Ouch!

It was a beautiful weekend in every way this weekend, except one. Someone forgot to tell the lake trout to bite. Or maybe there weren't any trout in the lake we were fishing.

Officer Friendly showed up at my house at 5am on Friday. We got the truck loaded up, hitched the snow machine trailer, and took off for the Gunflint Trail. After encouraging a cow moose that was licking road salt to get out of way, we got to the lake landing at about 8:30am loaded up the otter sled and took off down the lake. After about 6.5 miles we arrived at a very nice winter camping spot on an island. What makes a good winter camping spot is a site that is low to the water with lots of brush blocking the wind. Pretty much exactly the opposite of what you want in a summer camping spot.

We set up camp and headed out to fish. It was beautiful warm and sunny day with hardly any wind. I dropped Officer Friendly off on a point extending from an island and then proceeded on to fish a point across the lake. Before I even got settled, I got a radio call that Officer Friendly had already caught a nice lake trout on a tip-up. A promising start. I missed one fish on the point and decided to move to a more prominent point. I heard from Officer Friendly that another fish had hit but it didn't make it up the hole. I caught nothing in my new spot and late in the afternoon I started to pack my gear when Officer Friendly called again-a big fish was hooked and a battle was underway. A short time later she called again and said the fish had spit the hook. She was very excited and said it was the biggest fish she had ever seen and that she had fought it "for 2 and a half, 3..." I couldn't believe it. She had fought a fish for 2 and a half hours?!!...she finished her sentence..."2 and a half, 3 minutes." Now, I am sure the fish was a very nice one, but I have witnessed people fight lake trout for 25, 30, 35 minutes before while ice fishing, so her assessment of the length of the battle was a humorous one. The big one that got away was the last bite of the day. We had a supper of jalapeno brats and sauerkraut.

On Saturday we headed out again, with Officer Friendly hitting the same point as the day before and I headed to a prominent point in the middle of the lake. I had a hit right away and missed the fish, and then didn't have any action for two hours. It was another sunny, warm, and calm day. I began trolling from spot to spot, drilling holes and looking for fish. I finally parked in front of a steep cliff and hooked a nice fish and, after a bit of a tussle, there was a funny pop at the end of the line and the fish was gone. I reeled up and discovered my snap swivel had broken. Aargh! Equipment failure haunts me. I re-rigged and soon caught a nice lake trout, but it definitely was smaller than the one I had lost. I met up with Officer Friendly late that afternoon and discovered she hadn't had a bite all day. Not good. We had tortilla soup for supper and listened to the trivia show on the radio.

We fished until 1pm on Sunday and only had 1 very small lake trout to show for it. It was another beautiful day. We packed up the gear and headed back to the landing that afternoon. It was an uneventful ride back to Duluth, other than one moment when the sun was in my eyes while driving and I said "if a deer jumped out in front of us right now, I'd never see it." And of course literally 1 second later a deer did jump out in front of us and I had to plant the brakes to avoid it.

It was a tough fishing trip. With the good weather I couldn't help but think if we had picked a better lake we would have caught more fish. I had been on the lake before without much luck, but others I had been with had good success. I must say I won't be going back to that lake for a while.

Nature Moment: On our way out fishing on Sunday morning, we noticed a large flock of ravens on the ice in front of us. Seconds later we saw two wolves running away from us towards shore. We stopped at the site and discovered a fresh deer kill. During the night the wolves had forced the doe onto the lake and brought her down on the ice. The snow at the kill site showed the evidence of a mighty struggle and the ultimate demise of the deer. The two wolves had already eaten much of the deer. We motored on to our fishing spot, but continued to watch the kill site. The highlight was when the wolves came back to the scene after we left. The ravens and an eagle had arrived back on the kill before the wolves, but when the wolves came back, they charged at all the birds and ran around, scaring them all off. A third wolf tried to come in for a bite at one point, but the two wolves ran it off rather than share. Quite soon thereafter the wolves split the deer into two pieces and drug them off into the woods, leaving only some hair behind. The whole experience was very interesting.