random stuff 10/27

I just don’t seem to be getting around to blogging much lately.  Not sure why.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been up north a couple times getting deer stands ready and trying to shoot a few grouse.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been busy geocaching with DeeDee.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been busy trying to figure out which players to put in for my family fantasy football lineup.   I guess it’s probably a combination of all of those things and more…..

Yep, I made it up north for two trips.  The first one was with John.  We had planned to spend three days getting all the deer stands ready and doing a little grouse hunting.  The first two days went according to plan and we got all of our main stands mostly ready and put out some trail cameras.  I even managed to get a couple grouse.  The third day was to be the day we finished up the stands and spent some time scouting for deer and did more grouse hunting.  We got all packed up and ready to go when I noticed that one of the ATV trailer wheels was sitting at an angle…. mmmmm….. and what’s all that grease on the tire???  Yep, we had a bearing problem.  Well, we spent pretty much the whole day working on it.  We had to make a trip to International Falls for parts, then another to a local Marina that was closed.  We were lucky to have found the owner who is a family friend there working some on a Sunday afternoon.  We were able to borrow a grinder from him.  That really saved the day for us as the race had welded itself to the spindle of the axle.  I was able to pound it off with a chisel, but it was left with some damaged metal that we couldn’t get the new bearing past.  Anyway, we got it all fixed and done by about 3:30 in the afternoon.  Nope, we weren’t real fast at it, but hey we got it done.  It was just too late to really get anything done in the woods so we packed up and headed home.

Here are some pics from the weekend:

My ATV ready to go Saturday morning.  Yep, it snowed last night!!!

John getting ready to head out into the woods:

A couple pics of John working on the ATV trailer:

I went back up this past Wednesday night to check the trail cameras and finish working on some deer stands.  My Dad was already up there for the week.

The first day was cold, but sunny and generally a very nice day.  I checked all the cameras and only one of them really worked for us.  That one was the one near John’s stand and it had 332 pictures on it.  Probably 250 of them were of a spike buck and a few others of a doe and the rest were of a doe with her fawn.  Well, we didn’t get any pictures of a big buck… but at least there are some deer up there.  We were worried as they had a very tough winter this last year.  They had a record amount of snow fall and it started early and ended up being a fairly late spring…..  Overall I did see quite a bit of deer sign this time, just not any big buck sign.

My Dad and I each shot our limit of 5 grouse that day.  That was cool.  I don’t know if I have ever got my daily limit before and for sure didn’t get ten for two of us before.

Here’s a pic of my Dad and I with our grouse

The grouse hunting was quite a bit slower the next day and we only got three that day.  I guess grouse like nice sunny days better than dreary cloudy days just like us.

That’s all for now 

September 2009 Wyoming archery elk hunt

 

This was an archery elk hunt in western Wyoming.  We drove most of the way out one day and then the last 5 hours the next day.  We set up camp and did some scouting the first day there.  It took a while to set up camp.  This was the first year that we had a wall tent.  Oh man, that was really nice.  We now have a 14 X 16 foot Davis wall tent.  We put an awning on the front and had a nice wood stove. 

Here are some pics of the tent set up

 

 

 

 

I’ll call the first hunting day, day 1

Our plan was to hike in on a trail that was close enough to camp that we could walk from there.  When we got up and were getting ready we realized that there was truck with a horse trailer parked by the trail and they were getting ready to go in.  We looked at the map and decided to stay with the plan and hike in there anyway as we figured that the hunters on horses would be going in much farther than we would. We hiked in a little over a mile and then cut off to the right up a canyon.  We hiked up and in another mile or so.  We hadn’t  heard anything or saw any fresh elk sign, but decided to set up and try calling anyway.  Well…… we manged to call in those other elk hunters….  Oh well, we moved on and basically just looked for fresh elk sign that day.  We did see one nice cow moose, but that was it.  We hiked out on another horse trail that came out about 1/2 a mile north of our camp.

 

Day 2

One thing we have realized now is that we should have brought some mouse traps along as there is a mouse that keeps going through our tent and he really likes trail mix.  

It was 32 degrees this morning when we got up.  We drove down the road and headed in on a different trail.  Today was better as we did get a couple bull elk to answer us.  They just didn’t seem to like us very much though.  We hiked around tried a  few things, but nothing worked out.  I’d guess that we hiked about 10 miles today.

 

Day 3

It rained some last night and was raining fairly hard when the alarm went off.  John convinced me that the rain would stop and that we should get up as planned.  What do you know….. he was right 

We went back to where we were on day 2 since we had found a couple elk. This time a bull bugled before we even got into where we were going to cut up the mountain.  That meant we charged up the mountain after him.  When we got up to his level we set up and did get him to answer us, but he didn’t want anything to do with us and moved on.   We kept after him, but he went quiet.  We worked our way around some and made a big circle back to the truck.  We did jump a spike bull that stood at 83 yards a bit before moving off.  At least we had seen our first elk!!!!!!!

We got back to camp about 3:30 PM and took showers in our Cabelas shower tent.  I just love that thing.  We heat water with a turkey cooker type stove and pan and then use a camp shower pump to spray it on us.  Works great.  As I was in the shower I could hear thunder off in the distance.  Shortly after the showers it rained and hailed really hard for over 35 minutes, then it settled down to just a nice rain for several hours after that.  We deicded to head to town for mouse traps and to call home.

We got back to camp and set a mouse trap to see if we could catch the little bugger.  We had just layed down for the night and …. snap.  We had the mouse.  I got up, threw the mouse out and reset the trap.  Layed back down and a few minutes later…. snap.  mmmmm a second mouse.  Same procedure and again snap, reset, snap.  Four mice already!!!!  I set both traps this time and went to bed.  I heard both traps go off again, but needed some sleep so the total for the first night was six mice.  And I thought we had a mouse……

John

 

 

John with the first of 11 mice that we caught in our tent……

 

Day 4

We tried a new area today.  Whoo hoo, we really found the elk this time.  We heard a bugle about a mile and a half in so went up after it.  It was pretty steep there, but we made the climb quickly.  It’s amazing how much faster and easier it is to climb when there is a bull bugling up high.  We got up there and couldn’t hear or find the bull.  I figured we were too slow and the bull moved on looking for cows.  We moved in the direction that we thought the bull went and set up.  John was up ahead and cow called once to let me know that he was ready for me to call.  That’s all it took as the bull heard that single call and bugled back.  I started cow calling and you could tell with his replies that he was coming toward us.  I saw John move a bit and then I heard the arrow go.  I could then see a pine bough in front of  John moving up and down.  Crap, I think he hit that.  I was right.  What I didn’t know yet was that he had missed a cow elk.  He said the cow came in first.  He said to himself… am I a trophy hunter or a meat hunter?  He decided a meat hunter so shot at the cow.  I kept calling and soon the bull was hot and coming in.  The bull did come in to about 40 yards of John but never gave him good angle for the shot. 

We worked our way up the valley along the side hill.  We heard a bull bugle later and ended up jumping him after a couple set ups as we were trying to move in for a third set up.

In the early evening we were up high working our way back when we heard another bugle.  I moved up front and we called.  It ended up being a nice herd bull that had at least two cow and/or calves with him.  I saw him several times but he was never close enough for a shot.  I did have a cow and a calf within 40 yards of me, but didn’t have a clear shot at them either had I wanted to take a shot.

It was getting late so we worked our way down and out to the horse trail.  We ran into a couple guys from Utah that were rifle mule deer hunting.  They had shot two bucks that day.  One was a nice 24 to 25 inch wide 185 gross Non-typical.  The other buck apparently had a lot of ground shrinkage as the guy said that he thought it was a 30 incher when he shot, but it ended up being only 18 inches wide and would maybe score 120.  Opps… it happens 

We hiked out and got back to the truck after dark.  It was a very fun and physical day.  I know we put on at least 10 hard miles today.

 

Day 5

We went back to the same area, but were going to hunt the north creek instead of the south today.  We heard a bugle so climbed up after him.  When we got to the top the only bull we could hear was one bugling his butt off down in the bottom on the other side where we were yesterday.  We had just climbed 1000 feet and I wasn’t real excited about going all the way down again, knowing that we would have to climb again.  But then again, we were there to hunt elk so that’s what we did.  Once down there we soon found where the bull had been.  He must have been in a wallow bugling and throwing mud and water around.  We set up and heard a couple bugles, but not close.  We moved up and then heard a bugle close.  We set up and called.  Nothing…… weird.  We moved up and when almost to the top we heard two bulls bugling.  We set up and called.  We had one of those bulls coming in hard.  The bull did a nervous grunt, when he did, John cow called perfectly.  The bull continued toward us and I’m sure he was close as 50 yards or so when I think he winded us.  I had expected him to come around the draw and not down and through it.  As it turned out we weren’t set up in the best place.

After that, we moved up to try to circle around in front of the other bull.  We were about to set up when we jumped at least three elk that crashed off.  We circled a bit farther and set up and called for a while.  Nothing….. 

Then an interesting / funny thing happened.  John had to take a dump.  I said take your bow with you.  He shrugged his shoulders and headed up and away with only TP.  I was sitting there almost asleep, as the warm sun felt great, when I heard an elk crash off.  I looked and saw brush moving where it was, but never actually saw the elk.  John said that he actually had TP in hand and was ready to wipe when he looked down the mountain and saw the bull moving along.  The wind was bad and the bull must have smelled him.  Heehee……  He ranged a tree where the bull was and said it was 68 yards from him.  I think it was 50 or so from me.

We then had lunch and worked our way up and around the side of the mountain.  We set up and called again.  This time a 260 class 5 X 5 came within 35 yards of me.  He came in silent and never offered a clear shot.  Oh man it was close though and very exciting.  I think we worked on that bull for close to an hour.

Here’s a Pine Marten that we ran across.  He growled at us and didn’t seem to like us hanging around……

 

 

Day 6

This day we hunted the north creek.  It was really slow today.  We did hear one bull bugle once and he was really close.  We set up and called, but only heard cow and calf talk after that.  I guess tomorrow we’ll go back to the south creek.

 

 

Day 7

We hiked in about 2.7 miles and cut up the mountain.  We had just started up when I looked back and saw a bull coming down the other side about 400 yards away.  We set up and called.  That did get the bull to answer us several times, but he wouldn’t come in.  I guess he had other things planned for his day.

We headed up toward the top.  We hadn’t heard anything at all but set up to call in a good elky area.  We called and two bulls answered back.  They were a ways off so we moved up about 100 yards and set up again.  John called with a whiney cow call and they both answered again.  They were coming in.  The higher bull came in first, but too far above me for me to see.  He came within 35 yards of John and raked a tree.  The lower bull screamed and came about 30 yards above me.  I could see that he was a nice 6 X 6 and in the 260 to 270 class.  I drew my bow when he went behind a group of three trees.  The bull stopped to work over a pine tree.  He raked that tree only 30 yards from me.  I had to let down and hope that when he was finished with the tree that he would continue on.  He did.  He took a couple steps and looked down in my direction.  The sun was now coming over the mountain and directly in my eyes.  This wasn’t going to be easy……  The bull then turned his head and looked in the direction of the first bull.  I’m thinking that he could see him.  When he did that I drew my bow back.  I squinted my eyes and tried to put the 30 yard pin behind the shoulder.  This was tough with the steep uphill angle and the sun, but I thought I had it all ready to go.  I squeezed the trigger on my release……  as the arrow left my bow I saw it hit some hanging pine branches on a tree about half way in-between me and the bull.  NO!!!!!!!  I hadn’t accounted for where the arrow would be going at 15 yards on it’s way to the bull.  I practice this type of thing all the time at home in my woods.  However, in the heat of the battle with the screaming bull and the sun in my eyes I blew it.  I lost sight of the arrow after that, but we were able to find it and it was a clean miss.  That’s much better than a wound, that was my only consolation.  When I shot, the bull dropped and then tore off up the mountain.  As he did this the other bull took off too.  I called right away but they were both gone.  That was too bad as John was about to get a shot too.

When we were looking for the arrow we heard a couple bulls bugle.  We weren’t sure if it was the same elk or different ones.  We moved up a bit and set up again.  This time another bull answered behind us and closer.  We switched positions and moved in some.  We set up and called.  The new bull screamed back and was coming in.  This is unreal.  It wasn’t long and I heard John shoot and then saw the rag horn bull go running by me with his ears pinned back at what looked like 90 mph.  I thought to myself, that didn’t look good as he looked pretty healthy to me.  Sure enough it was another clean miss.  This time John took a 25 yard shot and tried to thread it in-between two pine trees.

We picked up the pieces, so to speak, and moved toward the other bull that we had heard.  After a couple set ups I was in front and in close.  John cow called and the bull screamed.  John then got aggressive and called like he had before.  This bull didn’t like that and turned and simply walked away.  when he turned he was about 70 yards below me.  I got a very good look at his antlers.  He had one of those racks that swept way back with what I call whale tails.  I would guess that he would score over 330 inches.  He was a dandy.

It was now about 1:30 PM so we ate lunch and then continued on.  We heard another bull.  This day is unreal.  We moved closer and set up.  John called and the bull answered right away and was coming.  I thought for sure he was below us, so when he circled above us I wasn’t set up very good.  I tried to move a bit and slipped…… the bull heard something and took off.  Oh man, so close again.  I saw the brown color as he turned so did get to see him, but not the rack.  These bulls are really spooky.  I couldn’t believe that the bull didn’t just think the the noise I made was just the cow elk he had heard calling……. guess I was wrong.

We had 6 bull encounters this day……..  that makes 18 so far, with one day left.

 

 

 

Day 8

Since it was the last day we had to go back to the same spot again.  It was now or never.  When we arrived at the parking spot there was a horse trailer there with three local hunters getting ready to go in.  We headed in and made it about a mile and a half before the guys on horses caught us.  We let them by and hurried along to see where they were headed.  Crap, they turned off on the same trail that we were going on.  We followed them anyway and cut off before they did.  We figured that we would cut up and then hunt our way back toward the truck so that we wouldn’t run into those guys.  

We didn’t hear anything early, but we stayed with our plan and kept setting up and hunting.  We soon heard a couple bulls and moved in on them.  To make a long story short we worked in on these bulls and their cows for well over an hour.  I eventually jumped one elk, kept calling, then jumped another one.  That second one took the bulls with it. 

We were now on top.  We stopped for a break.  While we were there we heard a bull bugling over the top.  We moved toward him.  We set up with John up front.  We were now close and the bull kept bugling.  John was able to spot the bull as it moved a bit and then layed down. I think the bull was bedded the whole time and just got up to move a bit and that’s what John saw.  John tried to sneak in on him, but was only able to get within about 70 yards before the bull got up and moved off.

That was the last elk encounter of the trip.  So we ended up with 21 encounters.  That compared to zero on our last time and two the trip before.  It was a really good trip as we had plenty of opportunities.  We just couldn’t close the deal.  I guess that is bowhunting……..

A cow and calf moose that we saw along the road near where we hunted.

 

We got back to camp about 4:15 in the afternoon.  We decided to pull up camp and head out as it looked like rain.  It took us 2 hours to tear everything down and get it all loaded in the truck and trailer.    We were just closing up the truck and trailer up when the rain started, perfect.  We drove 5 hours and found a hotel about 11:30PM.  The next day it took us 15 hours to get home.   Long trip, but worth it.

Until the next hunt……..

August misc. / random stuff

Oh man,  I am so far behind on my blogging.  We have been keeping real busy for the past couple of months.  Not sure I can remember what all happened since my last blog, but I’ll write some stuff anyway.

A new thing that a friend of mine got me started on this summer is geocaching.  If you aren’t familiar with what geocaching is here goes.  Basically you go to geocaching.com and find hidden geocaches that you want to look for.  You then download them to your GPS and go look for them.  When you find them you write in the log that you were there and maybe take and/or leave a little something in the container, depending on the size fo the container.  It’s been kind of fun.  One cool thing that I like about it is that is has gotten DeeDee and I to go to some places that we wouldn’t have, had we not been looking for a cache.

Another thing we started this summer is biking.  Yeah, I run and hike and stuff to get in shape for hunting trips every year, but this year I added biking.  The nice thing is that DeeDee is biking with me too.  We mostly have been biking on the Douglas trail.  Another plus is that there are a lot of geocaches on that trail so we have been able to do both of our new hobbies at the same time.  I’ll add, that now that I am back from my Wyoming elk hunt, that I feel the biking really added strength to my legs.  The climbing out there seemed easier than ever.

Towards the end of the month after unsuccessfully being able to get our boys to join us on a trip, DeeDee and I took a quick trip to the Badlands and Black Hills in South Dakota.

We took off on a Thursday afternoon and drove to a hotel in Kadoka SD.  The next morning we got up fairly early and went to the Badlands.  The Badlands are pretty cool.  A very unique place.  We did some hiking so that we could take it in better.  I have found that you see so much more and get a much better feel of the place when you actually get out in it rather than just drive through.

Here we are at the entrance to the park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we moved on to Wall Drug.  Here are some random pics from there.

 

 

 

While in Wall we found this geocache near a big green dinosaur

 

 

Once in the Black Hills we found our cabin that I had booked ahead of time.  We were very happy with the cabin.  Especially at only $69 a night

 

 

After settling in a bit we headed back out and checked out Mt. Rushmore.  I hadn’t been there since our honeymoon 23 years ago….

 

 

 

The next day we got up early and headed up to Sylvan Lake.

 

From Sylvan lake we hiked up to Harney Peak.  Harney Peak’s elevation is 7244 feet and the highest peak east of the Rockies.  It was a 6 mile round trip hike.  We went up one trail and down another. 

 Up near the top we saw this mountain goat perched up on a rock.

 

At the top is an old stone fire lookout tower.

 

A view from the tower.

 

DeeDee and I on the tower’s deck.

 

A picture I took with the timer on the hike down.

 

Looking back up to the lookout tower on Harney Peak.

 

We then moved on and drove around Custer State park.

The first animals we saw were some big bull buffalo

 

We also saw a lot of antelope

 

We then ran into some burros

 

The burros were really friendly and seemed willing to eat whatever you fed them.  This cute little guy liked the wheat thins that we had.

 

Then we found two really big herds of Buffalo.  I think DeeDee read that there are somewhere around 1400 buffalo in the area.

 

On the way back we did some geocaching.  There were three tunnels that we went through.  When going through the tunnels you could see Mt Rushmore.  Someone had placed a geocache near or on each of the tunnels.  I was able to find all three.

 

After that we decided we had time to visit Bear Country.  We had been there on our honeymoon, but man it has really changed.  It’s way bigger now.

 

 

 

 

I think that the burro in the center was ready to give birth any minute.  We could see her side moving from the little one inside of her kicking.  weird…..

 

That’s about it for August.  We had a fun month and really enjoyed the quick South Dakota trip.  Hopefully we can find more things like that to do  :-)

August fishing

I finally made it up to Lake Kabetogama for a couple of days of walleye fishing.  It turned out to be one of those “you should have been here yesterday” trips.  We found kind of dreary weather with SE winds.  That pretty much always means poor fishing.  It wasn’t all bad though as the three of us managed to catch a few eaters each day and on the second day we each caught one nice one that we let go. 

Here are the pics of the three nice ones we caught.

Me with a 23 incher

 

Barry with a 22  1/2

 

This was Barry’s brother Scott’s first time fishing with us on Kabby.  Even though fishing wasn’t the best, I think he was pretty happy with this chunky 25 incher that he caught and released.

 

Shortly after we caught those nice ones I was having a hard time getting the boat up on plane…..  What’s up with that?  I turned on the bilge pump only to find that it pumped out water for at least 20 minutes!!!!!!  We were taking on water     I kept pumping out the water the rest of the day.  When we pulled the boat out of the water I expected to find a crack in the hull, but couldn’t find one.  I’m thinking that maybe it’s a cracked tube to my live well or something related to that.  I’ll have to do some digging to figure it out.  It’s always something with this boat……

more fishing and some family stuff

Fishing has slowed way down on the river this past week   

I went to the river Saturday morning with Barry and John.  We fished for 4 1/2 hours and all we caught were 2 nice saugers and a sheephead. 

Last Weekend DeeDee’s sister Debbie and our niece Jenny from Kentucky were up here.  They had a graduation open house on Saturday as Jenny just graduated this spring.  She was valedictorian of her class of 339!!!!!  That is really something to be proud of. 

Here’s a pic of us with Jenny

 

and a pic of Ryan and Zach with Jenny

 

DeeDee’s sister Missy and her family are here too and will be for a couple of weeks.  Sunday we went to the river to try to get the kids some fish.  For the most part it was a success.  We had a great day with great weather.  The fishing, well…… we did catch a few fish, but it was pretty slow.

Here are some pictures of the day.

The girls… DeeDee, Jenn, Missy and Jenny.

 

The first fish and Jenny

 

Jenny letting it go

 

Michael running the trolling motor

 

Michael with a sheephead

 

Jenn, Jenny and Michael

 

Missy with a sheephead

 

DeeDee with a sauger 

 

Jenny took this pic of  a sauger just before I let it go

 

Michael driving the boat back through a no wake zone

 

I tried the river again Wednesday evening with my friend Scott.  We didn’t get any keepers.  All we caught were 1 sheephead, 1 small sauger, 1 smallmouth bass and one catfish.

Thursday evening DeeDee, Missy, Mike, Michael and I went to the river again.  This time the plan was to fish for a couple hours and then go to the pickle factory for supper.  

We got off to an interesting start.  I had just put in new spark plugs in the boat motor before we went out as the 120 was running a little off.  Did you know if you cross the wires that they fire out of order and when you put the boat in forward it actually goes in reverse???!!!!   At least that’s what it did for me.  Seems weird, but it ran fine once I noticed the problem and fixed it. 

All we caught were 1 small sauger and 2 sheephead.  Fishing is really slow right now or I suck at it……

It was a beautiful evening and supper at the Pickle Factory was good.  Except that he service was really slow.  That didn’t matter to us much though as we sat on the deck and just enjoyed the evening.

That’s all for now 

July fishing

I did a little fishing the last two weekends.  July 3rd, DeeDee and I went to the river and put in at Lake City.  We fished for about 5 hours and mostly tried for walleyes.  We did not do very well at all.  DeeDee caught the only walleye and it was a little short of the 15 inch minimum that the Mississippi river has.  I managed to catch a couple small saugers, a nice crappie and a few ugly sheephead.

We saw this tour boat go by us

 

We went again on Sunday the 5th and after three hours of casting for northern pike, I gave up, skunked…..

 

Friday the 10th, I went with my buddy John to try again for walleyes with a new plan.  We caught 2 nice walleyes and a dandy sauger.  Not a great day, but not bad either.  Sure was better than working all day 

Here’s John with his 24 inch walleye

 

Here I am with a nice 21 inch Mississippi walleye

 

I ended the day with a 19 inch sauger

 

DeeDee and I went back to the river on Saturday the 11th. We managed to catch four nice keeper walleyes.

Here’s DeeDee with a dandy

 

 

Here we are with our four keepers

 

We had a fish fry Sunday night.  This is the first time I have eaten walleyes from the Mississippi river since I was a kid or maybe ever.  I can’t remember for sure.   Anyway, they were awesome!!!!!!!!!!  Everyone in the family loved them 

 

The weather was just too nice Monday night not to go fishing again, so John and I went to the river again.  This time I think we caught about 13 walleyes and saugers.  We kept 5 nice eaters.  I also caught one nice 26 1/2 incher that I let go.

Canadian fly-in fishing trip

This June I was very fortunate to be able to make another fly-in fishing trip in Canada.  The year we went with Loon Haunt Outposts for the 4th time.  This time we went to a new lake.  The lake is actually called Unnamed Lake.  Loon Haunt has the only cabin on this lake so we had it all to ourselves.  Along for the week were myself and very good friends John and Barry, also with us was John’s Dad Rich.  We drove up to Red Lake Ontario and got there late Saturday afternoon.  On the drive up we saw four bears and a small bull moose.

Here’s a photo of one of the bears.  This was a boar that was following a sow around along the road.  Very nice bear.

 

Here’s a pic of the moose

 

We stayed at the Howey Bay motel Saturday night and flew out with Green Airways on Sunday morning.  This year we flew in a dehavilland beaver floatplane to the lake.  The flight in was 46 miles and probably one of the smoothest floatplane flights I have ever been on.   The only interesting thing was when we went to land we were almost to the water and the pilot pulled the plane up.  I wasn’t sure why at the time, but after he sucessfully landed on the next pass he explained to us the the water was so smooth that he couldn’t tell where it was.  He said that a glass smooth lake is very dangerous to land on. 

Here’s the float plane sitting at our dock.

 

We unpacked, ate some breakfast, packed the cooler and went fishing.  We were all eager to get stared.  Of course we had to head to the other end of the lake to try it there first.  There can’t be any fish near the cabin….. 

We found good fishing right away by the inlet.    This was the best day I had for pike fishing.  My best was a one that was 33 1/4 inches long.  This is the smallest big northern pike we have had in the six fly-in trips I have been on.  We caught a lot of 28 to 30 inch pike on this trip, but the really big ones eluded us this time.  Here are some pics from the first day.

 

 

We went back to the cabin and had a fish fry somewhere around 4:30 or so.  After supper we went back out fishing.  This was a weird night for Canadian fishing.  It was very hot a there was no wind.  Barry and I each caught only one walleye.  That is unreal……. at this point I was a little worried about the fishing for the week.   John and Rich did find a very small underwater hump near shore that held a bunch of hungry walleyes so that was good.

Day Two was better for catching walleyes for me.  I didn’t find any really big ones though as my best for the day was 22 inches long.  The best for the group was Rich with a 25 7/8 ths incher.  I did catch four pike today that were between 28 and 30 inches.  Rich also caught a 30 inch northern today.

Day three was about the same as day 2 for me.  We are catching plenty of walleyes, but again my best was only around 22 inches.  Barry did catch a 24 1/2 incher today, but Rich again took top honors with another one that was 25 7/8 ths inches long. 

 

Rich and John cooking fresh walleye 

 

Bill, the owner, flew in today to check on things and collect our money.  The only problem we really had to report was that one of the boats had killed a few times and we thought it was an air problem.  Bill took a quick look and found right away that the gas hose was kinked near the tank end.  Bill cut out the kink, shortening the hose a couple inches and hooked it back up.  It ran trouble free the rest of the week.  Bill also took a group photo of us for his website.

 

John and Rich saw this cow moose on the evening of day 3.

 

 

On day 4, Barry and I portaged into a new lake for the day.  It was about a 1/3rd of a mile hike.  The boat we found there was only a 12 footer with very low seats and no backs on them.  It did have a 9.9 HP motor though.    We did real well fishing for walleyes there.  We caught a lot of real nice 17 to 18 inch walleyes.  The best for the day was a tank of a 26 incher that I caught.  I wish I would have had my scale with me as I think this walleye had to be over  7 pounds.  Barry and I caught about 140 walleyes on the portage lake.

 

We nick named the portage lake, “back ache lake”.  Not because we hurt our backs portaging our stuff there, but because it was very uncomfortable sitting in those low backless seats in the small boat.  Oh yeah and the boat leaked too.   Not too bad, but it did leak.  The cool water actually felt pretty good on our feet.

 In the evening back at the main lake I caught another 22 walleyes and had a good time. 

 

Barry caught a real nice one that measured 25 inches long.  I kind of like the sunset picture  that I took of it with John and Rich in the background.

 

John and Rich also did well on day 4,  with John catching 24 and 25 inch walleyes.

Day 5 was another good day.  I caught another dandy walleye today.  This time a chunky 26 1/2 incher on the main lake.

 

Barry also did well and his best fish today was this one that went 25 1/4 inches.

 

John and Rich went to the portage lake today.  They did almost as well as Barry and I did.  Their best was one that went 26 inches that John caught.

 

John also caught a 31 inch pike on the portage lake.  They didn’t like the small boat much either though.  They also pointed out that Barry and I forgot to mention that the boat leaked.  Hee hee,  honestly that wasn’t on purpose.  Glad they went and tried it as John did get a dandy.

Barry and I celebrating the day with Margaritas 

 

Day 6 was again good for me.  Today a 24 1/2 was my best walleye.

 

 

When Barry was lifting a small walleye into the boat, a northern jumped up and ripped the walleye from his hook.  I grabbed my casting rod and on the second cast caught a 31 incher that Barry said looked about like the one had just took the walleye.

 

The only storm of the week that we saw came through that evening.  We had to quit at 8:00pm that night due to the oncoming lightning. 

Here’s a pic of the storm moving in.

 

Saturday morning started out real slow for me.  I think the thunderstorm had something to do with it.  The day progressed nicely though as we all caught some nice walleyes on our last day.   

Here’s the big fish of the week.  John and a dandy 29 inch walleye.  John was very excited about this one.  John also caught a 25 incher this day.

 

 

Here I am with a last day 23 1/4 walleye

 

Here’s Rich with the last walleye of the trip, a nice 25 1/2 incher

 

me, John and Barry on the last evening

 

We had a good time feeding the Canada Jays bread on this trip

 

A few pics of the cabin

 

 

 

 

and one of the bay

 

I took this picture on the flight out.  The cabin we stayed in for the week is in the back of the bay in the center of the photo

 

We saw this cow and calf moose on the drive home

 

All in all it was another great fishing trip.  This time we hit the weather very good and our average size walleyes were much larger than in past years.  This was probably a combination of the new lake and the weather.  I try to keep track of the fish I catch every day and for me I caught about 406 walleyes for the week.  I know Barry caught over 500 for sure.  John figures that he and his Dad each caught around 350.  That means that we caught over 1600 walleyes for the week.    I think that is pretty good. 

We didn’t spend much time this trip fishing for pike, but I’d guess we caught 150 or so of them. 

For the group, we had 18 walleyes that were over 24 inches long and at least another dozen that were between 23 and 24 inches.

Great, great trip………… 

Zach’s Graduation

Last weekend was Zach’s High School Graduation.   We had an open house for him Friday night and it was very fun.  We were lucky and had beautiful weather here for us Friday and all last weekend.

 

DeeDee’s Dad and Maddy were here early.

 

A family picture

 

Zach with DeeDee’s sister Missy’s family. 

 

DeeDee, Zach, Missy and Dawn (Missy and Dawn were a huge help with the open house and we appreciate it very very much!!!!!)

 

Zach and my Mom (Gramma June)

 

Great Gram and Zach  (she’s 94 and came from 4 hours away, she’s awesome) 

 

Zach and his uncle Dean

 

Zach with cousin’s Danielle and Meaghan 

 

Zach with my Dad (Grampa Don)

 

 The next day at Meaghan’s open house I took this pic of Meaghan and her dog Ruby.

 

DeeDee ad me with Zach after commencements.

 

Zach walking out after getting his diploma.

 

Gramma Gail and Zach 

Opening fishing 2009

This year I had planned to go up to Lake Kabetogama with my good friends Barry and John again as we have the last couple of years.  Unfortunately one of Barry best friends died last Wednesday and Barry was unable to join us.  Not a good deal. 

John and I went ahead with the trip as planned and had a very good weekend.  Saturday was quite cool as usual for the opener.  The good thing was that there were only light 5 to 10 mph winds.  It basically snowed and rained all day, but nothing too serious.  The temperature at noon was 36 degrees.  My boat motor ran like crap and appears to be only running on 2 of it’s 4 cylinders.  We did manage to make it through the weekend with it though. 

Now on a positive note, the fishing was really pretty good.  I caught the first fish of the trip about 15 minutes into the day and it was a dandy 27 1/2 inch walleye.  That is my best Minnesota walleye ever by over 2 inches.  What a way to start the day.  For the weekend John and I ended up catching 27 walleyes.  Five of those were under the 17 inch upper limit for keepers.  That was good as we like to eat fish too.  The other 22 were all over 19 inches long.  John had two that were just over 24 inches and we each had  one that was just over 23.  So we caught some very nice fish.

Here’s a pic of me with my 27 1/2 inch opening day walleye

 

John with a 24 inch opening day walleye.

 

Sunday started out cold (25 degrees), but warmed up nicely and the sun was out all day.  We fished deep water early and caught a few eater size fish and then went looking for the big ones after that.

Here’s a 23 1/2 incher that I caught on day 2

 

Here’s John with a 24 plus incher that he caught on the second day.

 

That’s all  

Zach’s Senior Prom

Zach had his Senior prom last Saturday.

Most of his class met at Nate K’s place to have pictures taken.  Here are some of them.

Zach and Eleanor

 

A group of senior girls that Zach has been hanging with for years.

 

Zach, Nate K and John

 

Nate T, Drew and Zach

 

A group of Senior boys

 

Zach and DeeDee

 

Here are some pics that I took after the grand march

Zach and Eleanor

 

Ryan and Zach

 

Me, Zach and DeeDee

 

Sarah and Zach