Goodbye to My Fishing Friend

As I have written before, getting older means that eventually you will lose some of your good fishing friends.  Of course as we age, so do our friends and it's just part of life.  Last Friday morning I received one of those calls that one never expects, my friend Russ died last night of a massive heart attack.  The problem is that Russ had just turned 40.   The suddenness of it all is somewhat overwhelming however.  Russ was married to our good friend Jessica, a new opportunity, yet our relationship did not start out exactly seeing eye to eye.  I suppose the 15 years of age difference and our backgrounds was enough to create some differences however one could see a good man underneath all of those defenses.  It took a few years and as time passed  found that we had more in common than not.  Often I would bring a new bait for him, a left over pedestal for his boat, a software program to share.  One thing that Russ became hooked on was fishing.  Having done little ice fishing and limited open water fishing, I was probably a bad influence on his fishing budget.  An ice auger off Craigslist, a end of the season ice house, a used 16 foot Lund with a 25 hp motor.  All those things that a guy definitely needs!  As time went on I took Russ to Mille Lacs, both ice fishing and open water fishing.  He has never experienced big water angling and it was interesting to see his reactions the first time we drove 5 miles off shore to fish a special area in the middle of the lake.  Russ had a blast.  Here is Russ with his son Cage. 

I had posted this picture last year when we had a chance to hit Mille Lacs.  It was the largest walleye he had ever caught and although it wasn't the most successful day, we had fun.  One of our favorite lakes to hit in the winter was Pelican Lake, just down the road from his house in St. Michael, MN.  A shallow lake, 12 feet at it's maximum, it is full of nice sized crappies and sunfish.  We could hit the lake in the mid afternoon, catching a nice mess of fish and be back by 7:00 in the evening.  I would like to think I was a good mentor to Russ.  Teaching him how to fish using a Vexilar FL-8 to the proper way he should interview for a job to helping him stay focused on having the confidence to forge ahead.   It probably explains why these things hurt so bad.  You invest time in a friendship, looking for a lifetime of sharing those rewards and sometimes it simply doesn't turn out that way.  God bless Russ and his family, I will miss you my friend.

Another Great Hunt

One of the interesting things about blogs like Fishin’ With Dave is that fact that you meet people that have never crossed your path, yet they become an interesting part of your circle of friends. Neenahpete certainly fits into that category as well the son of an engineering contact, Bruce Buratto, whom I met only over the phone and through e-mails. Bruce resides in western Massachusetts and we have worked on a couple of transformer projects however over the years we have traded fishing tips, ATV stories, and the differences between how things are done “out east” verses in Minnesota. Bruce has a son, Matt, who is one of my followers and an avid outdoorsman as well. Seeing my less than stellar spiked buck on last weeks post, he had to send me a picture of his successful archery hunt this year. This picture is Matt posing with a nice respectable 9 pointer. Rather than tell you the whole story, here is what Matt e-mailed to me: Today I decided to move to a different tree on a wood road that my father and grandfather made years back. I saw a small four point buck and a doe yesterday and a couple others the previous week. They all seemed to be going up the same ridge. Yesterday I noticed a bunch of scrapes on some trees just below the ridge. This is what ultimately prompted my stand location change to right behind the scrapes. For once it finally paid off. The deer came walking up the wood road under my stand. He was less that 10 yards away and never new I was there until I grunted at him to stop him. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. Before we know it we'll be on the ice. I can't wait!  Well, Happy Birthday Matt and great job.  Some guys wait years to nail a nice buck like that, heck I only have to look in the mirror!  What is even more exciting is to see Matt carry on traditions and experiences that both his father and grandfather participated in.  In this day of computers and video games, it is a refreshing to see his pictures and listen to his stories.   The amazing thing to me is as such a good looking young man like Matt, I imagine it's difficult to find time for the outdoors when you have all the girls chasing you.  Thank God I never had that problem!

Matt's last sentence was "Before you know it we'll be on the ice"  Well Saturday produced a good old snowstorm dropping 10 inches of heavy wet snow in the area.  Last year we did get our first snowfall rather early however it didn't last.  This one could stick around for a while.  This is a good omen for early ice.  As stated in a previous post, my earliest foray on the ice was November 17th with Earl Taylor.  Fishing North Center Lake in Lindstrom, MN there was a good 4 inches of ice covering the lake this early.  Although the small ponds and swamps have a thin coating of ice on them now, we will need some more cold weather to get walkable ice.  Next week shows highs in the mid 20's with lows in the single digits so we can't be too far off.  With the weekend approaching it will be good to get my gear out and tune it up.  I am predicting a great year for walleye on Mille Lacs.  The earliest I have been on the pond was the weekend after Thanksgiving.   Early ice is always one of my favorite times and I am looking forward to a little hard water.

Opening Day Success

Wow, the time seems like it is in hypermode these days.  Besides being behind with almost everything, deer hunting was upon us last weekend, November 6 and 7th.  As everything lately, it seems as though last year was just yesterday.   Once again I had the pleasure of hunting with the same group as in the last 6 years.  Hunting my remembered friend Rich Allen's land, it was Jack, Brett and Trenton, Kevin and Austin, Eugene, and our host Ken.  Arriving Friday, it was exactly as predicted, WET!!!  Receiving record rainfall in September and 3 - 5 inches 2 weeks ago, the lakes, creeks, rivers, and swamps were filled to the brim.  I hunt the back part of Rich's land and the real only way to get back there is trudging through the swamp.  In year's past Jack and I would take our ATV's and crawl through the peat and alders.  The problem this year is the fear of getting stuck, as well, we are not as adventurous as we once were.  This means donning on the hip waders and making your way through the tangle of clumps, brush, and holes that challenge the boot height.   Arriving on Friday the first order of business was to check out how bad it really was and make a decision if we would even expend the energy.  Walking back to the stand, it was about as I expected.  I had left half of my stand in the woods last year, meaning to come and get it once the swamp had frozen.  Great idea but like a lot of great ideas, sometimes you just don't get to them.  There it was, just were I had left it a year ago!  Luckily I had removed the pads and armrests as the 25 foot nylon ropes attached to the stand were missing all but about 6 inches.  I guess the mice must have found it great bedding material.  Faded but functional, I decided to endure the walk and hunt in the tree I have gotten to know over the years.  My ladder stand is nice but a pain to set up, even with 2 guys.  With the ropes gone, Jack and I used our collective heads and got it in position.  Standing almost 18 feet high, it's a balancing act to put that top strap around the tree to secure.   I had brought the straps but had grabbed the wrong ones, dang it.  It's too high up to take any chances so I headed back to my truck to retrieve the right ones.  That second trip out there had me thinking if the right decision had been made!   Everything set, we headed back to Rich's for my famous marinated steaks.  This has always been a tradition we started and it may well be the last time we will do this at Rich's as Mary has the place for sale.

With Daylight Savings Time still in effect for Saturday morning, I took my time wading to my stand.  Wearing hip boots, I have to carry my warm boots in a plastic bag stuff my bibs, gloves, a change of socks, and extra pair of pants in case I trip on the way out, as well as a book, a MRE (thanks Tony), hand warmers, knife, camera, and water into a backpack.  It took about 20 minutes to walk 1/4 mile, I got to dry ground, changed, and climbed the stand.   In the stand for about 45 minutes something caught my eye, a nice spike buck was walking right in front of me.  I am not on trophy ground and was looking to refill the freezer with some fresh venison, down he went on the first shot!  I guess the trouble I had sighting in my new scope was all forgotten.  Of course now the work begins!  Not wanting to drag the deer out through the swamp, I waited till sunset when Brett volunteered to come by and help.  Although it wasn't the worst thing I had done, it took all we had to pull that deer through the swamp.  Luckily I have a medium size plastic sled that makes it much easier.  The top picture is my little spike buck, small but nice and tender!  As stated, this is probably our last year hunting Rich's forcing Jack and I to check out a couple of areas for next year to see if any hunters were around.  Skipping the morning hunt, we discovered a couple of nice spots where it appeared as though no one was hunting the area.  Deciding to see how the other guys were doing, we headed back to Rich's to discover Brett had a small doe down.  A number of us were available to help him so I dragged the sled back out and we pulled her through the swamp.  Here is Trenton, Brett's son posed with the deer.  Neither were trophy's but satisfying never the less. 

A couple of parting shots.  One of the things you commonly see in the rural areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I am sure many states as well, all the road signs seem to have at least one bullet hole in it!  From shotguns to rifles to pistols bullets holes, one thing's for sure, there is no closed season on signs.  Here is a good example of this as we stopped to check it out.   I guess I remember participating in that sport 40 year ago as well.  I am writing this at 38,000 feet over Nevada.  Flying to San Jose, California for a Medical Trade Show the plane has WiFi on board.  $12.95 for the flight, about 3 hours worth, is pretty reasonable.  I can check my e-mails, finish a much past due post, and generally keep myself entertained.  Amazing world we live in today.  My stand is still in the woods, waiting for the freeze and hopefully I get this done soon.  The loss of 35 pounds really made a difference this year.  Carrying around that big bag of potatoes inside my body really dragged me down and I felt great all season.  I am sure at last years weight, I probably would have not gotten this deer.  This is sort of a transition time of year, hopefully ice fishing is not to far away.

Perchapalooza

 Thursday was a good day to take off work and get a number of things accomplished before the weather turns its head towards winter. The two things on the agenda were getting the new scope on my deer rifle sighted then heading north and catching the front end of the full moon bite on Mille Lacs. As stated my neighbor Lory volunteered his time to accompany me this day. The rifle sight proved more challenging than I had first assumed. The Burris scope on my rifle was over 25 years old and had started acting up. My first concern was with the ammunition a friend of mine at work had loaded up for me. Although the shells were about 10 years old, I had successfully grouped my sight in each year. 2 years ago I was all over the place, making adjustment, eventually settling back to my original settings. The last deer I had shot was a wounded buck which came by which took me 6 shells to finally dispatch it. Sensing an issue I sent it back to Burris, confirming that the springs were weak and my lifetime guarantee was applicable. The model was obsolete so they gave me 75% off any scope in their catalog. This was a great deal! Using a few older shells to do the initial sight in, I was close and grouped nice. Switching to Federal Premium’s and 100 yards, things didn’t work so well. I finally got an acceptable group however I will have my friend, Brett Jelkin reload me some shells close to what Rodney did for my years ago. Hopefully that will straighten things out.

Having accomplished the first agenda item we headed north to check off our second item. Arriving at Lundeen’s, Bill was already on a different lake looking for crappies. He agreed to meet us later at the super secret perch hole. After loading up a few dozen fatheads and twister tails we headed out. I had gotten pretty good instructions of our meeting place and understanding the fall perch bite, we quickly zeroed in on their location. I have to admit it was a bonified Perchapolooza!!! From 2:00 to 6:00 we totally annihilated them using everything from our Powerbait Twister Tails to scavenging every chunk of minnow leftover from the massacre. Our boat limit was 40 perch and after the first 10, decided that a minimum size was in order. Estimating at least a perch every 2 minutes for each of us I would bet we caught over 400 fish total. If you go to my Thursday, October 14th post (http://davidjanderson.blogspot.com/2010/10/workin-for-man.html) you can compare the 2 livewell shots, then and now. Certainly a significant difference.   Bill showed up in time to partake in the success.  The top picture is my fishing partner Lory with a beautiful 12 inch perch.

Leaving the perch hole with our limit, we head to Indian Point for the evening shallow walleye troll.  The moon was well positioned to give us all the light we needed to set up a trolling pattern.  Within the first 15 minutes I nailed this nice 24 inch walleye that hit my #5 Hot Steel Shad Rap in 10 feet of water.  With the sunlight still peeking out from the horizon, it made for a memorable picture.  Unfortunately this was the only fish we were able to scrape up and left at 8:30.  There was a lot of traffic on the point and having exhausted our efforts on the perch, we decided to leave.  It took an hour to clean our fish and vacuum pack them and we were in bed by midnight.  It certainly was a day to remember.  Next week it's home to see my dad who is struggling with some medical issues and offer some help.  I can always fish later.

A Trailer Load of Potatoes

As a child growing up my dad would always finish washing my ears with the comment "these ears are so dirty you could grow potatoes in them!".   Well whether there was any truth to that, I am always think of him as I dig my potatoes out of the garden before a hard freeze occurs.  This year was a bumper crop for one of my favorite things to grow.   Planted in early May, the wet summer was perfect for producing this trailer full of delicious tubers.  Potatoes, along with corn (maize) were the 2 most important food crops originating in the New World.  Native to Peru, South America, they have become a staple in the world's food supply.  Today's varieties are hardy, disease resistant, and yield exceptionally well.  This wasn't always the case as in 1845 when the Irish, for whom the poor people depended solely on the potato, experienced a blight (disease) which eventually killed over 1 million people.  There are some interesting side stories regarding the role of England, who controlled Ireland at the time, however that is a story for another time.  What is interesting about potatoes is that the plant contains toxic compounds, especially in the leaves, stems, and round fruit that grow from the flowers.  Although these compounds in severe cases can cause coma and eventually death, it is very rare.  Never the less potato breeders developing new cultivars are keenly aware of this property and look for toxicity levels in the tubers to minimize any problems associated with this.  When the tubers are not fully covered by soil and are exposed to the sun, the tops turn green.  The green areas have more concentration of these compounds and should be discarded before cooking.   A little research shows that in the last 50 years there has been no reported cases of death from poisoning, and those cases that have  been reported have been minor issues relating to eating the green portion of the tuber or because of drinking potato leaf tea (that doesn't even sound good!).  If any of you have read John Krakauer's book Into the Wild, the main character died a agonizing death eating a distant relative of the potato plant's wrong parts.

This year I grew 5 different varieties of potatoes.  They included Norland Reds, Kennebec, California White, Yukon Gold, and a blue potato cultivar pictured here.  The Norland and Kennebec tend to grow some nice large tubers as you can see the bigger ones in the trailer.  My guess is I dug over 125# of tubers from the 2 40 foot rows planted.  Fertilized with an 18-46-0 mixture, the high middle number assured good root development.  One of my favorite ways to prepare the fruits of my labor is to cut up a few potatoes along with an onion from the same garden and put them in some aluminum foil.  Add a little olive oil and Italian seasoning, throw them on the grill and in about an hour you have a delicious addition to any meal.  As with my pickles, the fruits of my labor pays off for all the hard work in the spring and summer.

As far as fishing goes, I am sorry to report there has been little time for that.  My plans are to take

Thursday, October 21st off to sight in my new rifle scope then head to Mille Lacs.  Now that the water has cooled, word has it the perch are biting better.  Going with my neighbor Lory, we hope to bring back a few of these great eating fish as well check out the evening trolling bite as we are right on top of the next full moon.  We'll see!!!

Workin' for the Man

My friend Bill Lundeen of Lundeen's Tackle Castle on beautiful Mille Lacs Lake is mentioned frequently on Fishin' With Dave, and for good reason.  Bill and his lovely wife Kathy's bait shop is strategically located at the corner of Hwy's 169 and 27, on the southwest side of the lake.  A gateway point for fishermen coming to Mille Lacs, there are many options after loading up on fresh bait, snacks, tackle, ice, and some up to date advice on the latest status of the bite.  When I moved into my current residence 18 years ago, it was easier to head to Mille Lacs by taking  US Hwy 169 north to Onamia.  In about 1 hour and 15 minutes I was at the lake, a little faster than my previous route of going north on Hwy 47.  My new preferred route presented me with a few options for bait shops.  Prince's north of Milaca, The Holiday Station (now a BP), and Bill's all were given a chance.  Prince's seemed like it was never open, The Holiday Station was a little to big company for me, leaving Lundeen's Tackle Castle as my effort to support the local business's.  Through the years we have become good friends.  Sharing fishing reports, opinions, and just about anything else, I was excited when he asked if I could possible watch the store last Sunday.  Apparently the Bishop was coming for a special celebration at their church and it was an event they would really like to attend as a family.  After clearing my schedule, got up at 5:00 and drove my motorcycle to the store for a quick lesson in how to run the operation.  I did get some help from a former employee, Mike who was up fishing and visiting his mother.  Together we restocked the essentials, dusted the shelves, swept the floor, all while selling a few minnows and leeches in between.  Here's a picture of me behind the counter, ready to greet the next fisherman that walked in.  Although it wasn't terribly busy I did manage to sell a new landing net, 1 quart of Bill's famous home made maple syrup, some sucker minnows, a few rainbows, and some leeches.  We did have one issue with the DNR license machine but all in all it went pretty well.  Bill and his family came back from church, happy to have been able to attend and the shop was still in functioning condition, abet a little cleaner!  It was certainly a nice change from the transformer business and it really feels good to be trusted enough with another man's life work.  As I said before, if you are ever in the area stop in and tell them Dave sent you, I guarantee you a smile.

Of course I did get a chance to get out on Friday night with my neighbor Tom.  The weather has been nothing short of phenomenal and this night was no exception.  Bill had reported that the perch were starting to go in Wahkon Bay, usually an opportunity to put a few perch in the live well with plenty of action.  We would fish to just before sunset then head to 3-mile reef to try some shallow water walleye fishing.  Well the perch were definitely going crazy however the problem was they all measured between 4 and 6 inches.  I must have caught 100 or so casting a ivory colored Power Bait twister tail while Tom casted for larger prey.  In the end I had caught only 1 perch that measured enough to make it worth filleting.  Of course that first keeper must get into that live well to set the stage for introducing additional company to keep the first one happy.  Well, that didn't happen.  This was our one and only fish for the night and trust me, it looks a lot larger than it really is!  Our trip to 3-mile proved a fruitless effort.  We  could not even scrounge up a lowly rock bass.  I think the water temp was still too high, 59 degrees, not enough to drive the fish shallow.  The full moon is in a week or so and this might be my last stand before I put the boat away.   I am hoping to get back on the Mississippi River this weekend for an attempt at a trophy smallie.  With fall rapidly approaching, time is getting short to get everything done before the snow flies.  I guess it's the same every year.

Da Bears!

Last weekend was busy with social events which got in the way of fishing.   Wisconsin bear hunting is in full swing and 2 of my friends sent in pictures of their trophy bruins.  Because I have no fishing report for this week, sharing their stories and pictures might be something of interest.  The first picture is of my good friend John Felix and his bear hanging in the garage.  John really knows how to take a picture and this bear looks enormous.  Rather than repeat the story I copied his rendition from his e-mail as it is much more interesting.

This bear was suspect of clawing the boards on Harlan’s sugar bush on land 15 miles south of Ashland. It is the same property I shot the 350 lb. 10 years ago. Same bait as well. We hung a trail cam and looked for the largest animal, which is usually the one that marks his territory. After a month of pictures and effort it was decided that this must be the one. He was coming in mostly of and on all day, and night. The first day of season it was windy beyond. Harlan sat with me in a two man ladder stand to video. We got out early because of the wind. I waited until the following Monday to let the bait cool off and see if we had turned them nocturnal. I went to the stand and was settled in by 3:15 PM. The first time he approached he was around 35 yards + out. I had my 50 cal. TC with me but also had the bow as he looked around, turned and left the way he came. I processed all this and by the time I saw him coming back I didn’t have time to turn on the video.  When he got to the 25 yard mark, he presented a standing shot between a gap in the trees about 18 inches apart (this was like a hallway of trees and his frontal area including a heart shot was visible and I could see his head on the other side).  I knew the distance but double checked with a rangefinder. I squeezed off the shot, the broad head just grazed the triceps on the left side, caught lung and pierced the heart center mass on the top fat ring. It was a total pass through. He ran 33 yards and collapsed in 5 seconds graveyard dead.

Pretty exciting if you ask me! John claims the bear was an older male, probably in the twilight of it's life.  Although it was over 6 feet long and had a large head, the bear had practically no fat on it and weighed about 240 pounds.  A younger, healthy bear would have been much larger.  This brings me to the next picture, my friend Greg Kimblom.  Greg shot this bear with his Remington 30-06 on private property in northern Wisconsin.  The bear weighed 225 pound dressed out and was one of 5 that was visiting his baiting station.  Being further from his hunting area than John, he decided to take this one.  As you see, both bears weigh close to the same however as they say, I picture says a thousand words.  Hanging in front of John, his bear looks massive.  Posing for a quick field shot, Greg's bear doesn't look as large yet in both cases they represent the average weight of a black bear shot in the midwest.  Of course they can get much larger with reports of 600 - 700 pound boars being shot every year.  Either way these will make great rugs for the living room, assuming their wives are tolerant!

Indian Summer is in full swing and Friday night is the peak of the New Moon period, time to try our luck trolling rouges on the Mille Lacs reefs.  With temperatures in the 80's, it is too nice to pass up.  Shallow reef trolling has been slow this year however with the water temps in the 50's it's got to get better.  On Sunday morning I will be running the store at Lundeen's Tackle Castle, stop in and say hi.

Lead Line Confidence Has Arrived

Last weekend my brother Steve had Friday off with the intent of having me take him fishing on Mille Lacs.  Never fishing a full moon walleye bite he wanted to see what it was all about.  In past years the September full moon has been very successful and although the last couple of years have been less than stellar, I have always had at least one good trip before October.   The 3 days before saw record rains in southern Minnesota and Wisconsin resulting in serious flooding for this time of year.   The weather showed Friday as a clearing day with Saturday having a chance of rain again.  Meeting me at work Steve and I headed to the lake with the wind howling from the northwest with gusts to 35 mph.   My strategy to fish the east side was definitely going to change.  Arriving at Lundeen's, Bill agreed that it would be a wet outing if we launched at Liberty Beach but the good news was the reports from the north side where it would be significantly calmer.   The latest fishing reports had the deep sand bite on the north end pretty good.  Running lead lines in 27 feet of water with #5 Shad Raps was the rumor for the hot bite.  With the 25mph steady wind out of the NW, this was a great option.  27 feet is fairly close to shore and after a short run, we snapped a Hot Steel Shad Rap on one rod and a Clown color on the other, let out 5 colors of line and headed east.  I am still amazed how well my 115 Suzuki trolls down, even with the wind it was under 2.0 mph.  Although the wind was blowing hard, the wave action was more than tolerable.  Within the hour we had our first rod double over, a nice 18 incher for the live well.  Starting at 3:00 in the afternoon, by 7:00 we had boated 7 walleyes, 5 for the live well and 2 were too big to keep such as this one pictured.  It was my best day fishing with lead line and it is definitely boosting my confidence with this presentation. 

At 7:00 it was time to find a shallow reef and check out the post sunset bite.  A 4 mile run to the shallows in front of Fisher's we trolled for about an hour and decided we should have stayed in the deeper water.  The waves were significantly higher and the fish were no where to be found.   Heading back we loaded the boat and made a beeline to my friend Mark's ice house for the night.  Our plan was to catch supper, get a good nights sleep and head home in the morning.   Located at Fisherman's Wharf, we stopped at the resort restaurant to eat before cleaning our walleyes.  The nights special was pot roast with all the trimmings for $10, a fabulous deal considering how much food we got.  A short ride to our quarters found a nice surprise, Mark had decided to drive up and stay the weekend.  After cleaning nice batch of walleyes, we proceeded to solve the world's problems, something that that took till 4 in the morning.  Admittedly we only scratched the surface!  Here is another nice walleye we nailed.  If you notice the pictures are once more lacking quality.  Being too excited at the landing, I again left my camera in the car.  I bought an extra camera to keep in the boat especially for my forgetful streaks however that camera was also in my car.  So much for that plan!  Steve took these with his fancy smart phone, not bad as I had little choice.

It is going to be hard to get out this weekend with a wedding on Saturday and a surprise anniversary party on Sunday.  The weather forecast is predicting a hard frost for Saturday night and things are drying out nicely.  With Indian Summer scheduled for next week, the fall rush to get those last minute chores done has started.

Back to Wapogasset

Sunday had me up at 5:00 to meet Jason and his dad Andy Rombalski for our annual fall fishing trip.  Because Andy lives in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and he has fond memories of all the fish they used to catch on Lake Wapogasset, this was our destination.  A medium sized lake north of Amery, the lake is popular for panfish, walleyes, and bass.  The last time we fished this lake it took about an hour to find the landing.  The lady at the gas station confirmed that there was a new landing and we couldn't miss it.  After stopping at the bait shop for some waxies, it was off to the landing using her directions.  Well, so much for not missing it!  This time it only took a half hour to find get the boat in the water, once we got back on the right road.   The water is coming off it's usually pea soup color with the algae almost gone.   The peak summer algae bloom prevents the weedline from going any deeper than 6 feet.  We quickly discovered the fish were located on the edge of this.   Jason ended up with most of the fish while I had an interesting collection of species including largemouth bass, northern pike, and white bass.  The rest of the collection included bluegills, rock bass, crappies, and surprisingly large shiners.  The white bass I caught was an interesting experience.  Andy was fishing sunnies and a fish was trying to eat the bobber.  Sensing an opportunity I pitched a twister tail and it slammed the lure.  Because this was a joint effort, both Andy and I are pictured here.

Being out on the water presents the opportunity to view Mother Nature at her finest.  I experience once of a lifetime experience as we moved down the shore, casting for fish.  On a dock was a mass of fur that was undulating back and forth in a nervous fashion.  As we cruised closer to investigate, to my surprise it was a family of otters, 5 in all.  It was like watching the Discovery Channel.  I have never seen otters in the wild and it was an exciting experience.  They allowed us to get fairly close before entering the safety of the lake, one by one.  Watching them swim as a group along the shoreline was amazing.  Sticking their heads up out of the water looking back at us they may have seen us as an oddity of nature from their point of view.  The trip ended at the boat landing when a huge bald eagle swooped down from a large tree to snag a fish right in front of us.  Often when fishing, the fish are simply a bonus.  Off to Mille Lacs later to try the remnants of the September full moon bite with my brother Steve.  It looks like a lot of wind which can be good and bad.  Maybe I'll finally get something to replace my picture with.

Fall Salmon Fishing Wisconsin Style

A picture sent to me by my friend Eric brought back many memories of fishing for salmon on Lake Michigan.  Here Eric is holding what would be described as a perfect Chrome King.  Still in the main lake, not unlike Alaska, the fish have that "just out of the ocean" look of bright silver.  A few e-mails back and forth acknowledged that they were fishing no different than I did back in 1986/87.   Back then my good friend Gary Barneson was living in Appleton.  Although he lives in Eleva now, he was an important influence on my early days of fishing.  He was the first to invite me to fish walleyes on Mille Lacs, advised me on my first boat, a 14 foot Lund Deluxe with a 25hp, and he invited us to fish salmon on Lake Michigan with our small boats.  It did sound exciting, fishing these exotic fish out of our 14 and 16 foot standard boats.  After a few discussions I began rigging my 16 foot Lund Pro Angler for the trip to Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  First order of business was to find some down-riggers and mount them.  A 2" x 8" x 7 foot board, clamped onto my gunnels proved effective.  Next was to get some flexible trolling rods and reels, along with a couple of Dipsy Divers and some lures like the Northport Nailers, J Plugs, and flashers with squids.  Some PVC pipe to act as rod holders and we were rigged!  Arriving at Gary's we spent the night, heading out early in the morning to fish.  My friend Kevin and his brother Brent always accompanied me on these trips.  We were fast learners.  Having the ability to fish 3 poles each, we put down 2 down-rigger rods, a dipsy diver out of each side (these were diving planer devices that would take your lure down and out away from the boat), and a couple of long lines running close to the surface.  It was a surprise to find out just how close in to shore we were catching salmon and brown trout.  The average depth was from the surface to no deeper than 45 feet. 

It was a blast!  Today's charter boats fishing salmon on Lake Michigan have so many lines out that they have to keep moving forcing you to reel a fish that is also being pulled along.  With our own boat we could stop, pull in all of the lines and stand on the bow for a magnificent battle.  Not unlike chunking for silvers in the ocean, it was just you and the fish.  Of course fishing back then was fabulous.  A full day's work would be rewarded with a limit of Kings, Coho's, with a few rainbow and football browns mixed in.  Looking back it was some of the most fun I have ever had fishing.  Gary moved back to Eleva, the fish eventually ate the lake out of house and home, and Mille Lacs became a bigger focus for me.  I'll admit however that Eric has got me thinking!

The rest of the week in review was kind of interesting.  I had the chance to go to my 4th Twins game at the new Target Field with my good friend Lory Brasel.  Watching the Twins complete a series sweep of Kansas City was a perfect way to spend a night.  To my surprise my sweetheart Ellie Taylor was also at the game celebrating her 84th birthday.  Ellie is like a mom to me and we always have a great time together.  Her son Jack called me as we were going to the game and discovered the whole family was going.  The stars were aligned that night as Ellie sat in the section just below where we were allowing me to spend some quality time on her birthday.  Happy Birthday Ellie!  On Sunday I snuck on the river to wet a line for a few hours.  The fishing was horrible as the grass floating down the river was preventing a good presentation.  Nailing a 10 inch smallie was about all I could muster up before the grass made my crankbait useless.  There will be more chances.  Launching at my neighbors, Blair and his wife help me load up the boat.  A quick discussion about me taking my motorcycle road test prompted Blair to volunteer his 125CC Yamaha Zuma for the test.  Assuring me that I would have difficulty with my bike, we went to Anoka and practiced on the test course painted in the parking lot of the Drivers License Bureau.  He was right.   Monday I rode his scooter to work, then to my appointment where I wa the first of 5 guys to take the test.  I did pass and was glad that Blair intervened.  I don't know but I am sure the 2 guys behind me had some issues.  On Tuesday I headed for Cleveland Ohio for 2 days of meetings.  As usual my return flights from Chicago O'Hare were jinxed and after a 3 hour delay I finally got home around 1:00AM.   Off to our annual fishing trip to Lake Wapogasset, near Amery Wisconsin with Andrew and Jason.  Hopefully I will have a great report.

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.

State Fair Time

The end of August means one thing in Minnesota, State Fair Time.  For 12 days the State Fairgrounds in St. Paul comes alive as technically the largest State Fair in the United States.  Texas claims to be larger in attendance however it runs 30 days.  Either way it's usually a zoo.  My wife and I attended last Thursday to watch one of the guys who works with me compete in the amateur talent contest.  Welly Chou is both an excellent electrical engineer and an accomplished singer.  Born in Hong Kong, he came to the United States as a teenager, participating in a student exchange program where he attended high school in South Dakota.  He has been here ever since.   It is quite amazing as he has shed his Chinese accent and you would swear he just stepped off the bus from Nashville.  Welly has won many singing contests including an opportunity to open for Keith Urban a few years back.   Using my Canon pocket camera, I did a movie clip of his performance and Welly put it on Youtube.  If you have time, check out his performance, it's pretty good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4hh0Rap_8A. 

Of course one of my favorite attractions at the Fair is the Department of Natural Resources fish pond.  A concrete structure literally filled with fish of every kind, shape, and size.   A fairly large pond I would bet there is a 1000 fish from muskies, trout, paddlefish, carp, quillback suckers, crappies, sturgeon and everything in between.  I am not sure where they all come from, however I know many are caught by hook and line prior to the fair.  The other interesting thing at the fair is the animal barns.  Because Thursday was the first day of the fair, the main attraction were the sheep and rabbits.  Holy smokes, I did not realize how many different types of rabbits there were and the variety within those types.  Here is a picture of one that almost looks like a small dog.  There were rabbits you could hold in the palm of your hand to giants over 16 pounds.  I guess you can house train them to use a litter box so they must be smarter than they look!

Because of my niece's wedding, no fishing was accomplished this week.  I did manage to pick up a 14 foot jon boat with a 15 hp Evinrude which should be perfect for the river.  I will post pictures later, as soon as I get it cleaned up.  Today the temperature is about 64 and the wind is a howling out of the north, great for cooling down the water temps on Mille Lacs.  My plans are to maybe take the new addition to the family out on the river for a few hours and possibly make a Labor Day excursion to see if the cooler water has jump started the walleyes.

Lead Line Success

This last week saw 2 excursions to Mille Lacs, taking advantage of the coming full moon which occurred on Tuesday.  Reports of fish being caught on lead lines had got me excited about trying to perfect the technique enough to give me the confidence to put it in my arsenal of strategies.  The first opportunity came last Saturday evening when my friend Mark Taylor and his son Jared agreed to grace my boat.  Mark and I are the best of friends however as we have grown older things have gotten in the way of our time together.  In our early days we have spent many hours in the boat together and along with his dad Earl, have many great memories.  Although this trip wasn't going to be very long, the weather was beautiful as it was a wonderful day to get out for a little walleye magic.  Picking them up we headed for the new Liberty Beach landing on the east side.  With dead calm conditions, the comfort level was quite high.  Having learned of the hoards of fish on the north side of a popular gravel bar, we headed there to try our luck with trolling crankbaits.  Because there were 3 of us, the strategy was simple; 1 rod out on a planer board, 50 feet from the boat, while a lead line rig on each side would give us a respectable 75 foot spread of lures attacking the water.  The planer board rig consisted of a #11 deep diving Rapala Tail Dancer in a rainbow trout pattern (Hot bait for some reason) trolled 150 feet behind the board.  Diving to about 26 feet, this would be perfect for the 28 - 30 feet we were fishing.   The other 2 lines took advantage of the lead core line.  Literally a braided line with a lead center, it sinks 5 feet for every 10 yards (30 feet) of line let out when trolled at 2.0 MPH.  Because the line controls the depth, you simply put a 10 - 20 foot mono leader on and you can now troll shallow running crankbaits in the deeper hotspots on the lake.  Lead core line changes color each 10 yards making it easy to keep track of where you are.  This year I switched to Sufix line as the colors are both bright and have great contrast to give you a better handle on where the line is.  My previous line had black next to brown, almost impossible to read.  I guess a line counter reel would help however I sort of like the old fashion method.  On the 2 lead cores I attached a couple of #5 shad raps in Clown and Hot Steel color.   Within 3 minutes Mark reeled up this dandy 24 inch walleye, the first to be caught with the lead core method in my boat................success at last!

Mark and Jared were new to this method and thought it was pretty slick.  The speed of catching the first fish always puts the anticipation level for the second one on high alert.  Hoping to get one on the planer board to show them how that works, the flag on the board went down about 20 minutes later.  Planer board fishing requires some good boat coordination.   One has to remove the in-line planer board from the fishing line before you can reel the fish in.   If one is not careful, this is the place fish are lost.  The release was successful and the battle continued until Jared reeled in a nice 23 inch walleye.   The calm weather had us dialed into this strategy for sure.  With an hour left before we would leave for the reef to do some at dusk casting, I noticed my blind side rod was doubled over and without hesitating I grabbed the rod.....my turn!  My second fish hooked on the lead line, it was exciting to reel in.  Finally seeing the fish, it was about 24 inches before a LDR occurred.  Long Distance Release is really good for the fish but terrible on the ego.  Therefore there are no pictures of me to complete the trio.  Oh well, it was great to get Jared and Mark out.  I tend to give Jared a hard time but never the less he is always smiling.  When in High School, Jared had an assignment, write a biography of someone important in your life.  He asked if I would be that person and requested an interview.  Agreeing only if I could see his finished product, he finished his paper and sent it in.  Jared is a shy sort and after a couple of months I pressed him to see his finished product and grade.  Relenting, he sent me the manuscript by mail.  Often one never realizes his impact on the younger generation, however Jared articulated it beautifully.  Admittedly I am tough on the kid.  I expect him to talk to me, am always pushing him to express himself better, however I never expected him to say the things he did about his dad's friend, Dave.  I believe that kids today need positive outside influences like I did growing up in Eleva.  I had 20 dad's growing up from my uncle's Dewey, Keith, Jerry, and Loren, to my dad's friends Art Kelly and Daniel Van Pelt, to my teenage bosses Vic Wenaas, Wille Drangsveit and Ronny Semingson.  Each added a little to who I am today and I try to pass that on to those kids in my life.  As for Jared, he turned out to be a pretty good kid. 

My second excursion on the night of the full moon, Tuesday was with my neighbor Tom.  It was dang near gale force winds and after fighting for a couple of hours we headed into Indian Point and tried some casting.  Tom managed to have a nice muskie follow but that was it.  No fish, no pictures, just got my boat carpet washed was all.  Maybe the next full moon will be better.

This week was the one year anniversary of the passing of my friend Rich Allen and my brother-in-law, Mike Rombalski.  They say time heals however I still miss them both.  Weddings this weekend so we will have to see what the next post brings.

Catching Up!

I often recall something my grandfather once told me when I was a young man.  Enjoy your time now, as you get older you will find the time goes fast and the days grow short.  This last week and a half has been nothing short of that example.  We are definitely in the "Dog Days of Summer" with high temperatures, high humidity's resulting in thunderstorms every other day.  The bite on Mille Lacs has been less than stellar and even with the hectic schedule, I have managed to get out a few times.  As stated my neighbor Tom and I did fish the Mississippi River south of Clearwater Mn a couple of Sundays ago.  I broke my #1 rule when going fishing.............make sure your camera is with and ready.  Having caught a number of nice smallies we were relegated to Tom's film camera, which I am waiting for him to develop.  Normally at this time of the year the river is quite low and caution is the word.  Tom has a 16 foot Lund which is more capable in these conditions however the river was running very high giving us a lot of freedom to fish where we wanted to.   Wanting to fish minnows, we picked up a dozen and a half red tailed chubs at Actions Bait in Anoka.  They were on the small side but adequate.  The fishing turned out to be great with around 20 smallmouth caught, the largest around 18 inches.  One of my goals was to continue the experiments with the circle hooks and they were 100% effective for corner of the mouth hook sets.   Last Sunday Tom, his daughter Brenna, and I spent a quite evening catfishing on the neighbors dock again.  Upon arrival at the dock I discovered that every nightcrawler in my crawler box had evaporated!  Luckily I had some new Berkley Power Catfish Bait.  I never believe this stuff is as good as crawlers but it's all we had.  The river levels were still high and the bite was off but I did manage to get this very nice channel cat.  We tempered the slow bite with a few of Tom's favorite beverages, Moosehead. 

One of the things this hot an humid weather does is make the garden grow like crazy.  From sweet corn, to potatoes, to cucumbers, everything is ready to go.   The last couple of weeks has been the attack of the pickle!  I tried something different in my garden this year.  Having visited my wife's uncle Bernie's garden, he had his cucumbers growing on a fence.  Thinking that was a great idea I headed to Fleet Farm (the store where if they don't have it you don't need it) and bought enough 4 foot fence and poles to create my own vertical pickle producer.   As plants go cucumber plants are pretty stupid.  I had to train most of them how to utilize the nice structure which was erected for them.  It took about 2 weeks but they finally figured it out and have been reacting like crazy ever sense.  One of the nice things I have discovered about growing cukes on the fence is that pickles themselves are off the ground and require very little scrubbing before use.  This picture shows the fence post at 5 feet and gives you an idea of how prolific the plants have been.

This hot weather generates enough to do about 12 jars every 3 days.  Needless to say I am busy.  One of the best things I have discovered is Mrs. Wages Pickle Brine Mix.  Once again Fleet Farm saves the day and carries a number of these convenient brine mixes in Polish Dill, Kosher Dill, and Bread and Butter flavors.  Besides tasting excellent, the pickles are ready in little as 24 hours after processing.  Although I have dill, the classic flavor is in the mix.  Adding some chopped garlic, mustard seeds, and peppercorns to each jar, it gives it my distinct signature.  Using the Refrigerator Bread and Butter mix, the batch made last week is excellent.  The unfortunate part of all this is in a normal year with the heat, moisture, and deer, the cucumber plants would be done by now.  Up on the fence the plants get plenty of air and look to yield for at least another 2 - 3 weeks.  I hope some of you like dill pickles! Having to replant my sweet corn this spring and it is also finally ready to process.  Using my chamber vacuum packer to seal them in bag for freezing, this works very well for preserving.  If the deer continue to leave my peppers and tomatoes alone, salsa is next on the project list.

Hopefully I will have and August full moon report next week.

Charlie's Day

As happens every year my good friend Chuck Teasley shows up for a day of fishing on Mille Lacs.  A break from a week long family event, our trip to the pond gives Charlie a chance to catch up with his friends back in Minnesota.  One of the things that I look forward to is seeing Dan Hoene, an old friend of Chuck's from Duluth.  Dan skated on the University of Michigan's varsity hockey team and has a lot of interesting stories in the boat.  Last year he was fishing Eagle Lake, Ontario and did not make our trip.  This year Dan was able to join us for our annual outing and we took full advantage of him (what are friends for anyway?).   Our trip starts out the night before, gathering at the pole shed and loading up.  We like to head up early, catch dinner at the lake, staying in a hotel, assuring an early start in the morning. Like last year we again stayed in my friend Mark's ice house.  More like a small cabin, Dan was skeptical.  Although I assured Dan that the ice house had air conditioning, he had his doubts as a room at Eddy's sounded a whole lot better.  Upon arrival we heard no complaints.  Chuck and I have many things in common including open heart surgery.  After last years fishing trip he returned home meeting his cardiologist the next week only to be told he was not leaving and scheduled a quintuple bypass surgery immediately.  Our scars are quite visible and we used them to our utmost advantage.  It took little to convince Dan that both of us had 10 pound lifting restrictions as a result of our surgery and we needed his help.  For the next 24 hours we never had to lift anything as our good friend did all the work from carrying coolers to tackle boxes to unloading everything.  We were going to eventually tell him but it was so nice not having to do anything and watching him be such a sweetheart was touching!  In the end he left before we could fess up so if you read this Dan there are 2 things, thanks for being such a good sport and don't even think about missing next year.   The first picture from left to right is Dan, Myself, and Charlie.

After having breakfast in Isle, MN we headed to the landing north of the casino.  The wind was out of the west north west and being on the west side of the lake would prove to be more comfortable.  Meeting us on the lake would be a friend of Chuck's he met in St. Louis,  Mark Setterstrom.  Charlie is a Infant Swimming Resource instructor teaching children as young as 6 months how to survive an  accidental fall into water, such as a pool.  He had taught his children as Mark is a player for the St. Louis Rams football team.  Fishing was painfully slow as we drifted Seguchie Flat.  A mistake on my part, I had forgot to put in additional gas in my boat.  With a strategy of trolling all day, I did not want to take a chance and had to go in to get some petro.  We decided to put Chuck in Mark's boat before we finished our drift, then go in.  I had a few extra trolling rods and suggested to Mark they try off the flat using a rainbow trout colored Reef Runner with 150 feet of line out.  Away they went as we finished the drift.  5 minutes later we drove by as we headed to shore only to see them acknowledge a released 26.5 walleye after 3 minutes of trolling.  I looked like a genius.  As happens, this omen was short lived and was the only nice fish caught between us.  We actually snagged an 18 incher later in the day but this was it!  Here is Mark's nice fish.  We still had fun fishing as there was a whole year to catch up on things.  I had the pleasure of meeting Mark and maybe one day can fish with him again.  We finished off with dinner at Chico's, double taco night, 6 for the price of 3.  Who can beat that!  A special thanks to Mark Applen for the use of his ice house. 

I did get out Sunday as my neighbor Tom and I hit the river for smallies.  He has some pictures I am waiting for as my camera was dead on arrival.  Hopefully I can post later this week as we did very well.

An Evening on Lake John

Lake John is a small L shaped body of water just west of Annandale MN.  I was introduced to the lake over 30 years ago by Tim Guzek, a good friend of mine.  At the time our quarry was northerns fished with a bobber and medium sucker minnows.  After a successful day of catching pike and crappies, the lake became on of my favorites.  Over the years there has been many successful trip  bagging mostly crappies and sunfish along with the occasional northern and largemouth bass.   It was such a good lake that one year we decided to put a permanent ice house on the ice.  Fishing was great  and we had a wonderful time.  That year was exceptional and the snow piled deep on the lake.  Our house was not very sturdy and built on a simple 2 x 4 frame.   It got to the point where the weight on the ice was heavy enough to cause the water to gush up through the holes drilled in the floor.  Towards the end there was about 3 inches of solid ice covering the entire inside of the house.  In Minnesota one needs to remove their ice houses by March 1st.  The house was definitely stuck to the ice.  Our first strategy was to pour rock salt on the ice covering the floor in hopes to melt it away.  That actually worked pretty good as we came back the next day and the ice was gone, melted and drained away.  Hoping that it did the same for the ice below the floor, no such luck, it was still frozen solid to the lake.  As we were chipping away a young man came by and asked if we wanted some help and claimed he could get it free.  You just need to buy me a box of 30-06 shells and he would take care of it!  Chipping in we bought the shells and returned to the lake where he proceeded to shoot rounds through the floor claiming the bullets would shatter the ice and voila.  Well 20 rounds later and severe ringing in our ears proved unsuccessful.  We ended up tearing the house down side by side and dismantled the floor.  Totally ruined but off the ice, that ended our experiment with permanent ice houses.

Today I still enjoy a yearly trip to Lake John, hoping for some nice crappies and sunfish.  Last Sunday night my neighbor Lory Brasel and I did just that.   Lory was interested in getting some northerns as I was looking for anything that bit.  Although we did not slay the fish, we did accomplish our goals.  Taking his lund it was nice to have someone else take the controls.  Lory got a couple of small northerns as this one he is holding while I nailed a few crappies, sunfish, a number of small bass and a larger one which I am holding.  Nothing too large it was nice to get out for a few hours.  It was a peaceful way to spend last Saturday night. I will have a report on my annual trip to Mille Lacs with Mr. Teasley in a few days.

The Catfish are Biting

Finally arriving home on Thursday, my first encounter was with a snot nosed Custom’s agent standing in the exit area just outside the airplanes door. About 150 steps out of the jet way I suddenly remembered where my Japanese tea I had bought in Narita was, still in the overhead compartment. Passing a “too young to have a uniform on” Custom’s guy who was giving a family grief because he could, I approached from behind tapping him on his shoulder and asked if it was OK to re-enter the plane to retrieve my stuff. His first words were Okay, which was all I needed to hear as my next steps were against the flow of people. Just as fast came a “Hey get back here, where do you think I am going?” Looking him straight in the eye my response was, “Look, I asked you a question and YOU said OK, what do you think that meant?” He decided to lecture me on coming up from behind and tapping him on the shoulder then, which I replied, stay on topic, why did you say it was OK then? Obviously frustrated by his immature authority, he finally gave me the right procedure, which I kindly thanked him and as I walk away told him to take a deep breath! Immigration is always fun as they are pretty good at asking a few well placed questions. Traveling with my beloved Packer Hat, he asked if I was from Wisconsin which prompted a quick Yes Sir! Where was the next question; Eleva! And where was that? South of Eau Claire. I am sure he was a fellow Cheesehead as we are always curious.

The weekend was pretty much spent readjusting to the time. Jetlag is a real problem as one’s schedule has shifted 13 hours. Once in China it takes a few days to stop getting up at 3:00 in the morning as well the same issue when you get home. There are many theories as to how an minimize the effects, vitamin C, lots of water, stay up as long as you can, however I think the best way is to have a few stiff drinks before you go to bed. I slept well on Thursday night, Friday I was up from 2:00 – 4:00 AM, and Saturday night was a good 13 hours. Slept like a baby last night as I am heading for a customer supplier event in Ft. Collins Colorado on Wednesday. One nice thing about flying into Denver is both the mountains and they have a Bass Pro Shop near the airport. The store is much larger than the Cabela’s near me and is a must stop. The word is that Bass Pro was going to build a large store at the Mall of America, in Bloomington MN but I am sure the recession had put a damper on that plan. Word is with the improving economy, it finally might get built. Although there is plenty of competition in the Twin Cities area, a Bass Pro would be a welcome destination and would provide a better variety of brands to choose from. We’ll see.

Not having the energy or the will to load the boat up and drive an hour north, my plan was to get away for a couple of hours and fish the river. My neighbor Brian Holcomb has a nice dock with a bench seat in the shade, just perfect for a relaxing evening. One thing about fishing the river is one never knows what you will catch. Targeting catfish on my last trip, all we caught were carp and suckers. On Sunday night it was a catfish slaughter! Fishing with crawlers, I decided to try a small freshwater circle hook. Originally bought for bobbering walleyes, I had not had the chance to try them. Circle hooks are unique in the way their point is facing the hook shaft. They work as the hook is dragged out of the fish’s throat and rotates when it comes to the edge of the mouth, resulting in the classic “corner of the mouth” hook set. This is the preferred hook for fishing halibut as the fish will swallow the bait. As the line tightens up the hook is dragged out and I have yet to see one that is not hooked as stated. This results in a 100% safe hook out and release, assuring the survival of the fish. The key for success with circle hooks is to NOT set the hook rather simply tighten the line. Simply reeling in the line is adequate to get a great hook set. Catfish are notorious for swallowing the bait so I was anxious to try them. A glob of crawlers and 5 minutes saw my first tap. Instinct took over and I set the hook on a nice 15 inch channel cat. Unfortunately it was hooked deep……1 for the frying pan. Deciding that didn’t work and determined to prove the hook’s effectiveness, all future strikes would be met with a simple reeling in the line technique. Rebaiting and 5 minutes later another opportunity presented itself. This time a simple few turns on the reel handle and the fight was one. This time it worked, hooked in the side of the mouth guaranteed a successful release of another 15 inch channel. For the next hour and a half the method proved effective as at least 10 catfish, all hooked in the corner, were either released or became part of my dinner later that night. The top picture is my largest catfish, about a 20 inch channel. I have included a picture of circle hook as you can see its unusual shape, and of course leave you with the moon rising over the river, something I never get tired of. Next weekend I will be busy with helping my sister-in-law move however Charlie is coming for his annual visit. We will be at Mille Lacs doing a little lead lining. My report will be a few days late however hopefully it should be worth it.