranger on Tuesday learning to use his Lowrance HDS 12, Gen 3.  Calling me on his cell phone, it was fortunate that I had a Lowrance HDS9, Gen 3 in my office and could easily power it on and look at the menu's with him.  There were two things that he needed help with, the temperature sensor was not displaying, and his structure scan was not working right.  Because of my experience with  Ranger boats and Lowrance, the first thing is to look at the NMEA 2000 network devices listed as the temperature sensor on Ranger's is connected through the network.  Walking through the screens we found the device so then I told him to configure the network and VOILA, the temperature display came up on the screen.  The next was the structure scan and my hunch was it was still set to Structure Scan 3D.  We reset the machine and VOILA, I look like a genius and Ben was now viewing a what he was looking for.  It's kind of nice to be able to help someone yet it can be difficult as one may only need to change the settings once or twice in the life of one dealing with these machines.  It becomes more about thinking like the Lowrance software engineers would think and getting use to how the menu's are configured and the logic of it all.  Before we hung up the phone "Send me some nice fish pictures" was the last thing said.  Well, here you go, a nice picture of Ben and what looks like a 1 1/2 pound perch.   In the last few weeks I've been reading about the resurgence of the perch in the Mississippi River south of Lake Pepin.  A number of theories abound such as the Zebra Mussels have increased the water quality, that may be true but it sure hasn't done much for the perch on Mille Lacs, that's a different story!  As stated, it's nice to see someone is catching fish!

Relentless Winter!

Snow depth at the pole barn!

Well the winter of 2017-2018 is really testing one's patience these days.  With a good 8 inches of snow on the ground and for the most part, it's still snowing.  We received about 9 inches the last few days and the temperatures have been almost 20 degrees colder than normal.  With the Minnesota Fishing opener about a 5 weeks away and with most lakes up north reporting up to 36 inches of ice, it's starting to look like a repeat of 2013 when we could not get out on Leech Lake as it was totally iced up.  Although we did stay at the resort, we did so to keep the tradition going as we all headed home on Sunday.  It would appear as though the Canadian Fishing Opener might be in jeopardy as well.  A lot can happen in 5 weeks however the cold looks like it will hang on till about Tax Day, April 15th before it starts to act more like normal.  It doesn't take long as the days are longer and the sun is more intense.  My experience with late ice on fishing opener has not been that bad, actually on of the best years we experienced on Leech was when the ice officially went out on the Saturday of opening fishing, I remember scooping up ice for the cooler from the edge of the ice and open water on the lake.  We did very well and caught a lot of those big female walleyes that were in the shallows and still in prespawn.  I guess we never know what Mother Nature will throw at us but I can assure you that it is getting quite old blowing heavy wet snow this time of the year!!  Oh well, there's little we can do and you can be assured that bitching about it hasn't really solved anything.  The good news is we got our Team Walleye hats and because it's our 45th Annual this year we did embroidered hooded hockey style sweatshirts, both look really good and if nothing else, we'd be styling this year!

1/4 oz Gapen Crawfish Ugly Bug

Last week was my experience meeting Dan Gapen at the Sportsman Show at the Minneapolis Convention Center.  It was a great experience which lead to the ordering of some of his signature baits like the pictured Ugly Bug, as well as a number of his old DVD, Classic series on fishing walleyes and smallmouth on rivers.  Well the order came in and it's pretty exciting.  After watching the DVD's it was quite interesting.  The main purpose of getting the DVD's is to better understand how to fish the Mississippi River that runs behind the house.  Although we do catch the occasional walleye, I am interested in learning more about reading the river and walleye locations within the system.  The walleye DVD was exclusively Canadian Shield area rivers, usually fast flowing, full of boulders, and fish.  Although interesting, it did not fulfill the original intent of purchasing them.  The second DVD was filmed on the Mississippi River about 20 miles north of me and was exactly what I was looking for!  Filmed with Dan in his small jon boat, similar to the one I own, the descriptions of areas to fish and the film demonstrated the exact areas that one encounters when on the river.  I am already excited to try my new found knowledge, if it ever warms up!!  Being interested in possibly more DVD's that feature the Mississippi, a quick phone call and a followup e-mail brought the appropriate response.   Ordering three more DVD's, they might simply be repeats of what I already have but they are pretty easy to watch and hopefully they will arrive soon.  The Ugly Bug jig has been around for a long time and it was never a standard in the boat however I did pick up a good number of them.  In the DVD's, Dan shows exactly the how and why's to this bait and it seems logical.  Hopefully it may help the catch rate at both the Minnesota Opener as well as the Canadian Opener. 

We spent Easter with my wife's relative's in Eau Claire, the same guys I fished with on Palm Sunday.  We got to remiss about what we should have done as fishing wasn't very good.  Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.  Hopefully the boat will start to take shape as the step on the winch tree needs to be re-welded. the depth finders need to be installed and the rest of my gear needs to be put away.  5 weeks will come in a hurry!

First Trip on the River

Nice 16 inch River Walleye

My neighbor Tom Olson stopped by the pole shed on Saturday night and we struck up a conversation regarding the river, it's water levels and the potential to catch a fish or two.  Within 5 minutes we had decided that Sunday afternoon would be a great time to spend a few hours casting for smallmouth bass or what ever was hitting and he volunteered to take his boat.  That was fine with me as I had not been able to get my jon boat out and running yet and it would be nice to be able to sit back and have someone else control the boat.  There are 2 basic methods I like to fish the Mississippi River, drift with the current while casting crankbaits up to the shore and the other is anchoring in a deeper pool and soaking a nightcrawler.  My favorite crankbaits are the Bomber type with rattles which run 3-5 feet deep and are bright colored orange, red, chartreuse, or brown.   Because smallmouth feed on crawfish, these colors work quite well.  Launching across the river in the new park in Ramsey, we headed up river, the water levels were about a foot lower than we expected and it probably would have been better to have my jon boat rather than Toms 16 foot Lund with a 50 hp Merc but we did ok once we got into the main river channel.  Heading upstream we almost got to the City of Dayton before shutting the motor down and starting to drift with the current.  It always takes about 10 minutes to get back in the swing of using a casting rod again and after a few backlashes things were going well as we started catching fish right away.  I would not say the action was fast and furious however it was quite steady.  About 15 minutes into our drift a nice walleye surprised me at the end of my line.  The river has a lot of walleyes in it and someday I need to figure out how to specifically target them but we do get them occasionally casting the shorelines and structures on cranks.  It had been a few years since a walleye graced my drift so it was a welcome site for sure.  Now I have plenty of walleye fillets in my freezer from Canada so I let this one go.  We continued our trek downstream when withing the next half hour I had caught another walleye, two in a day, WOW.  Tom was fishing with a spinner bait and changed to a Shad Rap when he nailed a nice walleye, they looked like they all came out of the same mold!  That was a record for me, 3 walleyes on the River in one trip, it would be nice to be able to do that again sometime.

Biggest of the Day, 18.5 Inches

Did I say the smallies were hitting pretty well?.  Most of our fish were under 12 inches but those smallmouth bass really hit the lure hard.  Actually Tom caught an 11 incher that struck at the lure so hard the hook went through the top of it's head and threw it's brain, killing it instantly.  To be honest we didn't realize it until we released it and it floated belly up, didn't even make a ripple.  Tom scooped it out and along with the walleye he kept, it would go in the frying pan.  Not that it would have gone to waste as there are plenty of Bald Eagles on the river and an easy meal probably would have been appreciated.  Either way it was the right size for the frying pan, that's for sure.   The biggest bass of the trip was caught by Tom towards the end of our day on the river.  It was a nice 18.5 inch smallie, definitely a nice fish.  Although we don't keep an accurate count I would say that we ended the day with 3 nice walleyes and about 20 smallmouth landed and at least 8 others that either threw the hook or missed the lure on a retrieve.  So given that I would say that we had plenty of action all day.  The water was pretty nice and it wasn't too muddy either as usually the Crow Rive which enters the Mississippi in Dayton is quite brown and influences the rive below for a good 5 miles, with the south side of the river bearing the brunt of most of this water, so we almost alway fish the north shore side.  I did get Tom to agree to take a break as casting crankbaits all for 4 hours can take a toll on a guy.  He agreed and we anchored below Cloquet Island to soak a crawler.  I like fishing on the bottom with a crawler, one never knows what will show up at the end of the line, maybe a big catfish or Carp, a pretty redhorse sucker, a walleye, maybe even a sturgeon.  Within minutes of casting out the tip of my pole was bouncing.  I like to use circle hooks however they make it harder to catch fish and can prove frustrating if you don't exactly change your hook setting techniques.  If done right the fish are lip hooked or in the side of it's mouth whereas the fish would simple be gut hooked.  Within 5 minutes the rod tip was bouncing and a small catfish had become impaled on the hook.  After letting it go we headed back in for the evening,  Certainly a fun day on the water with a good friend.

Putting the final touches on the plan to go to the west end of Lac Seul in August so I'm going to meet with the guy who has organized it this week.  It should be fun.  Also it looks like another tip to Lac Seul Outpost is beginning to come together for September.  Mille Lacs shut down last Friday and my friend Bill Lundeen and I have resigned to believe that it will not open up again until Dec 1, when the new "season" starts, or the day the quota system resets,  It's not a lot of fun for guys like Bill yet he is doing OK.  Stop up and say high the next time you drive buy...........and of course buy some minnows!!

Dog Days of Summer

Flames shoot out the exhaust on an amazing run.

Fishing has been somewhat frustrating considering all the rain we have had in the last 30 days.  I suspect it's been over 12 inches but who is counting!  Friday I was fortunate enough to be invited back to Brainerd International Raceway (BIR) by my good friend Kevin Sonsalla.  Kevin is a business colleague I met a long time ago and he happened to be from the area where I grew up.  There were plenty of Sonsalla's near Eleva so we have a lot in common.  Last week event was the NHRA's (National Hot Rod Association) scheduled event and all the big national teams were there.  Kevin has a relationship with Tony Schaumacher, the championship drag racer who is sponsored by the US Army.  Therefore he has race day passes, passses for the hospitality tent which get's us refreshments and a awfully good meal after the first race.   It is interesting as these top fuel cars run on Nitromethane which has the ability to provide most of the oxygen needed to make power.  These engines are 500 cubic inch and have no cooling other than air, so after each run they are torn apart and rebuilt for the next race.  In this case the top fuel guys raced at around 5:00 in the afternoon and have to have their cars ready for the next run, 2 hours later.  It is quite fun to watch a crew of 4 guys rebuild the engine, pretty amazing.  These cars start from a dead stop and race just 1000 feet to the finish.  It used to be a quarter mile length however the speeds were getting too high so they shortened it.  The teams now have caught back up to the speeds and times of the old distance and the fastest run was covering the distance in 3.77 seconds with a top speed of 322 mph.  That's moving!  Sitting in the stands you literally feel the force of these engines as they scream by.  It is pretty loud as well.  We stayed for the second run later in the evening and the flames shooting out of the exhaust is pretty cool.  The last race of the day was a couple of jet engine powered cars and that was interesting.  Not as fast or as quick never the less the afterburners on the engines put on a pretty good show.

Current water Levels behind the house.

I did make it on the river on Sunday night however because of the rain the water was up another 18 inches.  The high water makes for traveling anywhere you want to go pretty easy however it does scatter the fish.  My neighbor Tom Olson went with me but it was pretty slow.  He caught a medium sized smallmouth while I haven't been doing very well at all in that department.  At 7:00 we decided to anchor and again all we could catch were 6 inch catfish in the high water.   Oh well, hopefully the rain will settle down somewhat. Personally I like it when the gage height is between 4.0 and 5.0.  Unfortunately both seats in my Jon Boat broke so I ordered new ones to replace them. They were pretty bad.  I have one other project going on with my boat, on the Ranger I have an HDS 9 mounted on the dash above my panel mount HDS12.  My original idea was to use a Johnny Ray so I could move it between my Ranger and the Jon boat however it proved to be too heavy for the Johnny Ray that I bought.  After a few ideas am going to try to mount just an HDS9 gimble to my dash using a nice 1/2" thick plastic piece then fashion it into an adaptor plate so I use the existing holes that I have already made.  Luckily the Johnny Ray still works good in the jon boat so I should be ok, it just takes a little thought process to make sure it looks good.

After a season of strictly catch and release fishing on Mille Lacs this year, the calculations for hooking mortality have now exceeded the allowable totals on the State fisherman's side.  Our illustrious Governor announce that we would not stop fishing but the Indian tribes called foul so starting September 6th it will be illegal to fish for walleyes again until a new quota is announced for December 1st...........what an unbelievable mess for sure.  I promised myself I won't get political but this whole situation on Mille Lacs is ridiculous for sure.  Anyway I am hoping to get out this weekend for one last trip for what it's worth, maybe try some deep water trolling with lead line or deep diving reef runners.  It's always fun and the MTT event on Mille Lacs, that strategy proved to be very successful.

Labor Day Ride

 

View of the Mississippi River from Apple Blossum Drive

For the last 2 years I have taken advantage of meeting my brother Steve in Alma, Wisconsin what has turned out to be an annual motorcycle ride through the bluff country.  Just south of Eleva, my home town is the area called the Driftless Area, where the glaciers stopped their advances.  Full of hills and valleys called coulees, the area boast some beautiful curved roads as they move up and down the valleys, connecting farms to the main roads leading to town.  Starting in Alma we headed back up river to Nelson then headed east taking the back roads to Gilmanton Wisconsin.  I had never been on County Road KK and it did not disappoint.  It's amazing what we have right in our back yard.  My sister Beth and her husband Jerry asked if they could join us so meeting in Eleva we headed south to Independence, Whitehall, Blair, Melrose, Mindoro, stopping for a break in La Crosse.  Brother Steve really knows the back roads from Blair down as we cranked about 132 miles on our first leg.  Filling up with gas our next stop was La Crescent, Minnesota as we went up Apple Blossom Drive.  A ridge nestled between the Root River Valley and the Mississippi River Valley the scenery was spectacular.  Over to Rushford then back to Winona, we ended our trip together at Fountain City where we parted company.  A total of 226 miles I could never get tired of this area.  Hopefully we can do this again before the snow flies.

 

Trolling up river, a beautiful day

Sunday proved to be a day to get caught up around the house.  The lawn needed mowing and instead of weeding the garden, it's just easier to take my gas weed trimmer as I have never seen so many weeds.  I guess the wet June is playing itself out.  We haven't had rain in over a month now so the moles have decided my yard is the perfect hunting grounds....and they are not that easy to catch!  Sunday's plan was to get a few things done then head to Mille Lacs for an afternoon of deep water trolling then hit the reefs for some sundown shallow water scouting.  Unfortunately the plans fell through and not wanting to drive up myself decided to hit the river behind the house.  I knew the river was low but was surprise by how low, probably another 2 feet less than the last time I was on the river.  Launching the boat was interesting and once in the water my 15 hp outboard can be alittle stubborn.  Getting it started I headed up river and successfully avoided hitting the bottom with the motor as one gets good at reading the river this time of year.  My friend Pete fishes smallies with live bait, something I didn't have but probably should've picked up.  There are some classic areas that are just perfect for fishing his methods.  I tried trolling but really didn't produce anything.  Fishing along the shorelines was interesting as the low water revels everything.  There are rapids were there were none before, drop offs, eddy's, and boulders galore.  I really need to get to know the river better as the fishing is probably pretty good but I need some better success.  When it's high water, the fish are tight to the shorelines and it's fairly easy to find both numbers and larger fish.  The low water has them scattered an I think requires a little more experimentation and thinking outside the box.  For sure there are not many people fishing the river and unlocking it's secrets is now a goal of mine.  I did get 3 smallies but honestly, they were nothing to write home about yet is at least something to write in my blog!

Small but better than nothing!

Saturday is the Annual Kramer Open, a sporting clays tournament held by a friend of mine, Dave Kramer.  Each year he hosts this event to raise money for his charity.  My dear departed friend Tom Emmons was a regular and I have been a member of his team for many years.  It is difficult to think that Tom isn't with us but I still go as my memory of our good times together.  We shoot 100 clay pigeons in 2 50 bird courses and Tom was really good.  One year I was 1 bird ahead of him, all the way through the last station, we had 6 shots to go.  I went first and shot missed 2 of the 6 putting me 1 behind, the first time I had been back all day.   Tom nailed all 6 to win by 1 shot.  He accused me of purposely losing and I guess if he went to his grave thinking that, it makes me smile!  My September is filling up fast as the next weekend is my 40th Class Reunion.  Uffda.  It will be good to see those who dare to show up and those who don't.  I am in charge of the entertainment and have a few ideas for my classmates.  We were a rebel class and although the school proclaimed they'd never forget us, eventually we all go away.  I have confirmed my trip to Lac Seul with my neighbor Pete and admittedly it's pretty exciting.  My friend Paul Wenaas fishes that area and has promised some "secret locations" to nail the walleyes.  With my schedule this will be the highlight of the next 4 weeks.  I'd say that I can't wait but time flies too fast the way it is, I can wait.

New Orleans, a Great Place to Visit!



Pat O'Brien's legendary Hurricane Cocktail

New Orleans is the first leg of my 3 week journey which includes 50 hours of  being stuck in an airplane, nothing to brag about for sure.  I am writing this from the town that Hurricane Katrina devastated in 2005, more than 7 years ago already.  To be honest, I haven't seen much of the effect however the locals say that near the outskirts of the city it's still pretty bad.  For me, I am staying in the luxurious Loews Downtown Hotel, 2 blocks off the water front in downtown New Orleans.  This is an interesting town for sure and at least from my advantage, continues to be a vibrant city worth visiting.  One of the things on my bucket list is to have a genuine Hurricane Cocktail from the famous Pat O'Brien's located in the Historic French Quarter.  A few of my colleagues and I walked from our hotel to the iconic bar, a good mile and a half, sat down and watched the New Orleans Saints/Atlanta Hawks game and had what is best expressed as "everything I imagined it to be!".   This thing is huge and includes 4 shots of quality gold rum, Pat O'Brien's Hurricane Cocktail Mix, crushed ice, and garnished with an orange slice and cherry.  I dare to say it's almost 16 ounces with the crushed ice causing a coat of frost to form on the outside of the glass.  They have an interesting concept, you get charged an extra $3.00 for your drink and if you want it back you have to turn in the glass.  I decided to keep mine and on the way out a guy gives you a cardboard container, their famous beads, and a carrying bag to take the glass with you.  Seeing's how I bought nothing, that glass was going to be mine.  I was able to get it back to the hotel in one piece.  Although I need another glass in my collection of special places I have been like I need a hole in my head, it was something that could not be resisted!






New Orleans water front

The previous night we took a genuine riverboat jazz cruise, complete with a Cajun buffet on a 210 foot paddle wheeler called the Creole Queen.  After sitting down and eating dinner the boat fired up the paddle wheels and we headed down river for an hour before turning around and returning to port.  The Mississippi is certainly different at it's mouth than  it is in Minneapolis.  Deep and muddy, it's reported that the river is over 200 feet deep as it meanders through downtown New Orleans.  You can get an idea of it size by the amount of large ocean going freighters making there way up and down the river.  With the river nearing record lows, there are places near home that you can almost walk across.  I have to admit it was a beautiful site as we came into the dock on the final leg of our cruise.  We leave tomorrow but not before I can get the chance to down some New Orleans fresh oysters and maybe have some gumbo.  It's an exciting place and definitely worth your visit some time.

 

Coming home on Friday, my wife and I will head to Prairie Du Chen to attend the funeral of my sister-in-law's mother, Violet Heiar.  Her husband Wes was the guy I bought the tractor from, having just seen her a few weeks ago, its a sad day.  Inevitable, it's simply a sign that we are not getting any younger.  I'll be scrambling to get down and back as Sunday will see me on a plane to Hong Kong.  I hope I can get some sleep!







Close to Home

This week featured a full day on Friday working at the ENA Memorial Golf Tournament (more on that later), cleaning up around the house on Saturday, and taking the Ol' River Runner out for her 2012 maiden run on Sunday.  I'll start from Sunday and work backwards.  After the heavy rains from a few weeks ago the Mississippi River level has finally receded enough to make it feasible to fish for smallies and whatever else could be biting.  My hectic schedule put me in lazy mode and after discussing with my neighbor Tom, should we go to Mille Lacs or the River, the weather man decided for us.  With rain in the forecast we stayed close to home, hitched up the jon boat and launched at my neighbors landing.  On Saturday I finally got the boat cleaned out and bought it outside to see if she would run.  A little stubborn, the motor finally came to life after about 10 pulls on the recoil, then purred like a kitten.  Once on the river our strategy was to motor 5 miles up the river then drift down, casting the shorelines.  The water level was still 2 - 3 feet higher than normal and somewhat dirty.  With the current running around 2.5 mph, the top speed going up river was a gut wrenching 12.3mph.   25 minutes later we arrived at our starting point just as the clouds opened up, just my luck as I left my rain suit back in the pole shed.  Thankfully it was a nice warm summer rain and actually felt pretty good!  Because of the poor river clarity we decided to cast medium running Bomber A's in a hot fire tiger as well as a bright orange crawfish pattern.  Figuring the fish would hold tight to the bottom and needed some sound to help them locate the bait, the Bomber's have proved to be our number 1 crank bait on the river.  Within 10 minutes Tom hooked a young smallmouth bass, then nailed a nice one.  I had a nice catfish hit my orange Bomber hard enough to break a hook off the back treble.  I decided to change to the same green fire tiger pattern and within 10 minutes this nice 3 pound smallmouth plowed into my lure.  As we continued to drift the river a  few more smallies were caught, 2 very small northern pike (8-12 inches), and Tom had this nice 5 pound catfish hit his lure like a freight train.  I am always amazed at the tenacity these channel cats will hit a standard crank bait as the standard mode of catching them are more related to stink baits and bottom fishing.  Catfish are actually good to eat however the ones out of the river are pretty fat and tend to be mushy.  Maybe I am cooking them wrong!  My brother Steve is a great catfish connoisseur and maybe I need to get a recipe from him.  It was a successful couple of hours on the river and now that the area has been dumped on again, I see the river reports predicting the water levels may go back up another 3 - 4 feet.  It could be another couple of weeks before the levels get back to normal assuming we don't have a lot of rain in the forecast.  Fishing the river is a lot of fun as you never know what you'll catch, which keeps it interesting.

Friday was our 10th annual ENA Memorial Golf Tournament.   Each year we raise money through the golf tournament which is used to assist families who have children battling cancer.  We do not fund research, we have zero administrative costs as 100% of the money goes to helping these families cope.  It may be helping to fix a car, providing critical transportation that the family cannot afford, anything to help them deal with the day to day struggles of dealing with cancer.  Most of our funds are administered through the Fairview Foundation, an organization based with the Fairview Health Services, including the new Amplatz Children's Hospital located at the Fairview Riverside location in Minneapolis.  Our goal was to break the $250,000 amount raised with the 2012 event and by all indications we blew by that number.  It is a very rewarding experience, one that I hope to continue and see us break the $500,000 goal.  The above picture is our team of dedicated individuals with Mark and Jan Applen in the middle.  Great job!

Friday and Saturday I will be helping my friend Bill Lundeen entertain a corporate event by trying to catch some walleyes for his clients.  The bite is still on and hopefully it won't be too windy to make things uncomfortable.  I should have more pictures and stories next week. 

Like Old Times

Sunday I had the opportunity to do something I probably haven't done for the last 30 years, ice fish with my friend Kevin Aiona,  back at our old fishing haunts around Wabasha, MN.  Home of the movie Grumpy Old Men, we lived that lifestyle of fishing the back waters and sloughs of the Mississippi River.  Places like Cattle Pass, The Oil Tanks, Railroad Slough, The Boat Harbor, and Nelson Road, these areas provided all the entertainment we needed to make the winters more enjoyable.  Back 30 years ago our fishing poles were simple sticks with 2 posts to wrap the line around,  a nail to stick it in the ice and our quarry was mostly sunfish, crappies, northerns, and bass.  The depth finder definition was a piece of lead snapped to our line and dropped down the hole to check how deep the water was.  Holes in the ice were accomplished by using an ice chisel and chopping our way through and the Mora Swedish Ice Auger had just made it's debut.   After dropping my wife off in Osseo, Wisconsin I made my way to Eleva, arriving around 8:00 Sunday morning.  Kevin poured me a quick cup of coffee as we loaded our gear and headed west towards the  river.  Our first stop was the bait shop in Durand.  I love these small bait shops in the small towns.  They have plenty of minnows, waxies, maggots, a few lures, and the latest fishing reports.  Today's strategy was to use maggots or Euro Larva, a bit smaller than a waxie grub but I think a lot more hardy.  Minnows can be a great crappie bait but I think that grubs tend to be more versatile and will consistently catch more fish.  Crossing the railroad tracks assured us we were in Wisconsin/Minnesota Boundary waters and my fishing license was now valid.  Although we did pull out our portable ice shacks, the plan was to drill a few holes and look for active fish before setting up the shelters.   With the ice being relatively thin for this time of year (12 inches) we decided to simply use my new Eskimo 8" hand auger.  At the end of last season I bought an really nice ice fishing combo from Cabela's at over 50% off.  It included a Quikfish 3 pop-up shelter, the hand auger, a portable stool, and a small sled with a cover to put everything in.  My "big" Clam ice shelter is heavy, bulky, but works get for the colder situations or when I am using the ATV for transportation.  This new setup is a breeze for early and late season ice where the temperatures are warmer, the ice isn't so thick, and I am walking out.  The sharp auger really works slick for punching a few holes where you need them.

It was still pretty cold out as we started fishing, enough to skim our holes fairly quickly.  Immediately we began to mark fish on our screens, a great sign.  The fish seemed somewhat aggressive as they would follow our lures but were very reluctant to bite, or so we assumed.  While I used my trusty old spring bobber setup loaded with 3 pound test line, Kevin had a high end pole with a sensitive tip and 2 pound test line.  Spring bobbers are great for detecting the faintest of bites and work very well.  Unfortunately we were in 15 feet of water and the line stretch of 3 pound test line negates most of that advantage.  Almost immediately Kevin connects with a nice 3 pound bass.  Back when we used to fish the Oil Tanks with tip-ups and shiner minnows, bass were a common target.  One trip Kevin and I nailed 6 largemouths with the largest pushing over 5 pounds.  The top picture is that first fish.  Within minutes I caught my first fish, a nice 10 inch perch.  It is interesting that the perch in the Mississippi are much larger now than what I remembered.  I suspect the cleaner water, a result of Zebra Mussels invading the river has played a role in this phenomenon.  With a few more fish in the bucket we set up our shelters that would provide a place to sit down and warm up.  For me the bite was tough.  You could see the fish approach your bait, hang there for a few seconds, then slowly slip away.  A few jigs of the lure would call them in and repeat the cycle.  Occasionally you would see a fish rush to met your bait and slam it but this was few and far between.  In the meantime Kevin was holding a seminar on light bite pan-fishing and was catching 3 to my one including this nice 13 inch crappie he is holding.  Admittedly his reactions are faster than mine which in these conditions make all the difference in the world.  The fish were there and simply coming up to the bait, inhaling it then spitting it out as fast.  Both of us spend a lot of time switching baits and he ended up catching most of his fish on a small teardrop lure with almost a micro piece of black plastic attached to the hook.  I simply had to laugh.  Watching his line, he would slowly drop his lure through the fish zone and look for any slight change in the line.  You really had to set the hook before the fish realized what it just did and Kevin is a master at this.  For me, I am become familiar with the slam of a walleye, even the finesse bite seldom passes me by but this was totally different.  Not unlike tullibee fishing on Mille Lacs, they too will inhale but are not a particular about line size so it's easier to feel them.  That combination of the right gear and paying close attention to your line really paid off.  I am sure that of the 10 people or so that were fishing around us, we were the only guys consistently catching fish.

We ended the day with a bucket full of very nice panfish, 38 total.  Our take included 12 crappies ranging from 11 to 13 inches, 6 perch in the 10 - 12 inch range, and 20 nice bluegills all over 8.5 inches.  It was a lot fun returning to our old fishing spots and experiencing those things that seem like they happened yesterday.  The trains still cause the ice to tremble as they rumble along the shoreline heading to Minneapolis or Chicago.  It sure seems like there are more of them now then ever before.  The blue skies accenting the majestic bluffs along the river makes a perfect backdrop for a day on the river.  The river has changed quite a bit in the last 40 years as sediment has filled in and cut off many of our old favorite fishing holes.  Driving by some of our old duck hunting haunts, they are now leased out and impossible to access.  The old bait shops come and go, replaced by larger convenience stores and gourmet cheese shops.  Heck, even as a fellow fisherman was leaving the ice he stopped to examine our impressive catch, commenting how tough the bite was.  He whipped out his small portable Aqua View camera exclaiming that "There down there, just don't want to bite!".  Oh well, for all that has changed some things will always be the same..........like fishing with my friend Kevin on a relaxing Sunday afternoon.   We have better equipment, better clothes, better transportation, yet we still look at life no different that when we were growing up together.  Thanks Buddy!

A Couple Nice Fishing Reports

My planned "last trip" to fish Mille Lacs hard water fell apart at the last minute on Sunday.  Deciding to call Bill before leaving he said to bring the ATV as you can't get on with the truck.  Not wanting to drive back home and spend another hour hooking everything up I decided it would be a good day to get caught up on fixing my lawn tractor tire and putting new wheels on my jon boat trailer.  I always like getting fishing reports from my friends and earlier this week I received a couple of nice ones, One from Ben Taylor and the other from my Wisconsin buddy Kevin Aiona.  This first picture is Ben holding a large crappie caught on Platte Lake, where their cabin resides.  12 miles west of Mille Lacs, Platte Lake is a fairly shallow body of water that has sunfish, crappies, bass, the occasional walleye, and a ton of snake northerns.  Ben's dad is my friend and deer hunting partner Jack Taylor and he is turning his son into quite the young fisherman.   Still a little young to join us on our annual Leech Lake Opener with the guys, it's getting harder to leave him behind.  Ben is always the last one off the dock, fishing up to the last minute before hopping in the car to head back home.  His fishing accomplishments include a number of nice crappies like this, many northers caught on tip-ups, and largemouth bass caught right off their dock.  One of these days I'll look forward to showing him how to fish the big pond.  Nice catch there Ben!!

The next picture is right out of a Sunday morning fishing show.  Earlier in the week my good friend Kevin was fishing below the dam in Alma, Wisconsin and nailed this 28 1/2 inch pig walleye.  Kevin and I have spent many a day chasing walleyes and saugers in the spring as the fish tend to congregate below the dams, getting ready to spawn.  The fishing is usually pretty good up to the time the water gets too high and fast from the spring runoff.  This year the wet autumn and generous snowfalls have pushed the river to over it's flood stage fairly early.  Often we simply have a high water crest, then the river settles down somewhat back to a fishable state.  I am afraid we may be looking at 2 flood crests this year.  Never the less those big walleyes are there and if you can time it right, put on quite a show.  When the water comes off the crest and the temperature hits 45 degrees, you can find the big walleyes up on the flooded banks, in the timber, sometimes less than 3 feet of water.  Kevin picked this nice fish up in the middle of the river as you can see the lock walls and downtown Alma.  The flooding also means the backwater areas above the dam are accessible.  35 years ago this was prime time to fish northern pike on Daredevils and Johnson Silver Minnows.  We have been talking about trying to get back and try these waters for old times sake.  We'll see where that goes!

As stated earlier the end of March signals the start of the dead period, waiting for the ice to go off.  The next 2 weeks will determine if it's an early, normal, or late ice out.  Last year was pretty early as the ice on Mille Lacs had already pulled away from shore.  3 years ago Leech Lake still had ice on walleye opener, May 9th.  March is the perfect time to trim all of he fruit trees in my orchard.  Trimming promotes healthy growth, optimizes fruit production, helps disease prevention, and keeps the trees a manageable size.  Mature apple and pear trees tend to grow sucker branches on the pruned limbs.  All of these sucker branches have to be removed as they serve little purpose other than to fill up the space you just pruned out.  It's amazing how prolific these rouge branches can be.  With 11 apple trees and 2 pear trees the number of branches that need remove are in the hundreds (I know I said a million earlier, it just feels this way).  Some of them can grow quite long over a single summer.  Here are a few of the longer branches I trimmed from the trees, as you see they are almost 8 feet long.  Thinking about the real growing season, that's almost an inch a day.  Last year a very late frost in the second week of May pretty much destroyed my entire crop.  Hopefully this year Mother Nature will be somewhat less aggressive.  I am off to one of my favorite events of the year, the Northwest Sportsman Show.  There never seems to be enough time to cover everything I am interested.  Oh well, it will be fun trying.

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.

A New Member of the Family

Last week saw the addition of a new occupant for about 100 square feet of my pole shed.  She was a little rough and had not seen any tender loving care for a few years but underneath the dirt, cobwebs, and bird droppings was something special.  My late brother-in-law enjoyed fishing the Mississippi River out of Trempealeau Wisconsin and what better rig than a simple Jon boat.  Never one to travel far a 15 hp motor was more than enough to get him across the river for some good old sheepshead fishing.  Living next to the Mississippi River 160 miles north of Trempealeau, the boat would be a perfect craft for chasing Smallmouth Bass in the shallow and rocky section north of Minneapolis. Discussing the purchase with his wife Susy, we agreed on a price and I pulled it out of the old cattle shed.   After re-inflating the tires, fixing the lights, and finding an 1 7/8 inch ball, I got home in one piece.  A 14 foot square front Alumacraft with a 1976 Evinrude short shaft outboard, she needed a good cleaning, a new propeller, the trailer was begging to be repainted and have it's rollers replaced.   Having repacked the bearings by Saturday afternoon it was off to the neighbors river landing for her maiden voyage and a try at some smallies.

Having never been on this stretch of the Mississippi River in a boat there was a concern about the overall water depth.  The river is fairly high for this time of year but without a depth finder, it was a visual guess.  I was looking for a transducer to mount on the back and use my ice fishing flasher, an FL20 for the open water.  Deciding to take it with and hang the transducer off the side for a quick reference, there was a chance that this would be good enough.  Well that didn't work very well so I brought the transducer back in the boat.  As the boat came on plane I put the face of the transducer squarely on the aluminum floor with some water between then and voila, the bottom showed up on the flasher.  This proved to be a perfect solution giving me a great read of the river depth.  Traveling up 8 miles thru 2 known rapids I began the drift back fishing with a shallow fire tiger Bomber Model A.  The first cast into the riffle area produced a 14 inch smallie, life is good.  With the river high the boat drifted a good 100 feet before the fish was secured and released.  Motoring back to the starting point the next drift produced another 14 incher.  The 3rd drift resulted in a small northern pike.  Realizing there was a lot of water to cover it was off to the next spot, a deeper outside bend in the river.  A couple of cast later and a nice 17 inch smallie was on the line.  Man do these river fish fight!  I had my camera with but with no one there to record the fish, it was up to me.  Here is my attempt of a self portrait, not great but you get the idea.  The trip ended with a better understanding of the Mississippi from Dayton proper to Anoka and the lure of getting back to try it again.  I continue to add a few things to the boat like a permanent transducer, a Rock Hopper (a lower unit device for protecting the propeller from the bottom), and a trolling motor.  I love being a river rat again.

Last Sunday was Mille Lacs time with my friend Tom Emmons.  Lead lining was the goal with a stop at my favorite reef at sunset to round out the trip.  Arriving about 3:00 we headed to the north gravel bars and put out a couple of lines with the new hot bait, a Salmo #4F Hornet.  A smaller bait, I was skeptical however we did get a couple of keeper walleyes and a perch.  Sunset prompted us to abandon the lead and head for the 4 foot reef top.  The wind was perfect for my drift/casting technique which resulted in another 3 walleyes for the live well.  Leaving around 9:00 we had 5 in the box plus 2 nice perch, good enough for  meal but nothing large enough to take a picture of.  The one picture I did take of Tom's trophy rock he caught was done without a memory card in the camera..........oh well, it was pretty funny.  Hopefully I get back on the river this Sunday and try all the new crankbaits I bought.

One Last Day on the Ice

After a whirlwind month of February, I thought I would give my favorite panfish lake a try before I head to the hospital on Monday morning.  Seeing my neighbor Tom Olson working on his car, I stopped to see if he would be interested in riding shotgun.  It was a gorgeous day, in the mid 30's, the sun shining, an offer he could not refuse.  Agreeing to pick him up at 3:00, it would give us a nice 3 hours of fishing.  Deciding to fish outside kept the non value activities to a minimum.  First stop was the hardware store in St. Michael as along with the desired bait they serve free popcorn.  The nice day had the lake pretty crowded, as I expected.  I think people tend to naturally bunch up on lakes, assuming where there are people, there are fish.  Although this might true some of the time, I find it much more successful being away from the crowd, looking for my own unique special area.   It is especially true on this lake.  Arriving at my destination I drilled about 8 holes around the truck.  The bite started slow with Tom nailing the first 2 keeper sunnies including this nice 8 1/2 incher.  For me it took somewhat longer to get in the swing of things but I finally found the groove. 

Waxies were the hot bait for the day.  I did try a few purists and suspect if I had stayed with them would have done well however the hook sets were not as good a standard teardrop with the waxie.  About 4:30 the action really picked up.  Going through a box of bait in a half hour I was glad Tom picked up that third box.  The bite was soft but consistent.  Plenty of small fish were caught however about every fourth one felt like a hog.  I missed many fish that felt they could have easily been a new world record, however that was wishful thinking.  I did get this dandy 9 1/2 incher, a excellent fish anywhere.  When you bring a nice sunfish like this through the hole, it looks enormous.  Measuring it at home makes one realize just how big those 11 inch sunfish pictured on MT Bucket's blog really are.   Tom had a couple of crappies early but they really didn't start hitting until about 6:00.   After getting a couple on the teardrop it was time to try a new bait that my friend Kevin Aiona had given me for my birthday, a Lil' Cecil.  Not sold in the Minneapolis area, he picked them up in Eau Claire.  They are a very small metal spoon with a split ring attaching a very small treble hook dressed with a bead, with a thin metal flapper on the split ring.  The flash factor is incredible.  It didn't take long for a crappie to inhale the bait.  With the treble hooks there was no missing these fish.  I like watching crappies on my depth finder as they often act like aggressive walleyes, appearing out of nowhere or coming up from the bottom in a dead run to the bait.  Originally sceptical that a crappie would hit a plain metal bait, Kevin proved his value as a friend again.  I think the Lil" Cecil has a new priority in my extensive arsenal! 

Together we ended up with over 20 sunnies and about 12 crappies.  It was a great day on the ice for sure.  Actually the entire day was great.  Being outdoors is one of my favorite things in life.  As I was inviting Tom fishing this morning a Bald Eagle flew very low directly over us.  Heading to the Mississippi River I pointed out a nest high in the trees rising from the shore,easily seen from his house.  The eagle made a beeline for the nest before landing, assuring it will be a frequent sight this summer.  While on the ice a familiar high pitched honk signaled a large swan was near.  Sure enough a single Trumpeter Swan flew directly overhead, gracefully heading to some unknown destination.  The day ended with this stunning full moon rising over the trees, introducing the evening.  The day turned into a constant reminder of how beautiful the natural world is.  Monday morning is my scheduled surgery, however I look forward to a speedy recovery and the opportunity to get back out and enjoy the great outdoors.  My surgeon claims that I will be confined to the hospital for 5 - 7 days.  With a little luck I could be home by Sunday, March 7th and will post a complete update or it could take a couple of weeks, time will tell. Having lot's of good stories about past fishing trips, I should have enough material to keep it interesting till I can get back out on the water (or hopefully ice!).