Enjoying Florida

The week after Thanksgiving is traditionally the time for our annual fall meeting of The Transformer Association, an trade organization that specializes in the transformer industries of North America.  This years meeting is at the Marco Island Marriott Resort on Marco Island, Florida.  Sometimes I like to mix business with pleasure and would have tried to schedule a fishing trip however it did not work out this year.  Located on the southwest tip of the Florida peninsula, I have to admit I love the area this time of year.  Although it has been somewhat cold for this time of the year (something that has plagued us the last 3 times we have been to Florida), it certainly beats Minnesota!  Tonight it is about 61 degrees, back home it's headed for 10 above.  The next 5 days here shows a forecast in the 80's while Minnesota should be making ice like crazy with temps not getting above freezing.    As stated earlier,  I think there will be walkable ice by December 10th, not a bad start.   The resort here is beautiful as the white sand beach comes right up to the hotel grounds.  Last night was a perfect time to take a picture of the sun as it sets over the Gulf of Mexico.  I am surprised the number of shells littered along the beach.  I would like to come back here and try my luck at offshore fishing.  The popular fish here is grouper.  I went to a restaurant last night and had their special, broiled grouper as well our banquet tonight also featured almond crusted grouper.  I love saltwater fish as it has a better texture and flavor than freshwater fish, and fresh grouper is no exception.  I fly home tomorrow and have been upgraded to first class so I am looking forward to a relaxing flight.

On Monday before I left for Florida my wife and I joined my good friend Bill Hogle and his wife Cheryl to see Leo Kottke, somebody I had quite honestly never hear of.  A little research indicated that he is probably the best acoustical guitar picker alive today.  Playing at the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis, I felt it would be a good opportunity to see a couple of things I had not experienced before, the Guthrie and Leo.  I was not disappointed.  Watching Leo play the 12 string guitar sounded like there were 2 other guys playing behind him.  I am fascinated by the ability of this man to control this 12 string with the precision of a surgeon.  Now I would have to also admit that I had never hear any of his music prior and only recognized the last encore song, a take on a 60's pop song.  Never the less it was extremely exciting to experience a new artist and I will probably seek out more of his music.  He did kind of remind me of my good friend Jeff King, a noted picker who's work is legendary in both Soldotna, Alaska and Mazatlan, Mexico.  Speaking of Jeff, I did stop at Everglades City and could not resist the need to stop at a local bait shop.  They had something I have been meaning to buy, a 12 inch cimeter knife to replace the knife that I had sold Rich.  It's a great knife as it makes the perfect instrument for cleaning salmon caught in Alaska as well as steaking out a large piece of venision. I can't wait to get it home and try it out.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to have crept up on me in record fashion this year.  With dad gone my mother hasn't the energy or desire to have a house load of people, even her favorite sons, so Thanksgiving will be at my sisters.   I do understand my mothers thoughts on this as living in Minneapolis, it's a full 2 - 3 hours away for any of our family to share the feast in Dayton, so we get out of having to do much of anything other than drive to Wisconsin and bring a dish.  If you have been a fan of "Fishin' With Dave" for a while you know that I am an avid Green Bay Packer Fan.  You would have to be living in a cave not to know they have not missed a beat since entering the playoffs and winning the Superbowl last year.  Knock on wood the Packers are 10-0, the only undefeated team left in the NFL.  It is really interesting how complete the transformation from Brett (who?) Favre to Aaron Rodgers has been.  Of course as the 2008 NFL season began almost everyone in Sconnie was upset with Ted Thompson, the Green Bay general manager who let Favre go in favor of Rodgers.  By the same token most were sick of his retirement antics however one could argue that he still was one of the best despite his game ending interception against the Giants in the NFC Championship game.  You know the old saying, a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush!  Well, when Favre retired again from the Jets then unretired to play for the Vikings all bet's were off.  In 2009 the Vikes went 13-3 for the season, including 2 wins against the Pack and Aaron Rodgers.  Well, the Vikings went down in typical Favre style as he threw an interception in overtime to allow the New Orleans Saints to go to the Superbowl.  Deja Vu!  In the meantime the Packers continued their development and have won the last 4 games against the Vikings who continue to struggle finding an identity.  As beloved as Brett Favre was to the Packer fans, his attempt to stick it to us by signing with the Vikings and the success of Aaron, most of us have really discounted his decisions.  After his first retirement, the Packers were going to retire his number at the first game in 2008.  I suspect that they will eventually put his number up in Lambeau but I think it's going to be a while! The Packers play the Detroit Lions on their historic Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit.  It's a little too early to get cocky about it and certainly the Lions are capable of beating the Pack.  Never the less the Packers make the down time between soft and hard water a lot more interesting and fun.  GO PACK!!!

Amongst other things like putting the boats away and settled for their long sleep and breaking out the ice fishing gear is the development of the fruits of our labor, slowly fermenting in Lory Brasel's basement.  Lory decided to get into making wine this year and together we bought some equipment to perfect this age old craft.  With an abundance of fruit this season, there was no shortage of varieties to make.    Here is a nice and colorful picture of our wines sitting in carboys, finishing off their fermentation.  From left to right they include raspberry, pear, wild grape, plum, and chokecherry.  The raspberries, pear, and wild grapes come from my property and the plum and chokecherry is from Lory's.  Not shown is 5 gallons of apple wine that we pressed a few months ago.  This picture was taken about 6 weeks ago, you can see the foam on the top of the wild grape wine as it continues to ferment.  Lory has since re-racked the wine into smaller carboys and will be ready to bottle next week.  These wines tend to be very dry and will require us to sample each one to determine just the right amount of sweetener if needed, a tough job but someone has to do it.  The picture does little justice as the wine is very colorful ranging from a deep Cabernet color to a rose to a pleasant chardonnay hue.  Obvious these wines are not as sophisticated as one would buy in a store but it's like anything you do yourself, it always has that special aura about it and I can't wait to open our first bottle.

The weather doesn't look like it will start to make ice until next week where the highs will be in the low 30's with the lows in the teens.  With the Ice Fishing Show starting on December 2  I would bet there will be walkable ice somewhere by next weekend, a great start to the season.  I still have a lot of work getting my gear ready and luckily it's fairly organized.  New line, re organizing the tackle box, charging the camera and Vexilar, it's a whole new season!  Have a Great Thanksgiving and do give thanks for all that we are fortunate for.  I have added 2 Thanksgiving songs for the holiday, enjoy.

Deer 1, Dave 0

Well the Minnesota Deer Hunting season ended on Sunday with the result......no venison in the freezer.  The last few years my success while deer hunting has been better than the state average of around 40% of hunters filling their tag.  Bagging a deer has it's plus and minuses.  On plus side there is nothing better than fresh venison tenderloin chops, fried in butter, with onions and garlic, it doesn't get any better.  The minus side it quite frankly it's a lot of work!  Field dressing, dragging out of the woods, hauling it home and hanging it in the pole barn is only the beginning.  The fun really starts when the butchering begins as I am one of those guys that are leery of dropping it off to have it processed.  Besides being to cheap to pay someone to do what I am pretty good at, if it isn't too cold out and one can convince a neighbor to help me it isn't too bad of a job.  Oh well, maybe next year.  One of the things I would really like to do is harvest a trophy deer, something I could hang on the wall.  Having deer hunted for 40 years now I can only remember once when I saw a respectable rack on a deer and then I could not get a good shot off.  Being a responsible hunter means you don't take the chance to wound an animal if you can help it.  Oh well, other than that time the largest buck I ever shot was a small 6 point buck (3 x 3 for you western hunters) with about a 10 inch spread, nothing to write home about, that's for sure.  On the other hand I have friends that seem to have experienced a number of trophy bucks in their lives.  My Uncle Jerry is one of them as I have a couple mule deer rack mounts of his earlier years hunting out west.  They are impressive to say the least.  Leon Lambert, my good friend from Pueblo, Colorado is another guy that seems to have no shortage of large buck mounts, a Boone and Crockett elk mount, and a number of trophy pronghorn mounts.  His house looks like a museum of natural history!  Another is my good friend and fishing partner Lory Brasel.  He hunts near his home town of New York Mills, MN on his step father's land.  Although it is a small piece of property, it is a natural funnel for deer coming out of the river bottoms into the fields above.  Here he is pictured with a beautiful 10 pointer (6 on one side and 4 on the other), a nice addition to the 2 he already has hanging on the wall.  It's ironic that the biggest deer I have ever seen in the wild was about 15 years ago.  Back then I would often fish the fall trolling bite on Mille Lacs till midnight or 1:00 in the morning.  One night arriving home around 2:00AM I turned on my big halogen lights in the back of my house only to see a huge 10 point buck with an even larger 12 pointer right behind it.  Oh well.

I shoot a Remington Model 6, 30-06 pump action rifle.  My first deer hunting rifle was a sporterized 30-06 military gun with a simple 4X scope, it must have weighed at least 10 pounds.  I bought it from my boss at the time for a whooping $75.  Although extremely accurate, it was a bear to carry around and I needed to look for something more practical.  Lee's Taxidermy in Prescott Wisconsin was probably the best place at that time to buy a gun, something I soon found out.  Having only $350, I was determined to get a simple Remington 760 pump, a sling with hardware, some shells and a case.  The owner suggested I get the Model 6 instead, it was a fancier, nicer gun with a Monti Carlo stock, special checkering, and a unique cartridge end mounted in the receiver.  Stating I didn't have enough money for the gun but he must have either felt sorry for me or really wanted to get rid of that gun.  The price was $340 for the rifle, $15 for the sling, $10 for the mounting hardware, $365 + another $17 for tax.  Having only $350, he told me to take the gun and pay me later if I could.  As I left a pretty happy new gun owner he yelled out "Hey, you better sight that gun in" and handed me a box of shells to boot.  I ended up buying a scope from my good friend, the late Pat Holmes.  His company was the rep for the company that made all of the 1 inch aluminum scope tubes for Burris.  He got a super deal and I was in business.  4 years ago I was sighting my gun in and the first shot was 6 inches high, 4 to the left.  After adjusting and shooting another round it was now 6 inches low and 4 inches to the right!  I adjusted it back to where it was and the third and fourth shot was a bulls eye.  The next year a deer came by my stand, one that Jack had hit in the leg.  It took me 6 rounds to finally I finally put the deer down.  Knowing something was amiss and because the scope had a lifetime warranty I sent it back to Burris.  A couple weeks later they called stating the springs were weak causing the scope to be off, they could not fix it, the model was obsolete, and they would offer me 75% off any scope in their lineup.  Because most of my shots are under 50 yards I took their 1.5x - 6x model, quite a bargain at $200.  After carefully mounting the scope I bought some Federal Premium 165 grain Sierra Boat Tail bullets to sight it in.  Man, I had trouble as they were all over the target.  10 years earlier a worker at our plant loaded me a bunch of shells that were dead one, 2 inch patterns.  Talking to my in house gun expert Brett Jelkin, he believed that the factory loads were not ideal and he would load me up some shells to try.  He set the bullets a little further out so there wasn't as much "jump" when the bullet hits the beginning of the barrel and did it ever make a difference.  My first 3 rounds yielded a group at 1 1/2 inches, pretty impressive.  Brett does an excellent job as his shooting knowledge is second to none.  He even sent me this ballistics chart with the solid bold line being my loads while the dotted lower line is a standard factory load.    Although I was definitely ready, I never did get a chance to put it too the real test.  The good news is that everything will be ready to go next year. 

This morning it was 10 degrees and the small potholes and swamps were froze over. My guess is the surface temperature on Mille Lacs has to be in the high 30's.  Hard water can't be far behind.  My friend Keith is back from his summer in Alaska and I am determined to meet up with him a couple of times out on the ice.  In the meantime my neighbors boy, Ryan Przymus stopped by with a couple beautiful pictures of a 17.5 and a 15.5 inch crappies he got in Nonyhoa Lake.  When I asked him where that was he said.........Non yhoa business!  He promised he'd take me there and I am looking forward to it.  He also promised to send pictures however I am still waiting and will post them when they show up.  Those were impressive to say the least.

Deer Hunting Family Style

The 2011 Deer Hunting season so far has been just that, hunting.   Having strategically located my stand in a “can’t lose” spot, Saturday morning Jack and I were greeted with nothing less than gale force winds, sometimes gusting to 35 miles per hour.  The swamp I was in did not have the big 16 to 20 inch diameter poplar trees of Rich’s place so I had to settle for something less sturdy and as I found out, more susceptible to the whims of the near hurricane.  The fact that my stand is 20 feet tall to the chair added another aspect of excitement to a rather unsuccessful opener.  There were times that I swear the only thing holding that tree up was the ladder portion of my stand.  I always wear my harness just in case the unfortunate event would see me falling out of the stand, I’d be saved.  As the wind increased my thoughts ventured to whether or not it was a good idea as if the tree went down I would be securely tethered like a flag to a flag pole.  Apparently I survived.  The greatest thing about deer hunting with Jack is all the great people we meet.  What impresses me the most is how they have involved their entire families into this great tradition.  Friday night was spent at Rich’s place, having our traditional steak feed and reacquainting ourselves with those we spent the hunt with last year.  There was no shortage of young hunters as Brett’s son (featured last year), his friend Brennen, Chris with his 3 super smart boys, Kevin, his dad Eugene and his boy Austin long with Ken.  I love to engage the kids on the ways of the world as we shot a few rounds out of my pistol and spent the night arguing which gun was the best for deer.  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of our group this time, something I regret.  I did however snap this picture of our hunting host for this year, Loren Tolama and his fine bunch of children and grandchildren.  Sunday’s wind was an exact repeat of Saturday’s weather and during the afternoon the Tomala's called and said were coming over to see how we were doing………….. 3 truck loads! Loren is the guy on the right side of the picture and is the big kahuna of this bunch of dedicated deer hunters.   On the far right is Nathan Tomala, a senior at Pierz High School who is playing this week for a chance to go to the Minnesota State Football Tournament.  In between is his parents, uncles, and 4 of the most interesting young hunters I have ever met.  They spent an hour with Jack, Ben and I discussing everything that is important in life like deer hunting, football, and whatever makes the kids smile.  A couple of weeks ago Loren took Ben in the John Deere combine to pick corn while letting me get on the old Farmall M and pull the gravity box over to the edge of the corn.  I think I could have stayed there all day.  If you measured wealth not by money but by family, the Tomala's are definitely one the "richest" families I know. 

So what does deer camp look like?  Well, Loren suggested we pull Jack's wheel house (pictured above) onto the property to make sure we have an official headquarters to base ourselves out of.  It was kind of nice to have a place to get our hunting clothes on, cut up some lunch, and have a place to unwind for a few minutes before heading back to Jack's cabin.  It worked out really well as we cooked some locally made wild rice sausage for lunch on Sunday, pretty good if you ask me.  When I first started deer hunting in Minnesota, it was with my friend Mark Taylor, Jack Taylor, Mark's brother-in-law Tim Guzek, and myself.  We would leave Minneapolis right after work on the Thursday before opening day and drive to Roseau, MN to hunt with Dale Larsen, a guy that I worked with who was from that area.  Roseau is home to Polaris Industries and is located 10 miles from the Canadian border.  We probably started going in 1980 and would take "Old Blue", an older powder blue van that Jack and Mark's dad Earl had.  We would throw a love seat and chair in the back then loaded her with our favorite refreshments as it was about a 6 hour drive.  Arriving around midnight at the Evergreen Motel, they'd leave the room door open for us so we would not have to wake them.  Back them we had little money so 4 of us crammed in a single room with 2 queen size beds.  At about $20 a night, if we split it our cost per guy was $20, a bargain!  Those were the days for sure.   Well, Mark hasn't hunted with us in a number of years so we thought we'd send him a picture that might convince him to come and spend the weekend with us.  The last picture is our proposition, a couple of chairs, a bottle of "Easy Jesus" (E & J Brandy) and a plastic red cup already mixed for him.  I did e-mail it to Mark but like a lot of us, sometimes as we get older we simply have more excuses why we don't try to enjoy life as much as we once did.   Maybe next year.  I am planning to go up for a day this weekend and see if I can still bag a deer if possible.  The weather is suppose to be nice as last weekend the deer simply would not move with that wind.  Wish me luck! 

Deer Hunting Weekend

This weekend is the start of Minnesota's deer hunting season.  My friend Jack and I have been hunting the last 8 years just south of Jack's cabin, 12 miles west of Onamia, MN.  Now that our friend Rich has passed away and the land is up for sale, we have scouted out a few areas however Jack's neighbor at the lake was kind enough to give us permission to hunt his 80 acres.  Last weekend Jack and I set up our stands on the new property.  I am back in the middle of a small swamp but luckily it is pretty dry and should not present any issues like my old stand at Rich's.  The weather this week should be nice but windy.  Unfortunately the deer tend to sit tight when the wind blows so we'll have to see.  A few years back I bought a new ladder stand and is what I use today.    At my age it's considerably easier to climb the ladder and sort of set myself into the seat rather than having to strap a stick ladder, hang a stand by a T-nut and ratchet strap, get it all aligned so I don't slip getting into it, then hope like heck I didn't fall asleep!  We are still getting together with our hunting group for our Friday night steak feed, something Rich always enjoyed.  Another interesting aspect of hunting the new land, the neighbor has trail cam pictures of a couple of cougars walking around the area.  You can be assured my gun will be loaded when I walk in.

I am way behind in posting pictures my friends have sent me so I will include one of my friend Matt Taylor and his girlfriend Christina.  Matt called me earlier this year and asked for advise on planning a trip to Alaska.  Having been there a number of times I was able to help Matt put together a nice experience.  They took my advise and did a combo out of Seward.   I am pretty sure they headed to Montague Island, a popular halibut spot, got their limit then went for silvers on the way back.  Matt said they had a blast and caught tons of fish including these two beautiful silver salmon.  If you look close, the silver Christina is holding has some pretty big marks on the side, more than likely cause by a salmon shark that prey on these fish.   I really enjoy sharing my experiences and advise with my friends, especially when things turn out well. 

Off to deer camp, hopefully da thurty pointer will be in my sights on Saturday morning!

Indian Summer

Here in the Upper Midwest we often experience a nice warm spell after we have had a killing frost.  This fabulous weather is known as Indian Summer and can be some of the nicest of the year.  This is also the last push for the fish to fatten up for the long winter ahead, with the spawning season just after ice out.  Some of the walleyes I have been catching have already started developing eggs.  Although I have tons of stuff to do before the snow files, the temptation to take advantage of the Indian Summer day that last Saturday turned out to be was too much.  I decided to meet my friend Jack at his cabin on Platte Lake and check out our new deer hunting land for this year.  Just south of our old spot on Rich's land, the 80 acres proved to be significantly less wet as it was getting tough tromping through a 1/4 mile of swamp in the dark, with your hip boots, never sure that the next step wasn't going to fill those boots.   The new land is about 70% fields with the rest a mixture of popple, oak, and some minor muskegs.  It looks pretty good as we scouted the best spots, met the neighbors, and walked the parameter.  Once that was done our plan was to head to Mille Lacs to take advantage of the late afternoon perch bite mixed with some shallow water reef trolling just as the sun would disappear from view.   Jack's 7 year old son Ben wanted to go with and figuring I wasn't going to stay out late, it would be fun.  We picked up a bag of crappie minnows at the bait shop before heading to the lake and took off.   Once on the lake we headed for a relatively shallow bay to fish perch in 4 feet of water.  This time of year you can often catch your limit quite quickly with the bonus aspect of seeing the fish hit your lure, something I thought Ben would enjoy.  It was very surprising to watch Ben work his spinning rod and reel.  Most children start out with a spin cast outfit, something that is easier to handle and somewhat cheaper to replace if it happens to go overboard.  Not Ben!  From casting to setting the hook on the first perch of the day I was pretty impressed by this young man's fishing demeanor.   I remember catching sight of his bobber sailing out 60 feet or more thinking it was nice of Jack to help his son.  Looking back towards them, Jack was still baiting his hook while Ben was setting the bail on his reel.  He can only get better. 

Just as the sun set on the horizon we headed to Indian Point to troll shad raps for an hour or so.  Ben was a little chilled so just Jack and I put out rods.  About 15 minutes into the run something slammed my shad rap hard.  It felt like a very nice fish yet when I got it close to the boat it seemed to have shrunk by 8 inches or so and lost 4 pounds.  Ben wanted to net the fish so we gave him the net and he scooped up the walleye better than a lot of guys I have had in the boat.  Jack took a picture of me holding the "monster" 19 3/4" walleye and another of Ben working his net magic.  The return trip down the long reef produced another walleye for Jack.  With the temperature dropping, Ben was getting cold so we called it a day.  All told we had 8 nice perch and kept both walleyes.  It looks like this might be my last soft water trip for the old Ranger for the year.  This weekend will see Jack and I setting up our tree stands and doing some more  scouting of the land we are hunting on.  Deer season opens on Saturday, November 5th, hopefully the new location brings us luck.  Indian Summer is suppose to return next week, probably the last 60 degree day we will see until next March.

Dallas'd Out

Having spent the last 5 days at the Solar Show in Dallas, I am pretty whipped.  Although it may sound like fun, standing in a booth for 8 hours answering the same questions, heading back to the hotel, meeting your business contacts before going to dinner, finding a good place to eat, then having a nightcap with them before retiring to your hotel room, answering e-mails till 1:00, then getting up at 6:00 to do the same thing the next day wears a guy out.  Dallas is an interesting town and about 30 degrees warmer than here in Minnesota.  When we arrived on Monday my good friend Joe Stanfield picked up Lyle, Welly and myself from DFW.  Driving us back into downtown Dallas Joe and I dropped off Lyle and Welly to set up the booth and we went back out to to airport to pick up a couple more colleagues.  Between airline flights we were able to sneak into Bass Pro Shop and look around.  Not having a lot of time I did find something interesting, Dynamite Redneck Fishing Lure, a red tube meant to look like a stick of dynamite with deep fried pork rinds and Tabasco Sauce inside.  My friend Jeff King has a bundle of dynamite in his guide boat  using it as a prop against the possibility that if they didn't catch fish, he always had a backup plan!  These reminded of me of Jeff so I bought 3 of them to use for the same purpose.  I am curious what the pork rinds taste like. 

The Dallas Convention Center was located about 5 blocks from our downtown hotel.  On the way is one of the first cemeteries in Dallas with some of it's occupants being born in the late 1700's.  Many of the stones are tipped over, missing, or unreadable however the intact ones tell an interesting story.  There are early government officials, civil war casualties, but the most striking are the family plots where many of the young children were laid to rest.  Born 1839, Died 1841 there are so many that only lived a few years of their life.  Obviously living in Texas in the middle of the 1800's was not easy.  At the cemetery location is a sculpture monument(s) dedicated to the old Longhorn Cattle Drives of the time.  There must be at least 50 true to life bronze sculptures of what it must have been like to drive these animals across the plains.  Each sculpture was unique, complete with it's own Brand, tattered ears and skin flaps caused by their horns hitting each other.  The Longhorns were depicted as lean, probably signifying their ability to exist in the driest conditions.  It is an amazing piece of work and if you are ever in downtown Dallas, it's worth a stop.  Although we did not go through the Book Depository Building were Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shot, killing President Kennedy in 1963, my friend Joe stated that at that time they were acquaintances with the owner of the building.  Joe said that the owner removed the original window that was used, denied that he knew anything about it, and when he died his son returned it to the now museum.  Pretty cool.

Last weekend was too windy to fish!  Bill called me on Saturday and said that I should stay home, the lake was just a churning with 35 mph winds.  I took the opportunity to pick the rest of my apples, made some more cider, and tried getting more stuff done before deer hunting.  I am hoping to be able to use the predicted warm weather to get the boat prepped for winter.  A few bottles of Sea Foam in the gas and get it through the engine, I can always change oil and the lower unit grease later.  I have some nice pictures of the the wine my neighbor Lory is making that I will publish later, the work never ends!

Grousing at Club 10

Last weekend I was invited to the annual grouse hunting tournament at my cousin Don Schmidt's hunting cabin in Alvin, Wisconsin.  Cousin Don is my mothers sister Pat's son and mom hadn't seen her in a while.  Pat and my dad always had a nice friendly rivalry on game day, arguing about Brett Favre's ability and who would win.  It's something that made their Sunday's much more interesting.  Pat lives in Antigo, Wisconsin about 40 miles northwest of Wausau and my brother Steve and I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone, drop mom off at her only surviving sister's place while we continue another 90 miles to the Michigan border and spend the weekend with Don at Club 10.  Club 10 is an interesting place to say the least.  Don's Grandfather on his dad's side had an opportunity to buy 40 acres of hunting land located about a 1/2 mile south of the Upper Michigan border, just north of Alvin, Wisconsin.  The year was 1944, the war was still going on when  the land came up for sale, one could buy it for the back taxes totaling $76.  Well, in 1944 $76 was still a lot of money and Don's grandfather could not afford to buy it himself.  Many of the men in the area were farmers and spent most of their spring, summer, and fall working the land.  As soon as the ground froze it was not that uncommon for these men to head for the north woods and work in the logging camps, cutting wood all winter.  It was here that his Grandpa found 9 other guys to chip in about $8 each to obtain the property, hence the official name...Club 10.  It took another year to build the cabin that still is in use today.  Although today the cabin is about an hour from Don's house (he lives in his grandfather's old homestead) back in the 40's it took the entire day to drive their model A's up the dirt roads to the cabin.  Today the original galvanize siding still covers the cabin, salvaged from an old barn.  There is no water or electricity as it is 2 miles from the latest power line, but a generator gives some comforts of home.  Situated in the middle of the Nicolet National Forest, it definitely is isolated.  Today Club 10 is owned by the descendants of the original owners, has a legal set of bylaws and has become a fixture in the area.  My first picture in my cousin Don standing on the steps of the cabin and the local bar owner Dennis sitting on the Green Bay Packer Chair.  Don, thanks for the great time.

After arriving Friday night Steve and I were introduced to the gang.  Don has a Ruffed Grouse hunting tournament on the second weekend of October which usually attracts 30 or so guys.  The guys are mixture of local farmers, construction workers, business owners, all who have hunting cabins in the region.  Don offers prizes for the most grouse shot, prepares a fabulous prime rib dinner after dark, and provides a perfect setting to share all of the stories associated with Club 10.   This is the big woods, full of large maple, hemlock, aspen, and white pine which stretches for miles.  Steve and I decided to walk into the woods as it appeared to be prime grouse country yet were somewhat hesitant as we forgot to bring a GPS.  Luckily Don had one for use to use, which came in useful a few hours later.  It was pretty windy and it became obvious that walking the wood for grouse was probably not the best strategy.  The winner had his limit of 5 grouse and they were all bagged while cruising the thousands of miles of logging roads in the area.  Towards the end of the day Don gave us a tour of the area in his Polaris Ranger and we did get to shoot at an actual grouse, but that was about it.  It was a good excuse for some exercise, seeing cousin Don, spending time with my brother Steve, and getting my mom up to see her sister Pat.    This picture proved interesting to Don as he arrived on Thursday night.  Apparently a bear had visited the cabin and had decided to chew up the post that held up the entrance light.  I was hoping I didn't run into him while walking the woods with my 12 gauge loaded with light grouse loads.  If so the score would have probably been Bear 1 Dave 0!

This week has also been the peak of our apple cider making operation.  With the help of my neighbor Lory, his wife Lyn, and my wife, we have pressed almost 18 gallons of fresh apple cider during the last 4 days.  We are getting pretty good at it as our team work can slice up and grind 10 gallons of apples and press out 6+ gallons in about 2 1/2 hours.  My press can really put the pressure on and we have an excellent yield, about 60% of the ground apples turns into cider.  I have been feeding the pomace (squeezed out apples) to the bees and it doesn't last long.  I have picked about 20 bushels of apples so far and estimate at least another 6 - 8 bushel need to be harvested.  I am amazed at how clean the apples are and for sure it has been my best year ever.  Here is a picture of my neighbor Lory and Lynn putting the pressure on the cider press as the juice runs into the pail.  It a gift from heaven for sure.  Autumn is moving fast as the leaves are now off the trees and the weather is finally cooling down.  Losing a number of trees to wind storms, I need to get out an buy a replacement this weekend and get it planted before it freezes.  The perch haven't inhabited the shallows on Mille Lacs yet however the walleyes have been going strong.  There are few weekends left for open water fishing yet I have so many things to do, so little time!  Oh well!

Report From North Pole Alaska

This week I received a call from my friend Pete Mlinar, a fellow fisherman and electrician who is working in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.  Pete is a proficient fisherman and is solely responsible for my Mississippi River smallmouth knowledge.  Having been laid off in Minneapolis he decided to sign the book in Fairbanks Alaska with the hopes of landing a job at the top of the world.  This March he loaded his River-pro Jet Boat and drove to Fairbanks.   His quest was successful as he started a regiment of 6 weeks working, 2 weeks off.  The money is good and within a short time Pete hopes to make enough to retire.  Working through the summer, winter has began to set in at his camp with snow covering the ground.  Throughout the summer he has sent me pictures of caribou and musk ox seen around the camp.  On his 2 weeks off the company flies him back to Fairbanks where he has befriended a fellow sportsman which assures him a place to stay and store his boat.  Word was out that the silvers were in thick near Delta Junction, Alaska which was an hour from where he stays.  Pete's River-Pro boat is quite the rig sporting a 200 hp Merc Jet Drive.  Having been to Alaska many times I can assure you that this is the Cadillac of the boats running the rivers.  Pete reports that his tip stated the fish were 8 miles down from the landing but with the water gin clear, 60 seconds heading down river he found the mother load of silvers.  The first picture is an absolutely gorgeous silver salmon.  This fish has made it way up the Yukon River to the Tanana River, a trip that has to be over 1500 miles.  If you assume this fish entered the Yukon in late July it has taken it over 60 days to make the journey, almost 30 miles a day.  When we fish the Kenai River for Silvers the fish are fresh out of the ocean and are a bright silver color.  Although I have caught fish that are just starting to turn color, we have caught nothing as beautiful as this fish.  Pete is planning on getting a graphite reproduction of this fish as it will make a great addition to his trophy room.  His work will shut down for 3 weeks over Christmas and I hope we can touch base then.  Here is another picture of his ride home, following the now snow covered Alaska Range on his right.  Man does that give me the itch, thanks Pete!

Saturday we were fortunate to attend the wedding of my cousin Linda Barneson's youngest son, Brad.  It's been 2 months since my father passed away and it was great to get together with my friends and family from Eleva for a better occasion.  Linda's husband Dennis Barneson, along with his brother Gary were instrumental in getting me started fishing Mille Lacs.  Gary had been going there for a number of years for the Minnesota Fishing Opener with a some of guys from home and they finally invited me.  Over the years they had stopped going but it had a lasting impression, one that is still with me today.  Both have made the trip to my Uncle Jerry's in Idaho to hunt elk, something I should have really done but you can only do so much in life!  Jerry has a cabin in the mountains of Idaho, a perfect place to hunt these magnificent animals.  Hunting in the rut, the bulls are open to bugle calls and the hope is to call one close enough to decent shot.  Over the years they've accumulated a ton of stories and a few elk along the way.  This year was no exception.  Jerry sent me a picture of Brad's best man, Dave Frank with a huge bull taken with his bow.  It's a real team effort with guys scouting, bugling, and if they get one, skinning, quartering, and hauling the meat out.  Congrats guys on a successful hunt, one that will undoubtedly offer a lifetime of stories.  Someday.

I did make it to Mille Lacs on Sunday afternoon to see if the bite was still going.  The mild weather had warmed the water temp at least 3 degrees from last weekend.  Trying the same pattern as before my neighbor Tom Olson and I started at the 4 Mile Gravel with lead lines.  Earlier that day my friend Mark Applen had called with the hot tip......redtails in 30 feet, the walleyes couldn't leave them alone.  The wind had created a nice walleye chop in the morning but by the time we launched the lake had laid right down.   Although the fish appeared to be up off the bottom not a minnow, Shad Rap, Husky Jerk, Rouge could entice a walleye.  After 3 hours of trolling we headed back to the reef to cast for walleyes and muskies.  I got a couple of 10 inch walleyes before we started my new favorite trolling run.  On a #5 crawfish Shad Rap produced our first keeper, a 16 incher.  Within an hour I had 3 nice walleye slam my bait but they never made it to the boat.  I use Excalibur Rotating Hooks for an unbelievable hook up success but the fish must have been hitting light as I seldom lose fish like this.  Oh well, it was still fun.  This weekend I am taking my Mother to Antigo Wisconsin to see her sister while my brother Steve and I continue to Elvoy Township on the Wisconsin/Michigan border to hunt grouse with my cousin Don.  He has invited me every year and this year we figured it would be a good chance to get mom out of the house and verify if Cousin Don actually is telling the truth about his annual fall hunt.  Either way the leaves should be in their peak form and I should have a good report for next week.

Pig Roast and Lead Lining, a Great Combination

This weekend proved to be a full court press.  My neighbor Tim Kuntz hosted his annual September Pig Roast at the "Men's Crisis Center" (his detached 2nd garage).  Tim is one of those guys that never does anything without doing it big and last Saturday was no exception.  When he first moved into the neighborhood you could tell he had some substantial talent but it was wasted at his job, working in IT for a local hardware/software company.  Tim and I hit it off right from the start as we both hail from small town America and share the same values.  One of the things I got Tim interested is smoking meats.  After making some venison sausage with my smoker he built his own smokehouse that rivals most BBQ pits.  Needing a pig roaster, he welded up one using an old large tank, mounting it on a trailer, most of the bugs have been worked out.  Out neighbor down the street was holding a fund raiser on Friday night for his school and asked Tim to cook a hundred pounds of pull pork butts.  He obliged and we went over to check out the party.  Plenty of beer and great pulled pork, the party had a cowboy theme, with all the guys dressed up in hats and boots.   Sticking with my own kind I remarked to Tim if he knew the difference between a real cowboy and a fake one.  Nope.........so I told him, real cowboys have the crap on the outside of their boots.  I think there were plenty of guys there that weren't real cowboys!  Because our plan was to start the pig at 1:30 Saturday morning, we decided to hang around the party till the end.  The pig went on as we finished around 2:00.  The next morning I brought my propane deep fryer and my Karaoke setup for the entertainment.  It was a busy Saturday as we helped with the final preparations.  That afternoon I pressed 3 gallons of fresh apple cider which we put in a large coffee server for anyone needing to warm up.  Serving at 5:00, there were over 120 neighbors and friends that showed up.  The highlight of the night was Welly Chou, the guy I work with and who I took fishing last week.  Welly is a championship Karaoke singer and was the hit of the party.  Singing like a pro, everyone stuck around till after midnight.  We finished the second keg of beer before closing it up at 2:00 for the second night in a row.  No rest for the wicked!
 
Because Welly stayed with Lory Saturday night and the lead line bite was still on, three of us left on Sunday noon for Mille Lacs.  We were in surprisingly good shape by the time we left and got to Bill's by 1:15 with 2 main goals, to drop off apples and to get Welly a duplicate fishing license.  Someone had broke into his car on Friday night taking his laptop and wallet.  The strategy was to repeat the same drill we did 2 weeks ago, lead line till just before sunset then head to the reef and troll the shallow 5 - 8 feet of water.  The prior trip was very successful on the line line side of the strategy but the reef trolling didn't go so good.  It's still worth a try (in my mind)!  My first stop was at 3 Mile Reef to check the water clarity.  When we arrived a couple of weeks ago I could not see the bottom rocks in 4 feet of water.  Although that can be a good thing, I wanted to recheck it during the a period when the sun was higher in the sky.  A quick run over the reef and I never saw the rocks, something that should be pretty easy as in past years.  After discussing it with Bill we speculated that the reef, which is known to be covered with Zebra Mussels is no longer as visible for the mussel shells are quite dark and may just be enough to make it look like the clarity is less.  From there we headed to the deep gravel.  With 3 in the boat and 2 lead line rigs we had to set up a side planer board with a #11 Rapala Tail Dancer in a Rainbow Trout color.  We trolled for over an hour before the first fish hit, on the Tail Dancer.  It was a nice 18 inch walleye, perfect for the live well.  We had #5 shads on the lead line as Lory got a nice walleye and I nailed a small one.  Another 100 yards and the flag went down on the planer board and you could tell it was a nice one.  Giving the rod to Welly he reeled in his largest walleye ever, a gargantuan 26 inch fish, as fat as I have seen them.  In the meantime I switched to a blue/chrome Rattlin' Rouge as the larger Tail Dancer seemed to suggest the fish were looking for a larger bait.  A few minutes later that lead line pole doubled over as Lory reeled in a nice 23 inch walleye.  The lead line total was 4 walleyes in the box ranging from 16 inches to 19.875 inches, some good eating for later, and at least 4 more released.  At 7:00 we reeled them up and headed to the reef.   Connecting Welly and Lory with the #5 shads, I did a shallow running Rouge.  Our casting strategy didn't pay off again but the trolling strategy put another 18 inch walleye in the box as those 2 caught and released a total of 6 fish.  I changed to the Shad Rap but alas, it was too late.  With 5 walleyes in the box, a nice perch, some great fish released, it was a very successful outing.  Cleaning the fish I noticed how much fat was in their bellies.  It must have been a great July and August for feeding on the young of the year tullibees.  Splitting them up we all got a nice meal as I cooked mine up on Monday night.

This week I have a wedding in Eleva, however I do want to get out again on Sunday.  With everything going on it might be my last one or two trips for the year.  Looking back I am wondering if I am running out of time or simply running out of energy! 

Let The Harvest Begin

Because of Adam's wedding (more on that) and visiting my brother in the hospital over the weekend, I thought my current project might prove interesting. September 15 usually marks the time to start harvesting fruit from my mini orchard.  I am starting with the watermelons that succumb to our early frost.  A wagon full of melons is a colorful way to start the post.  Last year we had a very late and hard frost which essentially eliminated 99% of all the apple and pear blossoms available on the fruit trees.  This year has been quite the opposite as my crop will be the best I have ever experienced.  Both my dad and my Uncle Jerry had an important influence on raising a few apple trees and had successfully harvested from their trees so I decided to follow suit.  Living on 5 acres gave me the room to plant a few trees and plant I did!  Today I really have a nice little orchard that has rewarded me with more work than I know what to do with.  My inventory of trees includes the following: 1 Parker Pear, 1 Patton Pear, 1 Summer Crisp Pear, 1 McIntosh Apple, 1 Wolf River Apple, 3 Honey Gold Apples, 2 Fireside apples, 2 Honeycrisp Apples, and 1 Haralson Apple.  I have 3 new apple trees going, another Fireside, Haralson, and lord knows what the last one is.  Apples tend to bear heavy one year then light the next however last years frost put all of my trees in high production mode.  Normally you should spray them with a Sevin insecticide when the apples are about dime size to chemically thin them out.  This tends to make the remaining apples larger and better evens out the boom/bust cycles of the tree production.  We'll, I didn't get to that this year.  One thing I did do was buy an auger for drilling holes around the tree's drip line for fertilizer.  Each apple tree got 4 holes full of a straight 10-10-10 fertilizer and I would say that it really helped the trees.  With not thinning them, fertilizing, and being a high production year I am literally swimming in apples.  I am sure that having honeybees on the property didn't hurt either. Not only are they numerous and large but with only minimal spraying, the apples are for the most part absolutely beautiful and worm free.  Maybe the wet June and July along with spraying at the optimal time was the ticket, whatever I am enjoying the best apples I have ever grown. 

So let's start with my pears.  This picture is of my Patton Pear tree.  It always yields nice supermarket sized pears that are hard fleshed and sweet.  This week will mark the end of these as they ripen super fast on the trees then fall to the ground.  With apples, those pears that are subjected to long periods of sunlight develop a blush where the sun hits them.  The pears are delicious, numerous and I can't give enough of them away.  My other 2 pears are the totally worthless Parker, and the Summer Crisp that goes from green to over ripe in about 3 days.  The Parker and Summer Crisp really make great pollinators for my good pear.  I suspect someday I will learn to time my early pear harvest better.  Pear trees have quite a few suckers and as a post I did last fall, often grow 8 feet in a year.  My largest pears tend to grow near the top of the trees so I have tended to trim off the crowns to allow a more reasonable means of harvest as my Little Giant Ladder only goes to 11 feet.

My next picture is one of my most unusual fruit trees, the Wolf River Apple.  I call this a heritage apple variety, originating in the Wolf River Valley of eastern Wisconsin.  It is often called the one pie apple as they are an extremely large apple, the size of a softball often weighing a pound or more.  They are very cold hardy and also carry the "Frost Apple" label as it will become sweeter after the first frost.  Fairly disease free I am ready to pick these within a few days.  I have main purposes for this apple, first it provides good blending qualities for making cider and secondly, it's a great bragging apple.  When people see it they are often very impressed with my growing abilities.  Little do they know it's all in the tree!  The funny thing about this apple is I never bought this variety.  For years I thought it was a Fireside but could never figure out why it was so different than my others.  A few years back I decided to do some research and finally solved my problem.  The next picture on the left is my Haralson tree.  This tree is my most prolific, producing a fine crop of apples every year.  They are a late apple and will not be ready for harvest for a couple of weeks yet.   The sun has really worked its magic on this years crop as they are a beautiful deep ruby red color.  The Haralson is crisp and tart making it perfect for eating, baking, and cider.  Because of its tartness, most of my cider is based on this apple. I'm betting I'll get 3 bushels off this tree.

 The fifth picture is my Fireside apples, my absolute personal favorite.  These are the second largest apples I have and are also the latest to mature, often at their best after a hard frost.  The Fireside is another long forgotten apple yet has a very unique flavor with a crisp texture.  The 2 trees I have are very close together, I should have separated them a long time ago.   I did replace one of my original apple tree's that died with a third Fireside.  These apples trees tend to be quite thick branched as well being close together they don't "red up" as well as the others.  One thing I noticed about this apple is it produces 2 different skin types, a dull matted surface and a glossy, almost oily look.  I prefer the dull matted looking apples as they seem to have a better flavor and texture.  This is another nuance that I need to look into.   The next apples pictured are my Honeygold's, an derivative of the Golden Delicious but much sweeter and cold hardy.  These trees are also very prolific and really come into their own around October 1st.   They are an excellent for eating as well as perfect for blending into cider to add that fabulous sweetness.  The apple gets it's name from it's beautiful color and honey like sweetness.  Those apples that have direct access to the sunlight will develop a nice copper colored blush on the exposed side.  If you look closely at the picture you can see on the center apple how the leaf has blocked the sun enough to create an outline of the shaded part of the apple.  Commercial orchards prune their trees to allow the maximum allowable sunlight to hit the apples to create the optimum market characteristics. 

On Saturday I ended up picking about 5 bushels of apples off of 3 trees, my Honeycrisp and McIntosh.  This is the first year my crop of Honeycrisp actually turned out decent with few worms or bruises and are as good as if they came right from a commercial orchard, crisp and sweet. The McIntosh apples always turn out good as they are another relatively older apple with its origins back to 1811.  Being crisp and tart they make a great pie apple and are very good for blending cider.  After picking my first crop of apples I was off to Adam's wedding, a nice affair as they were married at an outdoor park, the weather was kind.  Adam and his dad Mark fish with me every year at Leech Lake.  For his wedding I put something extra in their gift to assure Adam come better prepared to fish with me next year.  His dad  provided the refreshments for the night so we told him that we would fill up our thermos before we left.  Mark appreciated that of course!  Saturday is the neighborhood Pig Roast at the Kuntz's and Sunday Mille Lacs is calling pretty loud.  The water temp has dropped almost 15 degrees from a couple weeks ago and I hear the bite is going pretty strong. 

Walleyes with Welly

It's been an interesting week as we are on a collision course with autumn.  I am writing this from the San Diego Convention Center exhibiting at a medical show.  The weather here is beautiful and consistent, 70 degrees during the day and 65 at night.  Intellicast is saying tonight will be 30 degrees at home.  Usually that number is associated with the temperature at the airport so unless they are wrong we could have a hard freeze.  The garden is in a low spot, so much for my watermelons!  The great news is the mosquito's day's are limited.  I am flying back on Thursday and will assess the damage then.  Sunday was the full moon, the opportune time to fish walleyes on Mille Lacs.  During past September mid month fishing trips to Mille Lacs, I have been extremely successful casting Shad Raps and Rouges on the shallow mid-lake reefs.  An hour before sunset to an hour after, the reef would become the popular destination for walleyes looking for an easy meal.  Admittedly that bite and pattern hasn't been so good lately.  There were evenings where we would handily catch 12 - 15 nice walleyes.  My goal last Sunday was to see if that bite will ever materialize again.  Stopping at Lundeen's, Bill knew my plan and sarcastically ask if I was fishing for memories tonight!  Based on my success of the last 4 years that was a pretty honest assessment.  Even so if you don't try you'll never know so I had to try.   A new fisherman joined me, Welly Chou, an engineer that I work with.  Welly was born in Hong Kong, has developed into an excellent engineer as well an excellent Karaoke singer.  Having won a number of amateur contests, he even opened up for Keith Urban a few years back.  Not much of a fisherman, he expressed interest in accompanying me on one of my trips to the pond.   One thing I really enjoy is introducing fishing to someone who has little experience.  Sometimes I can be somewhat overwhelming with the electronics, methods, and strategies, Welly is curious enough to put up with that for a day.  After buying a fishing license we headed to the east side of the lake the plan was to lead line the nearby deep gravel bars for a few hours then head to the reef and cast shads through dark.   Connecting a #5 purple shad rap to Welly's line and the same in hot steel pattern to mine we let out 5 colors of line and started trolling.  We would go through pockets of fish but didn't seem to strike a pattern to make them hit.  Bill had called to see what we were doing and decided maybe the #5 shad raps were too small and the fish were looking for something different and larger, maybe a husky jerk or a rouge.  After hanging up on him we would switch after we went around the one hump however within about a minute the port rod bent over.  Giving Welly the rod he reeled in our first keeper walleye I had gotten in over 2 months, a nice 16 incher.  Resetting the lines back at 5 colors we went another 100 yards when we nailed another one.  Between the keeper walleyes would often be a single pull on the rod then it would return back to normal.  Reeling in to check the line there was a 9 inch walleye at the end of the lure.  Enough to move the rod but once hooked they would simply be dragged behind the lure.  Because you really want to keep a clean lure going you had to watch the rod all the time.

Within 45 minutes we had 4 keepers in the livewell and by the time 2 hours had passed we had 6 keepers, a nice 12 inch perch, and released a 27 1/2" as well as a 23 inch walleye.  In addition Welly caught a nice 28 inch northern pike, an unusual catch in 30 feet of water.   We ended up with 13 walleyes caught, 1 northern, and 5 perch.  Not bad for 3 1/2 hours of trolling.  As the moon began to rise over the horizon we decide to pull in the trolling lines and head to the reef to cast for walleyes.  As Bill gave me a hard time about "fishing memories" I noticed the buoy marking the northwest corner of the reef had been moved.  It is good that I have the latest Lakemaster chip which overlays the bottom contours (1 foot increments) on my front HDS5.  There were still GPS tracks from last October's trip so following the reef would be easy.  With a southwest wind we stayed on that side of the reef casting with the wind into the 3 - 5 feet of water.  It took about a half hour to cover the entire reef and as Bill probably predicted, not even a follow.  Having to fly to California in the morning, I decided that one pass was enough.  If the fish were there they would have hit.  Not the case.  Maybe Bill is correct as this would be the 5th or 6th time I have tried my hot pattern of 6 years ago with little or nothing to show for it.  I am not sure what has changed but it certainly doesn't look good.  I will try again in a week or so and maybe we just need a little cooler weather (it's coming!).   With surface temperatures in the mid 70's this could be the key, we'll see.

My good friend Adam Mayerich is getting married this Saturday.  I gave his him and his dad a lesson on trolling walleyes on Leech Lake last opener and I am looking forward to seeing him and his family.  Sunday will probably find me back in Eau Claire as my brother Jon has been in Intensive Care since last Friday with a severe case of pneumonia.  I am worried about him as he has had enough medical problems in his life.  I am not anxious to see the frost damage tomorrow but unfortunately it is what it is.  Maybe we'll be ice fishing soon!!!

Riding with Brother Steve

Actually it's my real brother Steve, not my spiritual leader although sometimes he would beg to differ!  Ever since Steve bought my 600 Honda motorcycle we have been talking about getting together some day to ride together.  Talk is always cheap and after about a year we decided on last Saturday as our do it or forget it day.  Trailering my bike to Alma, WI I unloaded it with the next stop being his house in Onalaska.  The weather forecast had been on and off rain but it appeared as though there would be a window of good riding before dark.  Just as I passed the bait shop on the south side of town I decided to put on my rain gear just in case.  None too soon as the rain started a mile down the road and continued for the next 52 miles to his house.   The radar indicated the rain was heading east and I threw my jeans and socks in the dryer while we gave it an hour to move along.  Our original routes were pretty ambitious so we decided to stay within 60 miles of La Crosse, WI with our first leg taking us to Melrose.  The area in western Wisconsin is called the Driftless Area, an area untouched by the glaciers during the last ice age.  The main feature is the Mississippi River Valley yet many smaller valley's emanating from the numerous ridges are everywhere.  Often these valleys are called Coulee's or Dugway's, they are essentially areas where creeks and rivers follow old canyons eroded by ancient water forces.  The result are many roads that curve through the valleys and follow ridges connecting the small towns and villages 10 - 15 miles apart.  They are perfect for riding motorcycles, offering a great balance of curves and stunning scenery.  Our route took us through the Mindoro Cut, a very unique feature on Highway 108 out of Mindoro, WI.   As you can see from the top picture the road just squeezes through the cut which according to the plaque was constructed in 1907-08 and was all hand-hewn.  I found it interesting that it claims to be the second largest hand-hewn cut in the nation.  Whether this is true or not, one can only go by the sign.  I suspect that if no explosives were used, this might be an accurate statement. 

Heading down to Cashton, WI we stopped for a bite before noticing the rain was again approaching.  A quick check of the radar image on the phone suggested we could ride to Prairie du Chien, maybe spend an hour at Cabela's to wait it out so away we went.  The route took us along State Hwy 27 which followed the top of a long ridge for over 36 miles, right into our destination.  The ride was awesome as the valleys branched out of both sides of the ridge as we travelled the road.  Arriving in Prairie du Chien we check the radar again and it appeared as though nothing had changed.  Steve had failed to update it when we were in Cashton, a quick refresh and uffda!  It would appear as though the rain was going to be around for a while.  Donning our rainsuites we drove  the 60 miles back to La Crosse in a deluge.  One of my safety books insist that you ride in the rain on purpose to get a feel for it so when you have to ride on wet roads you know what to expect.  Not complacent, never the less I was surprised how well our bikes rode in the rain.  I really want to get back in that area again before the snow falls as there are hundreds of miles of roads to explore.

Monday was sort of a lazy day, a time to get caught up around the house.  My orchard is exploding with fruit, something for next weeks post.  I did slip away on the river with my neighbor Tom Olson.  His father had just passed away and it was a good time for us to spend some time together and discuss the situation.  Launching at the neighbors it was amazing how much the river level had fallen in the last 2 weeks, almost 3 feet.  The reduced water flow was evident as my jon boat and 15 hp motor hit a respectable 15 mph on our upstream journey.  This is a full 3 mph faster than just a few weeks ago.  Where you could go almost anywhere was replaced by watching the depth finder closely making sure we didn't run a ground, which I did!  Luckily I have a rock hopper on the skeg of my motor making it pretty bulletproof.  My favorite island was now a solid piece of land connected to the shore and it was evident why we caught fish were we did when the water was high.  While exploring an area the trolling motor caught the bottom and sheared the adjustment pins right off.  Although it continued to work it was a struggle to hold it in place while running the motor.  Overall it was another good trip.  We each caught about 5 smallmouth with most of them experiencing LDR (Long Distance Release) as well 4 northern pike and this nice walleye that Tom convinced to hit his lure.  I am really interested to learn more about the walleye haunts in the river however the time for the shallow water walleye bite on Mille Lacs is starting now.  It looks like Sunday might be time to try it out.

Back to Mille Lacs

With the promise of getting back fishing on Mille Lacs each week I finally got the opportunity to go on Sunday.  The guy that has been helping me the last month or so had a special request, one I could hardly turn down.  Lory's father-in-law, John Mindermann of New York Mills was coming by on Sunday and he asked me if I would take him fishing.  With the wind forecast for Mille Lacs being calm, it would be a perfect place to try lead line trolling as there has been a few fish going on this technique.  Mille Lacs Windcast is the site I go for the wind forecast as it is a great way to plan your trip, where to launch, and how uncomfortable you are going to be.  Having not been in the Ranger for at least 6 weeks I decided that she needed a good cleaning.  Just having completed my new HDS installs and the 2 month old fish slime still on the carpet I decided a trip to car wash was in line.  The nice thing about today's self serve car washes is the pressure generated is not as high as they once were, and is perfect for getting the carpets clean.  The problem is there is a lot of water left to drain out and it was still somewhat wet and fish smelling by the time we left.  Of course it is a boat!  After loading up on refreshments and launching the boat we headed to a deep gravel bar a few miles out.  With three in the boat the strategy was to run 2 lead line rods with #5 Shad Raps plus a side planer board with a #11 Tail Dancer 150 feet back from the board.  My bets were on the #5 Shad Raps doing all the hard work however that was not the case.  The first hit came off the planer board as the Tattle Tail flag was completely down.  Handing the pole to John he reeled in to the line attached planer board, I removed it and let him fight the fish.  At first he claimed it didn't feel like a fish but as the end got closer to the boat it was obvious this was not the case!  2 minutes later we landed a nice 23 inch walleye.   As we trolled around the gravel bar the HDS marked individual fish, schools of fish, large swarms of bait fish, fish here, fish there, fish everywhere.  Obviously the fish were there but not very hungry.  After 2 hours of trolling we moved to the next gravel bar 5 miles out.  Although we marked another mother load of fish the only fish we got was on the planer board again, this time a nice 25 inch walleye that we gave to John.   Here is a picture of John with that walleye.   We did get a keeper walleye on a lead lined Rouge as well when we pulled in our lines to move we had a couple of small perch that didn't even register as a hit.  Finishing the day we trolled Indian Point with Shad Raps and hooked a nice smallmouth for John to reel in.

Last night I went to the Minnesota State Fair with a few goals in mind.  I have a great and a not so great pear tree in my orchard but for the life of me, I forgot which tree was which.   I originally purchased a Parker Pear and a Patton Pear variety.  I grabbed my best and largest pear and brought it with with the plan to talk to the University Horticulture Department.  Well after being passed around everyone exclaimed it was a beautiful pear but didn't know the type.  Frustrated I went by the fruit judging area and voila, there were a few trays of pears that looked exactly like what I had in my hand, a Patton Pear.  That only took me 15 years to figure out!  Next was a visit to the John Deere display to discuss which snow blower attachment to buy.  Getting that out of the way it was back to the Horticultural building for a little Minnesota made wine.  Although Minnesota is not the best place in the world to grow wine grapes, the local vineyards do a pretty good job with the fruits that are available.  For $10 you can get a sample of 3 different types so we had a semi sweet raspberry, a local made dry red wine, and a lighter red similar to a Pinot Noir.   They were all pretty delicious, enough to buy a bottle or two next time I have the chance.  Next stop was the DNR building.  They have a huge outdoor cement pond full of fish from huge sturgeon, muskellunge, northern pike, buffalo fish, gar, trout, and almost every species found in Minnesota.  As a fisherman and amateur naturalist it was fun to stand next to people and hear them try to identify the different fish swimming by.  It's a fabulous display and I could stand there for hours if time allotted.  Taking a tour through the main building I ran across a young intern manning evasive species booth.  This is a pet peeve of mine and although I understand at the high level the laws, I liken driving away from the boat landing with my drain plug still in and getting a ticket is like giving me a speeding ticket before I even get in the car.  Although I have never got a ticket for any of this I like to argue on principle.   While there I had my friend Tom take a special picture for my friend Dewey Ness.  He loves these kinds of pictures so me looking like a Forest Ranger was the perfect gift for him!  Labor Day weekend is here and I have a motorcycle trip planned with my brother with the potential of getting out on the water on Monday, either the River or Mille Lacs again.  Fall is in the air as the Sunday night forecast is supposed to be in the low 40's.