The trout fishing has been steady. I have had some success on Gunflint, Magnetic, Portage and Birch Lakes over the last few days. Although, the weather has been keeping me on my toes! A week ago we had the February meltdown with temperatures as high as 50 degrees last Wednesday and Thursday. Most of the snow melted off the lakes with lots of slush and water as a result. This was followed by sub-zero temperatures that resulted in extremely hard and rough lake surfaces. Then we had a dusting of snow accompanied with 50 mph winds. I spent that day in my portable shelter which would have blown down the lake if it had not been hooked up to my snowmobile. I later found that my permanent shelter down by Campers’ Island had been rolled on its side by the wind. Then yesterday we had about four inches of snow and now everything is good again on the hard water.

Besides all of this there was the great snowmobile ride up on Northern Light Lake, being stuck in the slush on Loon Lake and taking an hour to get 6 machines up the hill leaving Moss Lake heading east to Hungry Jack.

Bob Sr

After the sunny warm weather on Wednesday and Thursday and the particularily windy day Friday, Saturday was a welcome normal winter day. Bob spent about 6 hours in the Pisten Bully with an attachement called the renovater, chewing up the icy hard pack on the first pass then laying track on the second pass. He was able to get through about half the trail system. He was considering heading out Saturday evening to work on the other half, but the forecast looked like it may snow so he waited. Then Saturday night it began to snow and by Sunday morning we had 4 fresh fluffy inches. He headed out at 7am for another go-round and seems to have made better time as he is now plowing around camp. I suspect he was able to remove the renovator and simply lay track, but whatever the case a guest came in the lodge a little after 9am to tell me “Tell Bob the trails are spectacular!!”

We had a mid week melt, but didn’t loose too much. Back to colder temps. 5.6F this morning with a trace of new snowfall – not sure how much because the wind is howling a 20 – 30 mph!

I have been up on Sag a few times recently. The first time was with my brother Dale and a few friends. We traveled the Mn/BWCA/Canada border to where we walked into the BWCA. The action was’nt fast , but it was steady and we eneded up with 16 lake trout for 9 fishermen. Most were in the 2-3 lb. range.

I next fished with my brother-in-law Aaron Gotrocks. He is somewhat of a city boy, so rather then walk deep into the Boundary Waters, I choose to park on the border and fish on the BWCA side of the snowmobile. It was -11 degrees every mornong during Aaron’s visit, so we opted to fish from my portable shelter. Aaron managed to catch a couple nice eater sized lake trout before hooking the big one! He had this fish on for about 10 minutes and was unable to get it close enough to the hole to get a look at it. At one time during the fight, I pulled the shelter down to make it easier fight the fish and access the hole only to have Aaron tell me that “he was’nt having fun any more” as he was to cold. Unfortunately the big guy got away without being seen. I am sure it has grown some in Aaron’s mind by now.

Bob Sr