This week in a nutshell..... fog

 With only a week left of duck season Monday I was in Fort Wayne, hoping to put a couple more ducks in the freezer. Not the case... it started out pretty foggy and only got worse.

 I was able to put a couple geese down and only had to chase the one 75 yards before I caught him.

After the high of success on Monday I decided to keep the ball rolling and head back to Fort Wayne on Tues. My landowners soon to be son in law was visiting from ND and asked if he could go with. I didn't have a problem with that the only thing was I wasn't going to be getting any sleep in the blind. The other problem was I think Josh was bad luck. The ducks and geese that were in the air wanted nothing to do with us. The only thing I can really blame it on is him being bad luck. 

Wednesday I worked and did my shopping for the week. 

This morning I took the boat to a lake close to me to try for some more ducks. They all left out before shooting time, they must've known I was there. I only had 2 geese come by the first one had some other place in mind to be. The second showed up 5 minutes after I decided to pack it in. He came in just a honkin' and lookin' for some friends to hang out with. When he noticed the dude in the water standing next to the boat in the middle of the spread he just kept going. Oh yeah and did I mention it was still kinda foggy?

Only got one more day for duck season and that's Monday, I even double checked the regs. I'll probably find myself back in Fort Wayne trying for a limit or sleep which ever comes first.

Newsflash

 When your looking up when any certain season ends make sure your looking it up in this years regs.

After seeing the error in my ways looks like it's goose season next week.

windy, warm, and rainy

 That's been the weather report here for the last couple days. I had an invite today to go out to my buddy's and try for a deer but the weather is warm and super windy. Hopefully I can get a raincheck and head out on Monday.  Yesterday I was in my magic 5 and watched squirrels all day. I only have one more day left and that day is Monday, for whatever reason the muzzleloader season ends at the start of the week, good for me.

Now the other thing that was "good for me" was Monday.

She's a 95# doe so she's not huge and I would really like to put another one with her to get put me in meat for the next year. 

Monday's my last day.... I am sick and tired of deer hunting and it makes me sick to think of all the duck and goose hunting I have missed. 

Lesson learned this year... I AM NOT A TROPHY HUNTER.. I am a meat hunter and will not pass a decent buck again any time of the year in the hopes for a bigger one later. 

You might need to remind me of that before next Oct. 😉

only 1 week left

 I spent all week and most of this fall/winter trying to shoot a deer. I have yet to put a tag on one, I spent the whole week in a tree watching squirrels and coons. All I can think about is all the waterfowl I could've been hunting. More on what I learned on this year's deer hunt, next week.

Dammit, I'm sick

 But before I got sick, Cliff and I pushed Mongo for some pheasant on Monday, and I worked for them on Tuesday until midday to no avail. 

Monday I had already seen 3 pheasant, 2 on the road and 1 that I bumped and still cannot believe I whiffed on. But that's hunting I guess, Cliff got to Mongo by 10:30ish in the am after he got his kids on buses and dropped off homework for one. 

With the knowledge of where I saw the 2 birds by the road we set up a slow push that should at least let us see a bird. So we dropped off Cliffs vehicle at the pick up spot and I drove us down to the start spot in my pos. Well, before we started the drive he put his key on the dash, I don't like leaving stuff people might want to steal on the dash so I put it in the glove box, and off we went. We didn't see either of those wiley pheasant but we did manage to walk 1.5 miles through the thick stuff looking for them before we made it to Cliff's car. As we were getting closer to the car we both came to the same realization at about the same time. 

Yep you guessed it, his key was back in my car, I didn't even think about it when I was putting it in the glove box. I have always put my guests keys in the glove box. Since we were both there we decided to not place any blame and just start walking the .75mi back to my car to move on to the next spot. 

But we really know it was Cliff's fault, what was he thinking leaving his key in my car. 

Anyway I'm over it.

So we really only had enough time to make a very small push on 1 more spot. There was another spot that I had been seeing a pheasant on the road so we were going to walk for about 15 minutes to the west then pop out on the road and get back to the cars, so he could get home in time to get his kids from school. He's a pretty involved dad which I think is pretty impressive in this time and age. I've told him numerous times to just leave a trail of food from the bus stop to the house and everything will take care of itself. 👍

Anyway we got to the spot and I gave a brief outline of what we were going to do.... when I looked in the direction of which we were going to travel and saw 2 hunters coming our way. After we chatted them up very briefly we changed our course and headed North to the back fields to try our luck. I wanted to see what Cliff had learned through the day and let him pick where we were going to push and walk, since we have very limited time. He started by straight up gar holin' me, the brush he took to walk through looked really pheasanty and the brush he gave to me looked... well, kinda anemic. So, I choked down my criticism of the unfolding events and watched as he weaved through the the brush stopping at the best clumps of grass and trees and waited for the flush, all the while I stood in the barren wasteland that he gave me to push. By the way this little chunk of property couldn't hide a quail let alone a pheasant. After 20 yards or so of walking through the pheasant desert I looked up and all of a sudden my side started looking good. As my attitude and eyes started looking up and forward I saw our quarry. A lone ringneck pheasant staring back at me, well, as we are well aware of I take pride in ground pounding my birds, with no dog they can't get away that way. This one was especially tough I had to shoot twice to get the desired effect, which was a bird for the game bag.

Cliff took this pic with his phone and since our time was pretty much done we called it a day. He said he had a really good time and liked that kind of hunting because he was always moving. I couldn't work him too hard because of the limited time but I'm sure given one whole day I could send him home tired and sore.

Muzzleloader season opens next week, I need to get a deer.

Happy Thanksgiving

 Since it is Thanksgiving I let the rest of the hunting public go out and chase game while I got some stuff done at home. The Thanksgiving meal I am preparing this year is turkey soup... I hate my stove and haven't got my new one yet so... I get soup. 

Anyway this week I hunted Mon and Tues, Wed I worked and today.... well you know what's going on today. 

Mon and Tues I went to one of my favorite lakes and shot a couple ducks in 2 days. Yeah not really tearing 'em up but I'm making a meal one duck at a time.

I didn't shoot poorly I just didn't get a whole lot to shoot at. 

The next season for me will be muzzleloader deer season on the 4th. I need to fill a couple tags and put some meat in the freezer. 

Take care, be safe and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

I haven't been deer hunting

 With the onset of firearms season I have taken this week off from deer hunting to do some duck hunting. It felt pretty good to get in the boat and sit on the water for a while. I hunted 3 days including today and I could've filled my limit with the bufflehead that seemed to always be around. Since I try no to shoot divers I just watched them play around and check out my decoys. I did get a shot at a mallard but just managed to shoot down a branch from the tree I was under. I have seen ducks everyday just seems most days they didn't want to have anything to do with me. 

That was except for Monday when I saw the most ducks and was the most unprepared, being my first day out and all. I had a couple flocks of green wing teal zip in and out before I knew what was happening. Once I figured it out I was able to put one on the water.

They sure a pretty little duck, I don't shoot many so it's a real treat when I can get one or two. I also had a flock of blue wing teal shoot by but they didn't want to give me a decent shot.

So yeah one little duck is all I got for hours of sitting in the boat watching the ducks and the water. 

Pretty good week.

Goose opens on Saturday so we'll see what will happen next week.

Resigned

 I have resigned myself that I will be hunting deer in muzzleloader season. I saw alot of deer this week but didn't squeeze the trigger for one reason or another, mainly too small. Saturday starts gun season and I'm not sure if I will go out but will start again for sure during muzzleloader. Next week I just might take a deserved brake from deer and shoot some ducks.

Not sure yet... we'll see.

Crap

 I went duck hunting on Monday, and for the second time on this property I set up in the wrong spot. I made a midday move and still couldn't put feathers on the ground. I did manage to break my choke lever on my wheeler and on the way out I even managed to catch my blind on a tree and bent it. That wasn't bad enough I tried to bend it back and... well have you ever tried to bend back a piece of tubing of any sort? Yep broke that too. 

The only highlight to the week was going out deer hunting with a buddy. I got to see some different property and some really nice bucks, heck I even took a shot at a coyote. I didn't hit him but I had to decock my crossbow anyway. 

Hopefully next week I'll get invited back out and give it another try.

Little bit of luck and little bit of work

 This week really started out on Sunday night when one of my landowners shot me a text to see if I was going to hunt ducks on his property Monday. I hit him back with probably not Monday but within the next couple weeks. He sent a pic with in the neighborhood of 35 geese on it, so I let him know that I would be down Monday.

I hit up a couple people to see if they wanted to go and I got a yes and a maybe. So Monday morning I found myself on the way to Fort Wayne. When I got there I put out the decoys and stubbled up 2 layout blinds and waited for the ducks. I didn't have to wait long as I had 4 buzz me then come back around 15 minutes later, I dropped 1. Not long after that I had to move the decoys because of a wind switch. Just after I moved the last decoy I saw a flock of geese coming at me from the West so I got down and ready. They came in pretty easily and were going to set down right in the decoys until I sat up and started dropping 'em. I put 3 down on my first volley,  I reloaded I got back on the call and was able to bring them back and drop one more. The last goose I shot was on a marathon for a pond not on my property, so off to the races, old dude VS wounded goose. He made it a couple hundred yards before I was able to put my hands on him. But I finally got him, when I picked him up I noticed..... yahoo surprise he's banded, first one of the year. So, I walked up to the third one I shot and dispatched him and did the same with the second. When I got to the first one I shot I picked him up and saw..... yep another band. Totally awesome 4 geese and 2 bands, I brought them over and threw them in the other blind, before I got into mine I decided to take a pic and send it out to the 2 guys that could've been in on this. As I was taking them out I saw the first band and picked out the next goose and saw the second then I picked out the 3rd goose and saw the 3rd.... wait a minute 3rd band??? is the other goose banded too?

  Holy crap it is, so I shot 4 geese from a flock of 25 that were all banded, that's luck. So I took the pic of the four geese and duck and sent it out. I put the geese back in the layout and continued the hunt within a half hour I had a pair of ducks that came in and didn't leave. So with 1 goose needed and 1 duck I knew it was only a matter of .... dang that's a huge flock of geese. I saw and worked the flock of 50 or so geese into the spread I had 1 land and when the rest got into position I dropped my last goose. I went out and picked him up (no band) and waited for only a handful of minutes before I was able to end my day with my last duck.

That was a super fun really wet (still drying out) day. 

Really good start to the season.

Now for the work part of the segment... pay attention Mrs.Neff

So I've been having an issue with an over abundance of canned goods clogging up my cupboard where I keep them. In an effort to fix the issue I purchased a can organizer, the problem is the organizers that I have found are all too tall for the space I wanted to put them. I finally found one that I thought would work if the stars and moon align just right and someones measurement were off juuust enough. Well, this organizer was 11 1/4" tall and the bottom of my shelf was 11" on the bottom.

  I was hoping that it just might slide in, I was even prepared to help it in. Well neither worked so the easiest fix it to take out the shelf which in this case needed cut out. The shelf was I think glued in on the support that was just under it and wouldn't budge so I borrowed some Milwaukee tools and I was in business. As it turns out all I needed was the oscillating tool to do this job.

 After the cutout all I had to do was jam the can organizer in there.

 Next week all I have to do is get a new shelf and install it on top of the part I cut out. 

Problem solved.

All I wanted to do was...

 I just wanted to tag out on either a deer or a turkey, neither of which happened. I did have a couple deer come in and give me ample opportunities to tag out, but I held off because they were kinda on the small side. So, now I'll be going into next week with 3 seasons to choose from. Not only is it deer season, and turkey season Saturday begins the duck and goose season, and we all know which season I would rather be in. So even though I swore last year that I would wait until Halloween week to shoot a buck I may forgo deer season for the waterfowl opener. I guess you'll be just as surprised as I will when next week's blog comes out.... talk to ya then.

Short and ...

 Nothing sweet about this report. I got out Wednesday and Thursday morning for turkey and saw nothing. However I did see more leaves falling today so I'm guessing the birds will be in there next week. The cooler weather is also going to hit next week so hopefully there will be a little more deer movement. Nothing else going on here just waiting for the cooler weather and duck and goose on the 23rd. Hopefully I'll have a better report next week.

Lazy week compared to last week

 Last week was a pretty busy week on top of working Wednesday I also.... 

1. Put away all my rods, backed the drags off and covered all my reels.

 2. Changed lower unit oil and oil in both outboards.

3. Cut up 2 bed liners I got from line X and attached them on the bottom of the boat I use to haul decoys to the field. Last year I burnt holes on the strakes and needed to put a new bottom on it. Hope this lasts a little while.

 4. I had led lights with foam stickies stuck on the roof of the decoy trailer. This summer they were laying on the floor so I attached some 1x2s to the roof and stapled the lights to it.

 5. Had to bring my computer in to the computer shop because my gopro Hero 8 would connect but I couldn't find it anywhere.

With all that being done I only had a couple of things to get done this week. Since the weather forecast was rain all week I thought I would get a couple things done and relax.

Well, I did get a couple things done but I didn't get a whole lot of time to relax. Except for Monday, it seems like all I did was sleep, I did get out to get my shopping done though.

Tuesday I...

1. got my mouse baits gathered up and washed out and drying ready to bait.

2. put the rest of my goose decoys and wheeler in the trailer.

 3. hard wired my dove decoys for next year.

 4. made a windshield for my fish fryer.

 

  So with all that done and the threat of rain passing I thought I would get out in the morning and see if the turkeys were around.

I actually got up and made it out to my private property well before daylight. I got set up in my turkey killin' spot which is at a cross trail with a big tree behind me. As the forest awoke I strained to hear any sounds of turkey's in the trees. When 8:30 rolled around I came to the conclusion that the turkey's just weren't there yet. So, I got up and walked to my tree stand, thinking I would finish the day deer hunting.

I was almost ready to climb in the stand when I knocked an aluminum leg into another part of the stand and it made a loud "clank". Then the turkey that was roosted above and to the right of my stand started putting loudly. Realizing the error in my judgement I carefully climbed down. When I was on the ground the turkey flew off roost, so I went back to my chair and continued to wait. I know that once the birds are there, there are usually a dozen or so turkeys roosted together. So I waited... and waited and listened... and waited... and waited and listened and... nothing, it's now 9:30 and I thought that it would be weird but maybe there was only 1 bird roosted, so I got up and walked over to get back into my deer stand. I didn't want to waste an entire day staring at the woods waiting for something that wasn't there and by this time I thought if the birds were there they would've been on the ground by now. Just as I was grabbing for my ladder I heard a bird putt right above me. Once again I kicked myself for being stupid and retreated back to my chair, to wait until they turkey's flew down. The good news is I didn't have long to wait, the turkey's flew down at 9:45. The bad news is they flew down past my deer stand which is on the other side of a large hill 60-70 yards from where I was seated. So the only thing I could do now is wait to make sure they had all flown down before I made a move. I watched 4 birds fly down and thought that was all so I got up and slowly stalked to the edge of the hill and peeked over. To my amazement the birds were only 35 yards down the path. I took my crossbow off safe, centered the pin on the middle of one of the birds backs and let the bolt fly...

The next thing I heard was a clank and saw part of my bolt fly off to the left and part fly off to the right. As I watched the turkey's kinda meander off I knew instantly what had happened. When I got the turkey's in the scope I didn't see the rungs to the ladder that went up to my deer stand. I deflected the bolt off of the 3rd rung up 😵. Not only missing my bird but breaking a brand new bolt, completely destroying the lighted nock, and threw the badly deformed broadhead to the ground. 😭$$$

On top of all that, that was my last turkey broadhead so I can't even go back out until my shipment of broadhead's get to the house. Which by the way I am still a little surly over. I have another rage turkey broadhead that I shot my bird with last year but the blades and tip got bent and dulled. When I looked online for replacement blades I couldn't find any so I live chatted with Feradyne in Superior, WI. After getting someone on the other end I asked if they sell replacement blades for the turkey rages. Molly said they didn't, I asked why, she wasn't sure. Since these broadheads are 30$ for 2 and I now find out that I can't just get replacement blades for them, that pretty much makes them 1 bird throw away broadheads 😡 which I find to be unacceptable. She did say that I could get more collars for them. Well Molly, collars don't kill birds, blades do.

This is a pic of the turkey rage the collar is the black plastic piece below the blades.

 

So as you can imagine I was a little miffed in the fact that they thought it was nothing to just throw these broadheads away. I let her know that I will not be buying anymore of these broadheads in the future. 

Now I'm just waiting for the broadheads I did order to arrive. Hopefully I'll be turkey hunting next week instead of dove hunting.... 

Ah who am I kidding I got time for both. 😂  It's going to be way too hot for deer though. Next weeks highs are upper 70's and lows in the mid 60's all week. 

Really looking forward to some cooler temps.

By the way I settled on NAP gobbler getter broadheads, all the reviews on them are really good, and I can get replacement blades for them.

And after all that I decided to mow the lawn that I have neglected for the past 3 weeks... not going to do that again.

worked this week

 I had a bunch of projects to finish up before hunting season really gets rolling, so that's pretty much all I did this week. The worst part is I'm still not caught up, so I'll have to slid some projects into next week. Unfortunately deer season opens next week but I still have to sight in my crossbow. I picked up a new scope for it so I really have to shoot it before I get out. I might try to get out one day next week but that's on the way outside.

Really boring week but I did get alot done, including working an extra day. This is the last week I'll be doing that for a while.

A man and his truck.... A love story

 If I start at the beginning this would be a really long story so I'll kinda just hit the high or low points as they may be.

It's been about a month ago now that I was on my way home from Erie when a very important feature went out on my truck. I have a transmission brake on my truck, which means when I'm in tow mode and press on the brake the truck feels the weight and aids in the deceleration of the vehicles. 

When this went out I brought the truck to Fort Wayne Nissan to fix, considering it is still under warranty. Well long story short again they couldn't find anything wrong with the truck. Sorry nothing wrong with it cannot duplicate so off you go. At this point I was ready to sell my truck to Nissan who had already offered 600.00 dollars more than I paid for it 3 years ago. 

But as you can imagine I wasn't just ready to let my truck go. So I got on the phone called 3 dealerships and finally talked to a Tech that knew what I was talking about and he gave me the advice to open a consumer affairs case with Nissan. Well after going through the whole story for the umpteenth time the call came back and there was nothing Nissan could or would do to help aside from take the truck to the dealership that understood what I was talking about. 

The Road trip: Yep that dealer is in Cookeville, TN only a short 8 hours from the house then a 2-3 hour diagnostic and after they diagnosed the issue would put me in a frontier and I would be on my way home. Easy right?

Well, after the diagnostic was done they couldn't find the issue, they knew what it was, just couldn't justify it to Nissan to tear the tranny down. 

So here were my options put to me by the Tech, by the way I trusted this guy and his advice.

1. Trade it in.

2. Start the repair and hope the fault is found, and that Nissan wouldn't contest the whole validity of the tear down- correct torque,Nissan tranny fluid, anything that would void the warranty. And if nothing was found I would be stuck with the 2500.00 bill.

3. Run it 'til it blows up. If it blows up they'll flatbed it to the nearest Nissan dealership call it mechanical failure and replace the whole transmission no questions asked. If it does make it until next year the warranty is up Aug 2022. Sell it then an get into something new that will have a brand new 5 year 100k warranty.

So now that I have all the information I needed to make an educated decision, I'm going to go with door #3.

I know there's still something wrong with it Clint (the tech) knows there's something wrong with it but as far as the rest of the world and Nissan there's nothing wrong with it unless it blows up. So when it comes to trading it in... yep top dollar still and when that time does come I will be making the trip to TN to pick up my new truck. By the way the reason I went to TN is because they are the 2nd largest retailer of Titans in the country, with a dealership in FL being the first. Great name, great techs, I would trust them over anything FT Wayne Nissan would tell me. They actually talked to me like I wasn't crazy and I knew what I was talking about.

Behind the house

 Well that's where we were on Monday for the first goose hunt of the year. Jake has been seeing a couple dozen geese on a fairly regular basis so we set up in his treeline to try and put some feathers on the ground. 

This is what it looks like to hunt over 2000. worth of decoys

We managed to pull in some birds on Monday but they decided to land 100 yards away. So we shoed them off and waited for the next bunch... that didn't show. Tuesday they totally took the day off so we hunted the evening also which netted us 1 goose that just couldn't take off fast enough. Jake had to do the "I don't see you walk and shoot" since they decided to again land 100 yards away. This morning we decided to do some dove hunting which only offered up 1 pigeon. 

This early season has been rough, but it has been nice weather and we had a pretty good time all considered.

Next week I might get out for some more dove hunting but other than that nothing else going on here.

Getting better

 No not the dove hunting, my shooting. Monday I started at Jake's sitting under his apple tree hoping for a couple dove. I didn't shoot a dove but I did get a pigeon. After a couple hours of watching my mojo spin on the dirt field I shot up to Mongo and got my first dove of the day. So total 2 shots 2 birds for Monday.

 Wednesday was the first day that I could walk the fields for dove at Mongo. I walked all but 3 fields and went 5 for 8 which isn't as good as Monday but still a stellar day. The really cool thing was everything I saw yesterday. I saw 7 turkeys, 1 Bald eagle, 1 fawn, and I even kicked up 2 hen pheasant all while I was walking up the fields looking for dove. It turned out to be a pretty good day.

Today Cliff drove me into Fort Wayne to pick up my truck. That's a story that continues to grow.I'll share more when I have time later this month. Next week is the goose early season opener, really hoping to put some big birds on the ground.

It's been a week on Tuesday... Dove opener on Wednesday

 So, Nissan has had my truck for a week so far and they haven't been able to find the issue. I even went into town on Tuesday to take the tech for a test ride and try to explain to him what is wrong. I am not a high anxiety person but this has me going more grey by the day. My worst fear is that they can't find anything wrong and just send me on my way. On top of that goose opens is another week so I really would need my truck back. 

On the happy side Dove opened on Wednesday and Sean and I were in Huntington on my draw. The field I chose this year was really an exceptional field. There were lots of doves flying even from the start time of noon to the end time of 6. That being said I shot like it was my first day out this year and Sean shot like it was his last. He did super good, even though I had to find at least 6 of his birds, he ended with 14 birds and shells left over. He was really picking his shots and did very few double taps at missed birds. I on the other hand shot like I had an unlimited supply of shells, and that's why I ran out with a half hour to go. All tallied I had 8 (yeah I know) birds for I hate to say this 50 rounds. Wow that's an astonishing 6 rounds per bird more than twice the average of 3. Sean on the other hand ended with 14 birds 1 shy of limit and at least 8 shells left if not more. So he did awesome and I would've been better off throwing the shells at the dove. Oh well that's how it goes sometimes, we both had a really good time. 

I'll have to get some practice in next week.

Again that's not gang signs that's how many dove Sean shot.

Last trip to Erie?

 Yep, it might be for this year, next week the hunting season kicks off with the dove opener. I put in for Huntington this year and got drawn for the first day and the 23rd pick. Then the week after that early goose opens for a week then the Sept. lull which might be more dove or maybe one more fishing trip. 

But I regress... this week I made the weekly pilgrimage to Lake Erie. Again, I put in out of Catawba Island state park, it's were I've been putting in all year. I have wanted to put in more East and try in front of Cedar Point but I just haven't been able to force myself to leave fish to find fish. 

Anyway, I got in around sunrise and fished until the West wind decided to send me home. I think I finally got kicked off around 4 with one fish short of a limit.

That being said I "had" my limit but really screwed up the net job, and I did throw back 1 that measured right at 15", so he went back. As per the last couple weeks I once again caught a perch trolling, unfortunately he took the place of my limit walleye.

why do people fish for perch??? Can't they see the size difference?

On the way home as I was going through Toledo I heard a series of 3 very loud thumps on the bottom of the truck. The only thing that I have found that might be the issue is after that the "engine brake" wasn't working. Nissan calls it the "Intelligent braking system", I brought it to Nissan Tuesday and I hope to get it back by the second week in Sept. 

They haven't called me yet with a diagnosis, but I am pretty sure that no matter what it is it should be under warranty, that would be the best outcome. 

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Supposed to rain and boat launch follies

 The weather was forecast to rain all week but Monday, so that was going to be the day I go fishing. Since it was suppose to rain all week on Erie I went to Tippy for the day. I got to the launch and prepared the boat to launch, I backed it in and was in the process of tying it off on the dock when I could hear what sounded like a hose running water into the lake. With all the houses near the launch it took me a couple seconds of looking to see the boat plug was still on the back of the boat.... the water flow I was hearing was going IN the boat. So I jumped into action by guiding the boat back on the trailer and cranking it up. Once it was cranked up and pulled out of the water the boat started to empty. 

When it was empty I put the plug in and backed in the boat for the second time. As I was watching and waiting for it to float off the trailer I remembered I forgot to unhook the crank. So for the second time it came out of the water and then for the third time it went back in... this time it stayed there until I was done fishing.

It was a pretty tough day of fishing, I did catch a couple fish but they certainly weren't picture worthy. 

It was fun and quite humbling all I could do is laugh. 

Hopefully next week will be better.

Seriously??? again.

No new news I went to Erie this week but instead of leaving of my own volition, I got blown off the lake. So, I only fished for a half day, and honestly I didn't do that bad. I started with a couple stretchers and while waiting for the kicker fish to find my lures I played with these.

The bad thing was while I was holding yet another stretcher, deciding whether or not to keep him. One of my long rods fired..... so I threw him back and fought this piece of trash. After I boarded this guy I wish I would've kept the walleye.

Staring into the sun makes me squint.... yeah it was pretty hot... yeah I still hate cooler pics... yeah that's another perch.... and yes I brought that damn rod again.

It's "that" pole

 Hit Erie on Tuesday expecting a short troll for a full limit, then it "would've been" off to do some casting for smallies. After the first hour I had finally boated my first walleye, it was a stretcher so I thought to myself, there would be some good Karma here to release the first one. Since it was under my 16" self imposed minimum size I let him go.... he had to of told everyone. I had to troll all day to boat the 3 fish that I kept, 2 just under 16 and one at the 23" mark. Once I had that kicker fish in the boat I trolled for another couple hours and decided to pack 'er in. 

By the way that spinning rod I was talking about in in the pic. It seems like every time I bring that pole with the intent to do some casting after an easy limit, that easy limit doesn't happen. I think it's the last time that rod goes to Erie.

By the way I really hate cooler pics but I was too pooped to get the board out, especially for 3 fish.

I just wish I could've run 3 more rods, that usually increases your catch rate. It's certainly alot easier to nail down color and depth patterns with more rods.
 

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 What is it with those perch pullin' freaks???? 

I was 10 minutes from the landing and decided to drop some gas in the boat. When out of the stop and rob walks a dude with cut off shorts, sleeves cut off his shirt and summer teeth. The first words out of his mouth were, "you goin' fishin'?" and I thought to myself, nope just takin' my boat out for a drive. I was cordial and says yep, he says "the perch are hittin' by preston." I said oh, I don't fish for perch. He says, "what, that's the best eatin' fish there is." I said, "why would I want to catch a perch, when there's walleye to be had?" He said "well the walleye bite is pretty slow right now, and the perch are hot." I just kept pumpin' gas and he looks at my rig and says, "you trollin'?" I said yep, he says Ohhhh, well take care, and off he went. I mean really what is up with perchers, it's like perch are the only fish in the lake. I'll keep one if it's decent size but there's no way I'm going to run 2 hours to catch perch.

So after I got put in, I noticed the waves were almost as big as they were last week so I used the same game plan. Head NW far enough to get a good couple hour SE troll. Well, not only did that work it worked too well, I could've been done by 9:17am and I only got started at around 8. So I did the smart thing and started culling my catch only fish over 19" were going to be able to make the truck ride home. It took me a little longer to make limit but I finally did around noon. Funny thing is I threw back at least a limit and a a half, going for bigger fish. All I could keep thinking was, "the walleye bite is pretty slow." Good thing it wasn't hot or I would've been done when I dropped the boat in the water.

 Bonus perch and white bass.

The white bass went back, the perch did not. 

Here's a really quick video.

 

So I was done by noon got home by 3 and had to deal with the wasp infestation in the mud room again. I knew it was imminent but there was nothing really I could do until they bored through the dry wall in the ceiling. So, Tuesday I worked and mowed and killed more wasps. Wednesday I packed my small lake and musky gear and headed to a small lake 45 minutes from the house. I wasn't going to fish all day but I did go until 4pm. I didn't catch a musky but the bass I caught froggin' were huge.

 

These are the same fish

This guy only went 'bout 3 pounds.

Now this guy went 4 and a half

 

This was the fish that let me know there were smaller fish in the lake too.

All in all it was a couple of awesome days fishing, can't wait for next week.

Like Corey would say, "It's like take a kid fishing day."

 Ron and I headed over to Erie on Monday, this was suppose to be the better of the days. When we got there I wasn't impressed, when it was suppose to be flat it was in fact pretty bumpy. We dropped the boat in and made the long wet haul NW against the waves. Once we got to were I thought we would get a long troll with the waves we turned and started setting poles. The night prior when I texted Ron the start time, he asked what he should bring, I responded nothing but a lunch. Well, since he fishes Erie quite a bit he said he would like to bring his big Erie tackle box, which he did. That being said I told him the 3 rods on his side of the boat are his to run. After we had only been running for a half hour or so Ron reeled in his first walleye of the day, and promptly lodged a treble into his pants. Needing the lure in the water I cut off the hooks and put a new hook on the lure. Well long story short after 5 hours, 2-three pole tangles, one with a fish on the line, which we did land, and a pretty heavy sort of shorts. We finally landed a really nice one to make our limit of 12 fish, most of our limit sadly was made up of "stretchers". Pretty good ending for a pretty nasty beginning.

4th trip to Erie

 This trip was pretty crazy, I left the house Monday at 4am on 20E to Erie. On the way over there I only passed 3 or 4 vehicles, that includes big rigs. Now, on a normal day this road even at that time, is really busy. Even Toledo let me pass with little to no traffic I just kept thinking, "I'm the last man on earth". I stopped at the bait shop for a couple lures, and there were 5 cars there, the most I've seen the whole trip. When I got up to pay I asked what was going on? Where is everyone? Well come to find out the 4th was observed on the 5th. Well holy crap if I knew that I would've waited 'til Tuesday to go fishing.

Well there was no turning back now, so on to the lake. 

When I got there it too was deserted for the most part, there were a couple of us putting in but nothing terrible. I did some research before leaving the house and found out approximately where the fish were and what they were hitting on. So I started up the kicker started my troll and it wasn't until the afternoon when the masses showed up. And man did they show up, I was in 2-3 footers and it wasn't from the wind. There were boats everywhere and not just small boats but really big boats, man is there alot of money on that lake. The walleye's I was catching weren't the 24's I was used to and I even had quite a few shorts, but I finally made a limit out of the 16 inchers and a jumbo perch that I had been dragging for I don't know how long when I cleared my lines.

It is a pretty nice mess of fish and I was going to have a meal Monday but had to get to bed to work on Tues. I was going to have a meal yesterday but then is started to rain. So I was going to have a meal today and it started to rain. The only fresh fish I have had this year I had when I was on vacation, I really need to get this worked out. There's nothing better than a meal of fresh fish after a hard day fishing.

Rain, $$ and a rock bass

 Since it was supposed to rain early on Monday and Tuesday I went into work on Monday and then did my house stuff on Tuesday. The rain was going to roll in Wednesday afternoon or so. So I decided to get up early and head out for a little fishing trip. When I went out to turn the truck around the door locks wouldn't work. Hmmm?? that's not good, so I got the key out and opened the door and the interior lights were really dim. None of my dash was lit up and the start button wasn't even lit....crap dead battery. So I got the battery charger hooked up put the hood down a little and headed inside as it charged. I went out to check it a little later to find it was fully charged but only 6V were showing. Tried to start it... no good then the rain started, it poured then stopped then poured some more while the battery was charging again. After a couple hours I had to face the obvious, time for a new battery. 200 dollars and a half hour later I had the truck started and turned around ready to go fishing. After a quick check of the weather I thought it would be ok to go after 3pm. I finally got to the lake at 3:46, fished for a couple hours, caught one rock bass and called it a successful day fishing.

Sure hope next week is a little better.

Bonus Erie trip and Vacation double issue

 Here's the bonus: The week before I went on vacation I made a solo trip to Erie. The first part of the day went pretty slow until I trolled out to the flotilla where I found cleaner water and fish that would bite.

This was the week I was supposed to go on vacation but moved back a week.

 

My vacation started at 3ish in the am, I got the car packed and was on my way. When I got 45min to an hour away from my house I pulled over for my first fill up. I put my card in and it was declined, I went inside and told the clerk what happened grabbed some ice and handed him the card and again it was declined. I then went out to my car and called the card company, in the process I noticed that the card I had was expired. Well, crap, so after trying to get the card turned back on just for June I faced the fact that I had to go back to the house and get another card. Halfway home I remembered I had a can of Sea foam tune up on the trunk, needless to say it didn't make it home. After I was on my way again I decided to hit the same gas station to see if the Sea foam had rolled off against a curb or something. I got back to the gas station filled up my car and got ice and when I left out, low and behold the can was in the middle of the parking lot right next to a storm grate, and it was still intact. WINNING.

So I picked it up and after the 3 hour waste of time I was finally on my way North.

So I am in Wisconsin and am in need of another fill up, I pull into gas station and do the tap thing. That didn't work it told me to insert my card. So I do then it says to see the attendant. I go inside and explain that I just want to get gas. She says to go ahead and pump and then just come back in and pay. OK, not a big deal, so I pumped, paid and was again on my way North. 

Skip ahead to the next day and I'm at the tackle shop ready to buy my license. I hand the cashier my card and.... it goes through, awesome, so I look around a little more and find a split ring pliers that I want. The cashier rings it up, and my card is denied. I didn't bring my phone so the cashier dials the number and lets me use his. After talking with customer service and found out it is just a fraud alert and it could take 2-4 hours. I asked for a manager, she let me know that this is just procedure and a code was sent to my and all I have to do is plug in the number. After I go to Rick's and insert the code I'm back at the Tackle shop buying the split ring pliers. 

Whew, I'm ready to go fishing...... and to that here are the pics.

let this 20 incher go

choked it

foggy

foggy

So at this point in the week I decided to drag some bait, I hadn't caught a walleye in a day or 2. So I stopped at the one stop on the way out to the lake to get some nightcrawlers. I remembered that I had saved an allowance card from work to use on vacation. So I pull it out and go to pay for the nightcrawlers, hit the credit button and the lady told me the card has expired. So now I had to go through the rigamarole of getting the card replaced. Which I did and all is good, but holy cow did I have card issues this trip.

This is the only walleye I caught with the nightcrawlers

The next picture is a blow up

There's a bear at the base of the stop sign

 

I was coming in from fishing and saw this bear on the road going from right to left. By the time I got my phone ready to take a pic, yogi realized what I was doing and took off for the ditch.  

I used the drift sock Rick

That was kinda my trip to the Falls I got to spend time with my Aunt and Uncle and do some fishing. The whole week was pretty windy and or rainy but it was still a really good time.

Pelicans

From the Falls I went to Cloquet for the rest of my vacation. One of the first things I noticed was the evil twins. 😈

Yes, this is actually how they look and my parents don't think there's anything wrong with them 😱. The good news is they are right below my the window of the room I stay in..... no happy dreams for me.

So, I hung out with my parents, hung some stuff inside the house for Mom. Dad and I set up his air gun, he got a good deal on a package deal unfortunately the scope was trash and that is where it ended up. He's good to go now. I also got to dig holes for 2 trees and sink 8 posts to put wire on to keep the deer from eating them.

 Corey and I had set up Saturday as the time to go fishing, since he sold his boat and was working on my Aunt and Uncle's cabin. He said we could use the pontoon boat to fish. So Addy, Logan, Corey and I head out for an afternoon of fishing. It kinda turned out like I thought we all caught some small perch and I caught some pike that were the size of the pike pictured above. Then Addy and Logan wanted to go back to the cabin to get some supper, which left Corey and I fishing.

Then this happened....

So... yeah that happened

After I realized I had a hook in my hand I asked Corey if he knew the string trick(youtube it), he didn't. So I kinda talked him through it, that didn't work out that good. First off we didn't have any good string but I had some paracord and when he went to pull it he didn't snap it because he didn't want to hurt me so he just kinda pulled it. Which hurt like hell, so now the days done and I gotta go to the ER because the only people that I have to help me are 10 beers into a good night. All my cousin Kris kept saying is I've got some pliers.... 

I quickly realized it was in my best interest to seek sober medical attention.

After 300$

Before 300$

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weird thing is it never really hurt. Tuesday I headed for home. 

Did I mention I hate Chicago?