Cabin Feaver In Febuary

Well we got cabin fever. We haven’t been up to the cabin yet this winter so we are going to head up this Thursday to have Sunday to the Gunflint Trail. The bite have been very good for lake trout in 5 feet of water! They have been eating a lot of smelt as of late however I suspect them to start hammering the crayfish soon. We will see what happens I am supper excited to get up and enjoy the Northland. However I suggest that anyone going up there bring some type of gun. The wolf problem is getting out of control up there and the sightings are growing by the day and they are getting closer and closer to the cabins and matter of fact the Gunflint pines lost their dog to a wolf just outside of the lodge. So be careful and watch you back!

Back from our tough tough trip. We got up to the cabin only to be greeted by slush slush and more slush. We went out the first day and lost a nice trout in 8 feet of water and saw another 6 fish in the morning. Afternoon we fished the deeper area of 15-45 FOW and once again marked a lot of fish and nothing going. The first day in between the morning and afternoon we got rained off the ice which made the slush worse. The next day we started in the shallow water again and we saw many fish including a nice 10 plus pound laker. After not pegging a fish in the morning we tried the deeper shelf again and we once again marked a lot of fish but once we moved the lures at all they ditched out. So we went all out all with I fish pros and we caught one nice 3 pound eater. That was it for us.

Almost the whole time was filled with a half inch of rain and about 3 inches of snow. Not very good conditions we didn’t see the sun or the moon. We measured an average of 6 inches of slush not fun at all. We ended with the one fish and if we caught half the fish we saw we would have done really good. We lost the fish on a B Fish And Tackle pulse R in white (one of the best laker baits ever) and got our one fish on frozen ciscos. Hope for cold cold weather or hot weather to dry up the slush. We did fish hard and tried everything in the box. The trout we caught was full of smelt and I think they will be heading for crayfish soon. Good luck out there and think shallow it is often over looked and under rated. We saw a lot of fish in less than 15 feet often 8 to 5 feet of water.

I saw in yesterday’s newspaper that the DNR and Feds are seeking information on whoever shot three of the dogs and left them in a road ditch somewhere west of Duluth. One would think that if they were going to off a wolf or three to leave them in the woods.

Dogs meaning pet dogs or wolves

I would assume wolves. They are exploding in population again. My wife saw one the other day eating on a dead deer in the ditch just outside of wahkon MN. she has seen wolves before and knows the difference between them and a dog.

We saw a wolf on the way up by Brighton beach that looked awful mangy. I did bring a gun for protection because we heard a lot of wolves being a round but thankfully didn’t need to use it. The lake my cabin is on is 9 miles long and a mile wide. There are cabins half way down the lake and are mainly seasonal cabins. With the wolves seen in the yards and coming out to steel fisherman’s lake trout I was not going to get caught out there in the middle of the lake and have a pack come to me smelling my lake trout. Mind you if I did have had to use it and shoot a wolf I would have been calling the DNR and informing them of what happned and make sure they know if I killed it or what. If you have to kill a wolf to protect you, family, pet or live stock please let the DNR know and they will understand and you will not get into trouble as long as its legit. This will be very helpful in making them realize how bad this situation is. I know our DNR up in these areas understand and see the issue but its about getting more exposure and attention to the issue.

Well just got back from the cabin and we did well on lake trout. Out of three guys we caught 12 the first day and 17 the next day. Hardly any small fish the smallest fish was about 20 inches and the biggest was 29. We lost a lot of fish and marked a lot as well. Most fish were in 50-55FOW on the first day out best set up was I fish pros with a cisco 5 feet below the ice. The next day we only got one on that. Green was the best and rippin raps and walleye spoons.

The moon fazes really shined it was on about a 530-1130-530 window. We fished saddles from reef to island and mainland to island. There were times we had 2-4 fish on the screen at once. It was sunny days and boy did we get sun burnt. We had an awesome time. There was 10-12 inches of good ice yet and ice should hold the rest of the season.