Fantastic Fishing!!

Wow...lots has been going on in the great North Woods!  Chelsey and Evan came up early on Wednesday afternooon and we just kind of hung out and went out to dinner with them.  They did some fishing off the dock on Wednesday night but nothing was biting except the mosquitoes (which still seem to be as big as hummingbirds!).

I worked from the resort yesterday as K had her first post operation chemo treatments.  Bill, Chelsey, and Evan finally unloaded the blocks that we bought last weekend and put about 25 blocks down where the water tank will sit.  In the afternoon, they headed out for fishing and WOW, did they catch fish!  Evan and Bill caught some nice size notherns.  Chelsey decided she was tired of being mean to minnows and decided to fish with no live bait.  The fish really liked that idea as she caught a really nice blue gill, a nice walleye and then they hit a school of perch where they all caught lots of perch (filling about 1/2 the bucket in the pics below)!  However, since we already had steak thawed for dinner last night, the fish fry will have to occur sometime over the weekend.  I am looking forward to that!!

So while K and D are gone to Bemidji, I have my first bait customer that I actually have to assist and, of course, he wants minnows rather than leeches or night crawlers that are already packaged.  I explained that I had never done bait before but he was a local who knew his way around.  I found the big net and the little scoop and managed to catch enough to fill the scoop which I then emptied into his white bucket.  The very nice man looked at me and said, "I think that I need some water also as they keep much better with water!".  Sure enough, I had dumped the minnows into a dry bucket without thinking about adding water!  I explained that this was why I generally cleaned and Bill or K took care of the bait sales!!  :-)   When I shared this story with K & D, they suggested that perhaps I thought we charged more for minnows with water??!!

After K came back from chemo and D went to work and everyone was out fishing, K and I had our meltdown and make up moment.  It had been coming for a while and although it was difficult, it felt good to clear the air between us.  I don't think people can spend this much time together without that happening occasionally!

After fish cleaning, I stayed at the resort to get charcoal started for dinner (since we decided to use one of the resort grills), while Bill, Chelsey, and Evan ran back to the cabin to get the food, etc.  As they were starting to back the boat into the spot where my car usually sits, there was a very loud popping noise and the top half of the maple tree that they were going to park under suddenly broke loose and fell into the next tree.  Luckily, the boat was not yet under the tree but unluckily the tree top is still leaning on the next tree.  This kind of tree situation is called a widow maker up here due to the challenge of controlling the top of the tree while cutting down the bottom end.  Since we are 25 miles from the nearest emergency room, we will see about getting help to cut down that tree!

Evan has training in Hibbing today we all got up and said good-bye to him at 5:30 and then went back to bed!!  We are heading over toward Grand Rapids today and will be meeting Evan for supper and then they are heading to the cities (where they will stay with Evan's parent tonight as they both work in Mankato tomorrow).  I am looking forward to a "bum around" day with Bill and Chelsey!