Wow, Time Gets Compressed

40 inch Northern!

My trip to Lac Seul occurred during the time I usually post last week and I was thinking about doing it from the camp as there is Internet, slow, but it's there.  Unfortunately one gets busy eating fish and savoring the time with your friends, and we are a bunch of old farts and are in bed by 10:00, uffda!! Nevertheless, it's pretty hard to complain about the time one spends with your friends in such a wonderful place to fish, Lac Seul. I have to admit that I have been very fortunate to be included in the group that I go with, my neighbor Pete Sipe and his consideration of my love of fishing.  Bruce, who is our fearless leader has taken some direction from me and improved his electronics and anchoring technologies significantly..........all without one complaint of me spending too much of his money! Lac Seul fishing is always great however some days are better than others.  September lake levels tend to be the highest of the year which allows one to get around much safer than in May.  The fall fishing can be relatively challenging as compared to the May opener or even in June as the fish ten to be deeper and more finicky.  Of course the baitfish are more than plentiful and mature making for easy meals for the fish and it requires some more finesse to catch them.  This time of year we usually have 3 main areas to fish, Tuk bay, Wapesi Bay, or the main lake reef areas south of Chamberlain Narrows area.  Bruce has a fondness for Wapesi so we went there on Wednesday.  This was the first day of blue skies in a while as it rained the day before.  Typically the weather following a rainy period is a rising barometer and it make it tough for the bite however it wasn't too bad.  One of the advantages of the high water period is getting into places that can be tough and this day was no exception as we made our way back to where the Wapesi River flows into the lake.  It was absolutely beautiful back there with the rushing water, current that extended back into the bay and some pretty good fishing.  I really wanted to catch a fish on a shad rap and casting in the current break areas I caught my first walleye on a crankbait in Lac Seul.  We did really well with walleyes of all sizes from 6" to 24".  When the jig and minnow combinations stop short, I like to try plastic and using a Cabela's bubblegum/chartreuse 3 inch curly tailed grub, a nice 40 inch northern pike hit it.  Luckily it was hooked in the side of it's mouth and there was little worry of the pike's teeth cutting the line.  Dan netted the fish and a few pictures later we released it.  I have caught many nice pike on Lac Seul but this one was quite fat and probably weighed in at 18#'s as it was pretty heavy to hold.  

24 inch Walleye in Tuk

The bite tended to be good for the first half hour of anywhere we went then it quickly shut down.  We spend a few hours at the river mouth because it was very pretty, the sound of the rushing water was nice, and it was simply very scenic back there.  However eventually we moved back into the main bay and fished a number of points and caught more fish, at least enough for supper before returning to camp!  The next day was for me as we returned to Tuk Bay, one of my favorite spots.  Although we did catch quite a few fish in Wapesi, my confidence level for Tuk is much higher, some call it a personal problem!  I bought a push button counter to keep track of the fish caught and Wednesday was around 50 however I felt we could blow that away in TuK.   We accomplished this by catching over 70 walleyes that day.  I personally thought the walleyes were larger as well however in the past they were more turquoise in color.  There is a channel that goes up straight north of the main bay and has a number of small points that are walleye magnetic.  It's fun to go point hopping until you run into them.  The point we fished last June that was so good did provide a repeat performance but the next one down from it certainly proved successful.  Again one of the ways to catch fish once they stop hitting minnows is to try artificial and get the fish to react to a trigger bite, one where they simply cannot resist to strike something audacious swimming by!  I bought some jig heads with willow leaf spinner blades connected on the bottom of the lure and they worked very good but for some reason I lost them right away, oh well!  The first 2 days were certainly fun and we still had 1 full day of fishing left.

Light Brown Raccoon

I did get home in time to head to the Green Bay Packer/Minnesota Viking's first home game in their new stadium.  It was pretty awesome Except that Green Bay lost, what can you do.  Certainly the Viking's looked a lot better than they have in the past years so it should make this year's season very interesting!  My wife has been complaining that the raccoons are making a smorgasbord out of our bird feeders on our back patio, so it was time to put out a live trap. Well this morning I had a brown/tan colored critter in the trap, I've never seen this color phase before and I have caught a lot of raccoons over the years.  They almost look friendly enough to pick up but I can assure you this is not the case.  I tend to drive them over to Elm Creek Park reserve and let them go, hopefully far enough away from the house that they won't find their way back, maybe 7 miles. Anyway it was  interesting to see this creature this morning.  I tell you, they sure do stink!

Catching Up



Raccoon's love sweetcorn!

After 9 straight days of travel and non stop fishing, it's surprising what starts piling up around the homestead.  Along with having tickets to see Alan Jackson last Friday night and Blake Shelton on Saturday night at the Minnesota State Fair, it leaves little time to do anything other than getting caught up with my projects.  One thing I didn't have to do was freeze any of my late crop sweet corn but it wasn't because of time.  As stated before I have good sized garden and fresh sweet core is always something to look forward to.  The strategy is to plant half the 6 rows in early May and the other half after Memorial Day.  This would assure there would be a crop before I went to Alaska and by the time I returned the second planting would be ready to go.  My favorite is a bi-colored kerneled corn called Honey'n Pearl.  It is sweet and holds well over a week of riping time.  This year I didn't buy enough seed to plant the last 2 rows so I substituted an old favorite of my Dad's, Northrup King's K199 Hybrid.  Man did that grow and is almost 2 feet higher than the first planting.  What was really nice is the cobs are very high up on the stalk, high enough to assume maybe the raccoons would leave it alone.  Fat Chance!  Obviously there was a smorgasbord and I wasn't invited.  Tuesday morning's discovery of nearly every stalk of the K199 either tore down or had the ears cropped off looked like the first picture. So much for freezing corn.  With my tomato's starting to ripen, rather than processing corn I got out the live trap and a can of sardines out of the boat.  I'm sure the one in the trap wasn't the sole perpetrator of the damage but it's a start.  The good new is......I don't have to freeze corn!  No worries, there is some from the first crop in the freezer.



New muffler, carburetor, and newly connected alternator

I have been real anxious to get my Ferguson TO35 tractor running like a new machine.  Although I could drive it fine, there were a number of issues that needed attention.  The tractor was originally configured for 6 volt, positive ground.  The previous owner Wes attempted to modernize the electrical system by switching it to a 12 volt negative ground which most vehicles are configured today.  This involves changing the starter, removing the generator and adding an alternator, then rewiring the ignition.  As well the carburetor was pretty well shot and with the original manufacturer out of business, rebuild kits are not available on the market.   In the past 2 weeks I have removed the old muffler, rethreaded one of the manifold studs and replaced it.  The alternator was not even hooked up so that needed to be correctly wired in.  The carburetor, well I ended up buying a rebuilt rather than trying to fix it.  The rest of the wiring was cobbled together so I tore it out and replaced it with more modern wire as well replaced the oil pressure gauge and swapped the ammeter for a voltage gauge, a better indication of whether the alternator is working.  Unfortunately after all that work the ignition system runs worse than ever.  Discovering that the coil was wired backwards did little to fix things and after bypassing the entire electrical system and connecting the coil straight to the battery, it still runs like crap.  My next step is to install new points and condenser hoping this will work.  Frankly it's not that complicated but it sure has my gears spinning.  Hopefully I can get it purring and move to the next 2 issues, my oil leak and the PTO engagement.  Those days working for Vic are really paying off!



2 nice silvers from the Bachatna

This weekend should see me finally get back up to Mille Lacs and start prefishing for my trip on the 21st.  The full moon is this Friday and I will probably not take advantage of it until Sunday as I am heading out on a motorcycle trip with my brother on Saturday.   My tomato's are really starting to turn red and the peppers are at their peak.  This year I went with some of the heirloom varieties including Brandy-wine, a fabulous eating tomato and Amish Paste, a large meaty type destined for salsa.  The raspberries are coming on strong and will be reserving some to make wine with my neighbor Lory.  We shared a bottle of his rhubarb wine the other night and it was hands down better than the commercial rhubarb wine I had at the State Fair.  He's got 6 more gallons brewing as we will start bottling in October.  I would like to try and get out on the river sometime as well.  Because it hasn't rained in a while, the water level is very low.  This should help to concentrate the fish and with the slower current allow more time to cast the hot spots.  As well the river is much easier to read and it might be a great time to target walleyes.  I simply cannot end without another picture of 2 beautiful salmon I caught a few weeks ago.  The one on the left is good sized hen (female) and the hooked jawed fish on the right is called a buck (male).  Lord knows why a chicken and a fish have the same designation on the female gender while a deer and a fish have it on the male side.  One of life's mystery's, sort of like why my tractor at the moment doesn't run!