When Andrea and I agreed I was going to fully enjoy the pleasure of being retired for a year I had wonderful visions of a golf season fully enjoyed, a hunting season to remember for a lifetime and ice fishing the days away on Lake Minniwasta for crappies until my hands were permanently cramped in the shape of a rod holder.
The golf season was not bad, we (especially me) enjoyed a great part of the season at Oakwood with a great trip with Rebel and his son in law to play Granite Hills, what a course. I was happy to move and pickup where I left off in Oakwood at our new course in Winkler, that pleasure was short lived as the moving company broke my Callaway driver during the move. It was replaced after the season ended but it put a real damper on the end of the season...
My hunting season was well chronicled on here in other blogs but it definitely left memories that will last a lifetime, mission accomplished. My only regret was Noah not getting his first deer but there is always next season!
Icefishing has been spectacularly disappointing, the weather this season has been nothing short of horrendous, many days of -40 or more of wind chill, even days like today when the temp gets up into the -18 to -20 range the windchill is -38. It is manageable in the shelter with the heater going but not today. Overall the fishing seems to be a disappointment this year, all the guys are complaining about the weather and the sporadic fishing so I am not alone.
I went out one recent Monday with Rebel to the world famous Lockport, I caught one small sauger fishing from about 10 am til 4:30 pm, he caught three I believe. For a days fishing that was a real letdown, but seeing a friend for the first time in months was a real bonus.
I had seen an article in the local paper talking about the Mayor of Emerson MB talking about how the icefishing was better there than Lockport / Selkirk (Selkirk is known as the catfish capital of the world) and boasted that walleye, sauger, goldeye and catfish were plentiful there. They had even gone so far as to put in a new boat launch to help the icefishers access the river. Andrea and I were excited a wonderful opportunity very close to home, Saturday was to be a decent day and we packed up the family and went to spend the day fishing the Red River right on the US - Canada border. We arrived in town and I drove to the boat launch (clearly seen on google earth) and the road was not plowed??? We drove around town trying to find and access point close to the railroad bridge that the local shacks were located near. Andrea used her phone to search for information and found some info so we drove in that direction. We finally found river access but it was no boat launch. We could have drove on but thought we should walk down and explore it first - a good thing, there was two feet of snow in places but even more concerning was water on the ice under the snow. I went back to the truck and got the auger while Andrea grabbed a shovel and her flasher so we could check for likely fishing holes. The first hole I drilled revealed three feet of water, we kept moving until it was revealed the best we could hope for was 10 feet of water, still very concerning as the was water everywhere and only about 12 inches of less than stellar ice.
I drilled several holes each, we hauled out our gear and proceeded to fish for several hours, the sun was out, we were sheltered from the wind and it was a glorious day to be out in the fresh air. After a few hours the wind shifted so it was coming down the river in our faces, the sun went into hiding and we were faced with a choice, go get the tent and heater out of the truck or pack up. We packed up, we had been fishing hard for several hours and not even seen a fish on our flashers, a waste of time and no threat to Lockport and Selkirk as fishing hotspots. (several locals confirmed article was a joke to them the fishing there sucks)
Tuesday afternoon seen me getting shack wacky again and even though the temperatures were extreme and the wind blowing 40+ out of the NW I loaded up the gear and hit the lake for crappie. A good four feet of ice so no fear like the river had posed, I set up my flip shelter in minutes and was marking crappie from bottom at 28 ft at times right up to 18 feet. The wind was flapping my shelter like crazy, there were time I wondered if it was going to survive, the heater was great when the wind was not lifting the frame a foot in the air and sucking all the heat out. I tried I am not sure how many combos but not a bite, I may have to try live minnows this weekend as the crappies are not biting yet.
Anyway, I am off to see the sawbones about getting my left rotator cuff fixed, scheduled for surgery on the 24th of Feb. Looking forward to having it done, not so sure about the recovery period though.
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