fished max yesterday

Got a late start due to thunder boomers and heavy eyelids. Got to the lake at 11 am fished for about an hour or so then the wind showed up. Fought it for the rest of the day. I did manage to scrounge out 2 smallies ( not a barn burner) spent most of the day playin with my new fish finder (AWESOME) and casting my new lures. I fished until 6pm when I started to feel the effects of the sun. I had suntan lotion on but still felt burnt. So I pulled out the boat and that's when the wind decided to lay down...figures. Didn't get any pics because of the weather, it spit on and off and threatened all day to really pour down, so I never took out the camera. So hopefully I'll get better weather next week and some pics. I don't know where I'm going yet but I'll be fishing somewhere.

What I did for summer vacation

I drove..... alot.....we started at Fort Wayne, IN. and went 11 hours to Cloquet, MN. Saw my parents. This is a video check I got of my mom.

Yep that's my mom, she's the best.

Let's see mostly did the fam thing til' Thursday night when my cousin Corey took me fishin' on his little boat (chili-dipper Jr?). Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home. We went to Fish Lake and caught a couple walleyes and a pike. Of course with me being the guest, Corey let me catch the largest and at least for this story, the most fish.

I honestly can't remember who caught the most however I am certain I caught the largest. The one time there's no money on the catch, I could've left the dock with at least enough to get a cup of coffee. Anywho I want to thank Corey for taken me out to stretch my line. And yes I caught all my fish on bate. ( I can't even spell that word right). Leeches, if I remember correctly. Yes to all else that read this post my family are a bunch of bbait draggin' fools. No skill, just troll. Oh well when in Rome .....right?

So from there more fam stuff and then I head to the Falls for the Ontario opener. My Uncle Rick has a cabin on Rainey Lake. So we went up on Fri., of course after everything was unpacked I had to get the baitt monkey off my back. So I went down to the dock and cast a hot head X-rap to which I hooked up a couple of nice pike. I didn't get pics but I did get Bubba to switch to a body bait and cast for a while. After he had around 200 casts and no fish under his belt he hung it up for the night, as did I. We had some coney dogs that Aunt Beth made, listened to the rain, watched some TV ( yeah we rough it) then went to bed. Here's what we woke up to on Sat. morning.

Well now that was all kinds of fun. Unfortunately after this was filmed, all the waves just got worse. After many hours of TV and many games of cribbage, we tried to get out in the late afternoon. However we were unsuccessful, emphasis on the suc part. Now the coolest thing to happen was this little bird landed on the feeder and took 5 minutes to figure out how to get the seed out. Once he got it out he hung out for a while, none of us knew what kind of bird it was but it sure was cool lookin'.

So I started to cast off the dock again; bad idea: not only did I not get a fish, I lost my lure on an old crib (dock foundation) about 15 yds from the dock I was casting from. So I started looking for a wet suit to get my lure back when I was told Bubba lost another lure (mine) off the neighbors dock. Now I had good reason to get in the water so I squeezed my XXL body into a L wetsuit and commenced the "freezing my fingertips off" part of our show. Now I would've been OK to just get my lures and get out, but Rick had other ideas. What I had to do now was move the pontoon shore lander out to deeper water. Now keep in mind the water is 39 degree's and the rollers were driving right in at my face. Well long story short, I got the lander out further than it was and got both my lures back. I only took an hour to thaw out my fingers and toes. We managed to squeak out about an hour and a half of good fishin' before Sat ended. Then we had steak and fries for supper (steak was the back up plan) watched some TV and got to bed.

Sunday was a different day entirely. SUNSHINE and no wind the good news was it will be a good day. The bad news was I had to be off the lake no later than 1 pm. The fishing wasn't hot and heavy but we all managed to catch some fish. I of course being the guest got to catch the biggest.

This is one of Rick's walleyes ;)

We all let alot of fish go, some let more go than others. This is Rick letting another of his fish go.



Now I said we all caught fish but Bubba surpassed us all with his jig and minnow technique. They weren't always the biggest though.

Now that's not all he caught, he did manage a couple decent fish, not many but a few. Most of his were "little baby fishy" cute catch and release.

Got slot limits in Canada. This is Bubba measuring a couple walleyes.

Needless to say I had a great time in Canada. Huge thanks to Rick who has the best fish camp/guide service combo for the best price in the free world. And to Bubba, don't worry, some day you'll be able to drag baait just as gooder as I do. By the way people, I forgot to mention that I did get a pike hook up on Sun. on a White Booyah Chatter bait. Viva La Artificials.

Well I got home Sunday at 4:20 PM for the Southerton/Reed /Jeff's home reunion. Which by the way had the best turn out that we've ever had with only a few exceptions. A big thanks goes out to all who came to see my wife and me. And of course the food was not only free but really tasty. (Mom, I still didn't get any dessert but I'm sure it was good. Just wish I could've tried some.) After the reunion I went to see gram and nae again.

Then we left for Fort Wayne Tues. morn. On the way home just North of Solon Springs we had a Black Bear run across the road in front of us which was pretty cool. We made it home around 9:30-10:00 PM our time (an hour ahead of MN). Then after mowing all three of my lawns today, I've sat here for the last 3 hours making this entry in my blog while I was washing all my clothes.

My wife? yeah she's out hitting all the shops looking for quilting shtuff.... thanks mom.

So that's it for this year's vacation, I will however get plenty more fishing pics to put on here and hopefully some video for all my fans later during the summer.

Turkey season is over

The Curse of the New Gear.

So I've spent 4 days down in Hoosier, saw birds everyday. We hunted all day, everyday, sunup til' sun down except for the first and last days we only hunted half days. Needless to say we hunted hard, up and down mountains all day.
Then I came home and worked for 3 days and started going up to Mongo for the "no show" hunts. I got picked 2 out of the 3 days I tried to hunt. Apparently the third time was not going to be the charm this year. After getting home Thurs. morning and sleeping. I came to the realization that my season was over. With no bird to show for all my effort.
I did see alot of neat stuff and nothing compares to a Turkey gobbling 100 yards out, but I wish I could've put a bird down.
Now I could blame it on the weather which was odd to say the least. Cold, windy and rainy weather does not a perfect Turkey hunt make. However you must hunt in what's given to you.
I could blame it on the birds who apparently didn't want to join me for Thanksgiving. I really would like to blame them, but can you blame them for refusing the invite?
I think I'll blame it on the new gear.....yep the gear had yet to put it's time in. It hadn't earned the right to call in a bird or carry one out. The gear in question was a new vest (bargain cave at Cabela's) hat, gloves and Diamond cutter diaphragm calls. All I've got to say is I am glad I got the new gear broke in. After all the time I put in the field this year I should be golden for next year.

Cause next year's only a year away, myself and my gear will be ready.

I did get some ok video, the first one is a couple of wood ducks that landed in the tree behind me and just hung out for a while. If you listen really close (turn up the volume) you can hear the Woodie's chirping.

The second video was a coon scurrying through my set up. I tried to stay on him the best I could without moving that much.

Well this will be my last entry until I get back from vacation. Hopefully I will be doing some fishing and should have some pics and hopefully some video for ya.

Fishing on hold

Yep been doin' nothing but workin' and Turkey hunting. Took a couple days last week and went down to Hoosier National Forest for some Turkey hunting and camping. Had a really good time however once again no feathers came back. We did get raided by some coons on Wed night. They got away with Brian's full container of powdered cappuccino and a jar of peanut butter. So keep an eye on your bread and hot water or we could have some amped up coons runnin' around. Nothing else really happened just some rain, saw alot of Turkeys and even an albino hen. She was pretty cool she looked like a walking pie plate on the other side of the field. Tent leaked a little, no big deal and lotsa ticks. Wood and deer ticks all over, even in camp, got home and had 3 deer ticks on me.
Anyway got back from Turkey hunting at Mongo at 2:30 today, got in on the no show draw. Saw a couple birds and played with one for a while. No shots fired yet, hopefully in the morning. Got home today and mowed my lawn. I still need to eat, shower, and get some sleep so I can get up and try to go hunting in the morning. Sorry no pics yet, but I might have gotten some cool video of some wood ducks this morning. Anywho gotta get the road on the show, wish me luck.