Thanks for the feedback; I followed UNINC’s advice. We’ll see how it goes! I don’t really do any trips where I can’t charge it overnight.

I drove by Nokomis last Sunday and saw two guys fishing about 100 yards off shore near the beach house. Have no idea what ice conditions were like though.

That hasn’t happened yet to me. I probably wouldn’t do it, right before a trip where a large snowfall was forecasted

If it’s not a super long stay, I just park my car 1-2 blocks away from the 50th street lightrail station in residential parking, and then walk to the light rail. It’s about a 10 min light rail ride to the airport from there. I’ve done it about 12 times without any issues.

It’s $12 for non residents; $8 for residents. Nice big lot and docks in as of last Sunday. I assume you can park there after dark.

It’s not too terrible to just take your shoes off, roll your pants up, and get in the water. Wakes you up too. Then leave your boots, socks, and a towel in the boat.

I’m very anti-insurance; as listed above the goal of these companies is to make money. On average, insurance is 80% payout; in the long run for every $1 you give an insurance company, you get 80 cents back. That’s why I like the idea of self insuring; save up money so you have funds to pay the huge vet bill that probably won’t happen but has some chance of occurring.

Now, that being said, there are some situations where a worse case scenario would be catastrophic. (getting diagnosed with cancer, being the cause of a 10 car pileup, having a large mortgage and your house burning down). From those cases, health insurance, car insurance, and home insurance are necessary evils. Still, I like the idea of doing the basic minimums on those.

Thanks! I don’t know; but I think Hudson is the first to close down. Bayport is essentially always open btw.

Thanks! I was pumped. Overall this year even the eaters seem a little chunkier than usual too

I’ll be out Saturday. Haven’t fished in 2 weeks but did get this 26.25” fish last time I was out! 15 fow on a crawler harness

Would be interesting to hear how others are doing too. Moving around to find fish will be tougher with no wake.

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My cabin is in an area that has alot of tick / lyme disease issues, and the 2nd time my dog got Lyme’s disease (we think) I was able to just get the medication without having to pay for a test.

I once did that with Steelhead, and was able to mix it with cream cheese, chopped onion, capers, etc into a pate and it spread out the salt enough.

Another option with the salty grouse would be to make a cream of wild rice soup, with no salt added, and that would dilute the saltiness of the grouse.

I’ll run maybe a 20 ft of leader. 10lb power pro if I’m on the st croix. 12 or 14” flourocarbon Seagar on Lake Superior.

I know the package on a #7 shad rap says 5-11 ft. is the running depth which is quite the range. I’m guessing especially with the lower diameter power pro, the dive is on the higher range of the 5-11 ft so that’s how I came up with 10 ft. I don’t mind being 1-2 ft off the bottom on the st croix trolling lead, and some of my bigger fish seem to come even higher off the bottom.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a fish break my line trolling lead except for maybe a king or on Lake Michigan. I’ve done little barrel swivels which work well; otherwise I’ll tie a connecting knot.

5 colors should be just fine; no reason to have a super big heavy reel that has 10 colors; especially for walleye. I just do 3 colors on a lot of my rods. A few other things:

1. Leadcore will give a different action to lures (especially spoons); always good to have it in your arsenal. Sometimes it will outfish the other rods, sometimes not.

2. I typically like running leadcore straight off the back (no boards), one long rod on each side of the boat, and then run deep diving cranks off mono on the boards.

3. Suffix Advanced leadcore I really would recommend.

4. Leadcore is very speed dependent; going faster or slower will greatly change your depth.

5. When you’re factoring in depth, typically add how much the lure would go down without leadcore. For example, I use suffix advanced leadcore that goes down 7 ft per color. For example, a #7 shadrap will troll about 10 ft down unassisted. If I have 2 colors of lead, my depth is approximately now 10 + 2(7) = 24ft. And yes, to answer your question, 2 colors of lead mean 2 colors totally submerged in the water.

6. You’re not supposed to attach lead directly to a planer board, although I have done so here and there without any line breaks or anything.

They will taste anything between amazing to mediocre depending on how long they have been in this body of water since leaving the hatchery!

I fished out of the Pines this last weekend in a day house Saturday and Sunday. Good times! Lots of perch; yes lots of 5” perch but we caught plenty of 8-12” perch to get meals. 5 slot northern and a 14” walleye so overall not bad! Chad was a big character and great host!

The bay we were in had lots of good ice and no cracks. We were about 2 miles off shore of the pines in 17-18 fow. Sounds like outside of that bay there was a big pressure crack that was spouting water after the heavy winds on Sunday.

Wouldn’t affect me, but I just think of those guys with young families that get to go on 1 or 2 fishing weekends a year. It’d be nice to bring home 6 fish if you’re gone fishing for 2-3 days.

I think 4 fish would make more sense if MN made your possession limit twice your daily limit like WI does.

Average size only 6-12 inches?

Went out for 2 hours after school yesterday, fished 4-6pm trolling #7 shadraps on lead. Anderson pt got us 2 smallmouth, then went into the hudson channel. Managed a 17” and 15” eye, and a white bass. Still a decent amount of floating weeds in the hudson channel which hampered our productivity. Overall a nice evening to be out.

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I don’t really fish the croix August / September. It seems to be hit or miss, with more misses / mediocre walleye fishing than hit (at least for me).

Liking the cooler weather! If I get a chance to get out should be decent fishing now. The rain might help too today/tomorrow

Kinda off topic, but curious what skills / attributes go into being an elite professional tournament fisherman? I’m a high school teacher, and if one of my students said they wanted to play in the nfl and willing to do whatever it takes, I’d be skeptical to say the least on their ability to do so.

On the other hand, what would you say to a high school kid who said the same thing about being an elite bass tournament angler when they grow up? Is that practical? What would you say to them?

I got a 42” on the Croix right where a coldwater stream comes in mid summer. Lot’s of others 30-39” too when looking for cold water inlets mid summer. Metro lakes are harder hit with more pressure so could be harder to find big pike there.

Not in MN, but door county Wisconsin has some of the best smallmouth fishing in the country. I fish Washington Island (season opens July 1st) and it’s so much fun seeing all the fish swimming around in 2-5 feet of crystal clear water

It’s no secret spot, but the Hudson Channel last sunday was stacked with boats and fish. From 8-noon caught about 30 fish; 7 of which were legal walleye with 19” the biggest. We trolled cranks and then switched to harnesses, but I would think you can catch them pretty much using any common walleye technique if you’re within 2 feet of the bottom.

Hard to say for sure, but I would think the hudson channel will continue to produce for the next 1-2 weeks. Eventually most fish will be moving out.

There are campsites north of the high bridge that are really nice. In general the river is very uncrowded from osceola to the high bridge.

Remember you can go south from the high bridge but not north. One of my favorite things to do is to take two cars, leave one in stillwater, and launch in taylors falls for a one way very scenic 28 mile trip. Then take the other car back to taylors falls to get the other vehicle with the trailer.

I was out two times this week with good numbers of both short and keeper walleye. Out of Hudson trolling cranks

Going about a month from now to put in bay. Super excited for it!

Not a lot of variability of different planer boards in my opinion. I think the yellow offshore ones are a little more robust than other competitors in terms of running smooth in waves, running smooth with heavy resistance from your lure/line/weights, and overall durability over the years.

An advantage to the orange church walleye boards is that you won’t loose the board if it becomes unclipped as the board will just slide back to the lure.

Did anybody get out yesterday? Going next weekend and curious what’s working

Fished frontenac 1pm-5pm Saturday. Ended up with 3 decent sauger and a white bass. Nothing crazy but not terrible. Way more pressure than I would have expected. And no, I didn’t park on the ice!