Last time out for a while

[olsarge]

Well I woke up this morning to a temp of 52 with winds howling out of the s at 20 to 30 mph.  I am not real crazy about fishing in that kind of wind but forecast calls for 1 to 3 inches of the white stuff tomorrow and cold and rainy all next week.  So off I go.  Went to the same lake I have been going to hoping to find some crappie but they are still AWOL (I have picked off a few brutes here and there but they are still showing no signs of staging.  The bull bluegills however, are another story.  They are right on the bottom and aggressive.  Caught an even dozen a few of them on a 2 inch shad bodied curly tail but most fell victim to the 1.75 inch caney creek frog (my granddaughter tells me that a bait that size is a "froggy" not a frog.  At any rate those suckers were swallowing it.  Wife is  pleased as she dearly loves some bluegills.  Now if I can only wait out this stupid weather!

[WALLEYE WACKER]

High wind and some rain today wish it would just make up its mind and give us some steady weather for a change. They have been getting some walleyes but not many keepers. Glade you where able to get a meal of gills.

[ctom]

What I'd give to see a 50 degree day.....darn. At 4 pm we are sitting right at 31 with a heavy-duty blow going on. The snow finally melted back far enough on the garden that I was able to dig the legs of my fire pit out of the mud and get it on the cement drive. I had a ton of sticks and stuff from our birch clump to burn and did that on Weds afternoon. In the cold and wind of course. We dodged the snow again today but had some light rain an hour before sunrise. At least we've cleared the clouds out and the wind will help dry the ground out so I can maybe till in a week. Then I can get the compost on the garden before tilling at planting time.

Thinking that I am fed up with winter would be an understatement. For the next 90 years or so I'm fine with the wind blowing off the ice cap and onto Russia and China so it sucks some warm air up here from Arizona.

[Muskygary]

Friday I went out to my mailbox and there was a package containing my onion and leek sets! They're not getting planted this weekend; hope we have at least one good warm day without so much wind this week!

[ctom]

The Rainy River between Minnesota and Canada was open and people had been fishing it. The walleye season is open up there, but now with winter having come back with a vengeance the river is locked up in ice again. Lots of ornery people coming back home with boats in tow that found out they couldn't find launch sites open. This hasn't happened for a long time. Once open people may have to dodge some random ice chunks but the river has stayed open. Given the temperature forecast for the state at ten last night I'd say that any place with ice yet is making new and those who re-set with ice really holds back the natural season....and I am talking about spawning here. This late in April and some of the northern lakes are still holding onto 30-40 inches of hard ice and now making more. Gonna maybe be a late opener for a lot of lakes unless we get a serious warm-up going. Rochester officially has not seen 50 degrees yet.

[olsarge]

No change in our misery yet, but things are a changing.  Less than an inch of snow is supposed to fall tonight but temps on wed and thurs are supposed to be in the low 70's.  That ain't no misprint.  I have somewhere between 20 and 300 pounds of plastic baits made up, new line on all of my rods. the wifes garden has been turned over and I have not lost my mind yet (gettin close tho).

[Lamar]

  This has been a tough winter for me as well. Sold my Tundra to a guy from Arizona. He sent me a check for $35,500 and had me hold the truck for six weeks before he could come. So last Friday I picked him up at the airport, gave him his truck and sent him on his way. This guy had no clue who I was and never saw the truck before. I mean really who does that ? Crazy. I ordered a new aluminum Ranger back in February and it came in three weeks ago but the trolling motor has been back ordered and no idea when it will be in. I guess ok because winter is dragging on. This will be one winter that I'm glad will be over if it ever gets there.

[WALLEYE WACKER]

The day started at 4 Am and 9 degrees a buddy and I went to De Pere. We started the motor before we left the house and made the 2 hour drive got bait paid for the launch put the boat in started it and went to fish but had to load it back up because the steering wheel wouldn’t turn the motor and to make things whores my buddy pulled to hard on the steering wheel and broke something so than we went and spent 2.5 hours trying to fix and ran out of the tools needed to fix it and we went home with out even wetting a line. The fish are bitting and we haven’t fished together in a year and a half he was really bumbed out on the ride home.

[brandx112679]

 Sorry for your bad luck, Walleye Whacker. That sounds like some of my outings.

[ctom]

I did a morning at the Alma Dam many years ago when it was -9 at launching. It took about 35 minutes to freeze things up to where steering was a joke with the outboard but getting back into the ramp got done with the electric. That's a steep ramp and proved to be ugly. We had to run anchor rope down to the boat and up to the hitch then drag the boat up a mostly ice covered ramp. Once on flat ground we lifted and pushed the boat on the trailer. All that for two small saugers. I'm pretty fussy about the cold and fishing from a boat now.

[ctom]

We got another "annoyance" dusting last night. Not enough to bother shoveling but enough to see tracks. 22 degrees right now feels like a heat wave. They're saying a warm up is on its way but warm is a relative thing in the state this year so I won't hold my breath. Right now my idea of a "warm up" is daytime highs around 78 and nighttime lows about 65. At our current rate of warm up we'll still have frost in the ground on Mother's Day.

[billygee]

Just checked the weather forecast sounds like another
Blast is heading toward our central area Wednesday

Walleye
Know the feeling Had one of those unfortunate days   

billygee

[WALLEYE WACKER]

Billygee they don’t happen very often but when they do it really wrecks the day when your anticipated outing is right there in front of you and you can’t go.