Perch and Walleye

Hello, I have been able to get out and do a little fishing at Silver Lake. I have been having some success on nice eater walleyes, up to 18 inches, and I even have been getting a few nice perch. In fact, I caught a perch last night that was 13 inches long. I caught only one perch though. The bite has been right at sundown and only last about 45 minutes. I have caught them on a Do-Jigger and a minnow and a Rat Finkie and a minnow.
The Iowa Great Lakes Winter Games are this weekend, so the place is going to be alive with tourists. Smith's Bay will be un-fishable, in fact it was yesterday, due to the crews getting the ice ready for all the festivities. This is always a great thing for the area, it brings in a lot of revenue to local businesses. The Iowa Great Lakes Chamber of Commerce does great job!!
I see there is some guy from Milford who thinks he is going to get the muskellunge season back the way it was. For those of you who don't know, muskie season now will close on December 1st instead of in February like before. The trade-off for Esox anglers is that we can now fish for northern pike year round. Anyway the reason the season was closed is that there were so many big muskies being killed by ice fisherman. Muskies are particularly vulnerable to ice fishing. The DNR, touts muskie angling as a trophy fishery and there were too many meat hunters killing them. Now the next step will be to get the fines for taking sub-legal fish and out of season fish raised in parity with what it costs to replace big game, ie. deer. I know this is controversial but I believe the fines need to be raised, not just on muskellunge but other species as well.

Weekend etc.

Well, I have been somewhat remiss in posting to my blog. My wife's last chemo went well. However, she has been feeling a little more punky than usual. She shared with me last nite that she is losing her eyelashes, I hadn't noticed.
I did manage a little fishing Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I caught about 10 nice bluegill and one crappie in Miller's Bay Canals. I was fishing with Rick Dicus from Explore the Outdoors radio, and his neighbor Tim. Tim was unable to even get a bite so Rick and I gave our fish to him, he had promised his wife a fish fry. Yesterday sucked, I had numbers of gills in the hole, as well as crappie, no biters!
I found out this weekend that Rick's wife will clean his fish. My god, how he got that deal put together I will never know. I must admit, in all fairness, that my wife will debone the walleye fillets as I cut them off the fish. Speaking of filleting, I would encourage you to look in In-Fisherman mag, for the method that Doug Stange found a quide somewhere using, its really unique. I tried it last summer and it really works. Sorry, I don't have the issue date at hand. I will try to remember to post it later.

Last Chemo TX

Well this post is a little off the subject, but this is my blog and I will write what I damn well please!
Tomorrow my wife and I head for Sioux City, IA., for her last chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. We have been emotionally up and down since her diagnosis in October and subsequent surgery at the Mayo Clinic and then the chemo. We were additionally stressed when the clinical trial she had volunteered for was stopped because they were trying to find out if high doses of Celebrex would enhance the treatment and we all know what happened with Celebrex! Anyway I needed to vent a little and this seemed like the time to do it. She starts radiation next.
I did get an email from a friend today with a picture of a record walleye taken on Lake of the Woods that supposedly weighed in at 18 lbs. Awesome fish if the weight is legit. I am trying to get back out on the lake to do a little ice fishing but business calls.

Chargers and Batteries

I was unable to go fishing today, I needed to get a little bit of work done.
My wife and I are the proud owners of a 2003 RANGER 619 DVS, we love this boat. We previously owned a RANGER 681VS and loved that one also. I love everything about this boat size, speed, fishability, comfort, seaworthiness etc.
I always charge the batteries once a month during the winter while it is not being used as well as immediately after fishing, in fact I generally leave it plugged in. Last month I noticed that one of the banks on the charger was not showing anything. I called Charge Systems International (CSI), they make the Dual Pro charger in the boat. CSI explained how to do a reset, I did this and the charger still showed a bad bank. CSI promptly sent me a new charger free of charge, in fact they upgraded it to a salt water model, which is stainless steel. You talk about standing behind your product.
I decided to put 3 new batteries in the boat as long as I was doing this rewiring etc, in the winter in an unheated garage. Little bit of whining here. Anyway, after some research, I decided to go with the Optima D31M blue top deep cycle batteries for everything. Optima batteries a the AGM type technology (absorbent glass mat) I am anxious to see how they perform and will report on my experience with this summer. I need lots of power when I am out all day, these batteries should provide the power I need and I won't be fiddling with checking water levels.

A day late and gill short

Well I had to work today, I sent my buddy from NE to the Millers Bay canals and he hammered the bull bluegills. Seems like that is how it goes sometimes, I miss the bite by a day or week, oh well, another time perhaps. He nailed them on a Genz Bug and wax worm. Rick had plenty of crappie in the hole but couldn't get them to eat. I hope to take a run at them tomorrow or the next day.

January15-16 Fishing Report

I can summarize the weekends fishing report as follows: TERRIBLE. We fished Millers Bay, Smiths Bay. Center bar in Millers. Drilled dozens of holes and caught nada. We tried walleye at dusk yesterday had some fish come in on the Vexilar but no biters. We tried for gills shallow 5-10 ft nothing. I never even had a gill come in the hole. My partner had a bass and some gills come through his hole.This was Sunday.
Saturday, same deal. However, I did have several fish in the hole in Smith's Bay but they were very negative. I have been getting the same report from other anglers.
I think the little beggars must have went on a bender and they all had hangovers from too much Miller Lite or something.
Later

Weather in Boji Land and fishing report.

Well it was -12 F here this morning. The good news is the wind quit blowing last nite. I have a friend coming in from Nebraska later today for some ice fishing tomorrow.
The bite has been slow. We had been picking up some nice crappie and bluegills on Big Spirit Lake, but that has slowed down. I plan on taking him to West Okoboji tomorrow for some gill fishing and maybe to Silver Lake at Lake Park, Ia., for some walleye fishing. Reports indicate that gills on Boji are going on Jammin Jigs and a piece of Gulp nitecrawler and or a waxie. The report on Silver for walleye has been a jiggin Rapala and a minnow. I will report later.

Welcome

This is a new adventure for me. I intend to use this blog to try and provide information about fishing, methods, places, equipment that I use to be successful. I hope to publish fishing reports, hot bites and cool spots. If you have ever wondered about muskie, walleye or panfish in Boji Land this is the place to be.
I need mention where Boji Land is. Boji Land is located in northwest Iowa, some of you have heard of West and East Okoboji Lakes. Boji land includes that and more, to me it is all the water and wild spaces in northwest Iowa and some of the areas along the Iowa-Minnesota boarder.