Two days of grinding and last night I was beat. Having a cold has not helped. I hit the sack at 8pm as Brian and Stacy in old Minnesota said he would gas up the generator. At this time both have been running well with there blankets.
Jake arrived Tuesday and got his cold weather gear on and hit the lake looking for the mother load. Brian and Stacy tagged along. Jake found a spot that they were marking fish and saw a walleye and spot tail shiners on a camera. That was good enough for me and I started digging North Dakota and Montana out of there holes . While Jake headed off looking for another area to ruin, I plowed into the spot and hustled to get north Dakota set up for Leroy and his crew. After getting them set up I was off to retrieve montana as they would be together for the up and coming weekend. I then headed over to north Carolina and got her out of its perch. My arms were like rubber by then chopping out all the frozen blocks and shoveling all the snow. Around 4 pm I was headed out to see Lonnie in his wheel house when I realized I had pool? I turned around made a quick stop to check on Leroy and his crew and headed home. Jake would check on them later in the eve and top off the generator for the night. The last I heard Leroy and his crew had 4 in the bucket. Tuesday was one of those days where you just soaked in the beauty of red lake .With the sun shining brightly all day you could see for miles on a crisp minus 2 day with no wind.
Yesterday morning heading out to meet Jake and it had done a complete flip flop, Cloudy ,snow flurries and a little wind it was a struggle to see with every thing so white. After checking in with Lonnie and his poor fishing report I was off to meet Jake and do some scouting with him to find a new area for old Minnesota, florida and north carolina . Oh Lonnie’s buddy 30 yards away did real well. Figure that one out. The first area we tried had fish and I measured 15 inches of ice. I did not expect that and thought for sure I would see 18? We again marked fish that refused to bite. The second area we tried was a little closer to the main road and again marked fish with no bites? Very frustrating to say the least. Jake headed off to North Dakota to finish off the trim work and add a few more touches to the house while I headed off to old Minnesota to talk to Brian and Stacy and come up with my plan for the rest of the day. Stacy caught a 24 inch pike while I was having a cup of coffee with them so in my eyes the area is still a fishy area. Jake would be heading home with his 3 fish while Brian would become my helper as we moved old Minnesota to give them a fresh spot to fish last night. I also got florida set up on fresh ice. Then it was off to check out buddies road as Jake said it looked like buddy was expending further out. The road now goes out 6.3 miles with cones set up some where around 4 or 5 miles as the road heals from a couple cracks. I then talked to Buddy as a wheel house coming from the south busted through the berm to the south. He hit some slush and barely made it through. Again I can not stress this enough. If you want to fish north of Hillmens road pay the 10 dollars to use his road. Once it cracks under that snow which it is doing. It happens every year and this year is no different The berm will sink and it will become a 3 foot slush hole and you will be getting tugged out from the way you came from.