Another vacation and a very fast summer

 I made the journey home, then to Manitoba this year on the fam's yearly 🦆 hunt. In all there were 8 of us. 

My Dad

jason,Dad,jeremy and les

 his brother Reg, 

jason, lance, jeremy, les and Reg

my 2 brothers Jason and Gerry,

Gerry, lance, Jason

 my cousin Les 

Les

and his 2 sons Jeremy and Lance

Lance and Jeremy

and me. 

Lotsa people going this year we took 2 trucks, 2 canoe's, 3 boats, a side-by-side and 2- 4 wheelers, 

 15 guns, way to many shells and enuff fishing gear to qualify as a 🎣  trip. 

So we all piled into the trucks and headed of to The Great White North with all the sights along the way.

We didn't even make it out of the States when we noticed Les's trailer tire dragging. Turns out the brakes locked up and the only way to "repair" it was to cut the brakes. 😲🙏
Once we got through customs and on the way North to the resort there was plenty more to see.

😲GEESE😲

We stopped for the night at Ashern, Manitoba the motel wasn't quite 4 stars but it was a place to sleep.

he was here before I had a beer when I got back to take my shower he was nowhere to be found. 😳

 We finally got to the resort and then all the work we did to get ready for the trip we had to do in reverse. I think we made it to bed that night around ??? well not really sure.

 The days all blended together but pretty much went like this. Get up at 4am drink ☕ eat a muffin, drive the hour to where we transfer to the wheelers then run 3 miles to where we get into the boats,after a little boat ride get out to our spots, 

Morning #1

 Spot 1

 

 

 

Caution video has Bad Words. 😈 Oops

Spot 2

Trumpeter swans in the set

Spot 3

Spot 4 this spot was so good we were there twice.

hunt til 11am, get back to camp clean ducks have a 🍻, eat and get ready for the next day. Fishing was pretty much the same but we got to sleep in until 6am.

Jacee and I hit something day one fishing so we got towed everywhere. Jace did have his electric motor so we used it to get around once we got to "the spot".

Walleye limits with a couple bonus fish

Tulibee from the day we fished for pike

I almost got 'em all in the pic

 We even tried for some Lakers at the infamous "pump house"

Les was "the net man" on this expedition.... unfortunately we didn't need his skills.

As far as I know we all had a really good time, I know I did.

I'll just drop more pics in and let them do the talking....

We shot alot ducks I have only wanted to shoot until this trip.... 

The list went something like this: Pintails, Widgeon, Ringnecks, Bills, Mallards, Teal, Canvasback, Redheads, Ross Snow Geese, Canadian Goose... and even some Ruffed Grouse. 

The only one I haven't mentioned who needs to be mentioned is Riley the wonder dog. Ya know how some dog owners way over exaggerate a dog's skills? Well, Reg isn't one of them, if anything he focuses on the small imperfections. Nothing bad about that, just is. We didn't get to hunt with Riley until the last day, and let me tell ya all he wants to do is work. We dropped a couple ducks down on our end and Reg sent Riley down to us. Let me tell ya he came down and with very little direction just jumped in and retrieved the downed ducks, in the retrieving world they would've been known as blinds. He did awesome I was really impressed. I had heard of dogs bringing back 2 ducks at a time but I actually got to witness it first hand on this trip. Reg if your reading this pet Riley and give him a couple xtra treats, he did a great job.

Riley picking up the second duck we dropped while he was out getting the first.

And just like that it was time to go.... 

Thanks for all the fun Manitoba but it's time to head south...

Good times.....

Last week

 Last week before vacation.

I spent the week packing and getting ready for vacation. I did do a little extra... I cleared out my deer stand, so when October gets here that will be ready. I also did some grilling yesterday, goose steaks and deer, I'm set for a while on meat now.

Other than that all I really did was get ready for vacation.

I forgot

 With this week going and no fishing, I just plain forgot to write a blog. So here it goes just short and sweet. Monday I did my shopping, Tuesday had the hvac guy over to fix my ac and rattle canned  a cover for my wheeler. Wednesday I rattled canned my blind and mowed. Thursday relaxed and got ready for work. See rather non eventful, next week I gotta pack for the trip, gonna try to keep it to 1 bag.😂🤣😂

Broke down and hanging it up for the season

 Well, my luck gave out this week forcing me into an early fishing retirement. 

Myself and a buddy made to Erie at sunrise, we were the only truck in the parking lot (that should've been a clue). This was only my 3rd trip to Erie this year so I was going to be fishing memories. I gave 0 consideration to the fact that Erie has had a NE blow for the past 3 days. Long story short, we fished for 11 hours boated a couple nice walleye (21") and a couple not so good but box fillers non the less. We ended up with 5 walleye (terrible) and a decent perch that we kept. 

Here's were it took a downturn, as if the fishing wasn't bad enough. To add insult to injury one of my reels wouldn't retrieve line, the handle would turn but the spool wouldn't turn. The bad part was I didn't realize it until I had the lure out 157' and had to thumb over thumb the line back in on the spool to get my lure back.

 Oddly enough this is the second reel that has broke like that this year, the other was my frogging reel that I've had for so long I can't remember when I got it.

The second breakage and most catastrophic was the trim stopped working on my big motor. This meant the skeg was only inches from the pavement and there is no way I would get out of the parking lot without breaking off the lower unit let alone driving home. So after breaking the boat down and getting everything put away we started to figure out the best way to get the motor to raise. The only way we could do it was to take off the trim motor and manually turn the trim up. It really was easier than it sounds however it will cost me a new trim motor because we destroyed the old one, which we thought was no good anyway. We weren't sure if it was a bad solenoid or the trim motor so more than likely I'll be buying both of them.

Anyway with so little left of my season and with not wanting to spend money 'til after my next vacation. It looks like I'll be winterizing and getting the boat ready for storage. 

I am kinda happy I'm stopping early because I really do have alot to get ready for vacation and hunting this year so this should give me the time I need to do all that.... stupid fishing.

Yeah sorry no pics we didn't get home 'til 11:30 the I still had to clean the fish... long day.

Back up and running

 After finding out a couple weeks ago I needed a new starter for the big motor, I immediately had one ordered. Only for it to show up last week and be the wrong one. Well, I got the wrong one sent back and rolled the dice on another one. 

The new one got here this week and looked to be the right one. I put it on the engine today and hooray it was the right one. I got a lot done in the last couple weeks while  I was broke down, and am ready to get back on the water.

Just wonderin?

How is it that beans are one of the best low carb foods, but you see so many obese Mexicans.

With rice being one of the worse, but you don't see many fat Chinamen.

🤔🤷‍♀️🤷🤷‍♂️🤔