Fishin', The Last Weekend??

Memorial Day weekend is normally a good time to be fishing our lake. This year, because of a couple of cold fronts, the crappies were pushed out. We did catch a mess of sunfish and Taylor helped us clean them.
Sunday night, John and I decided to make a campfire and watched the grandkids fish off the dock as the sun was setting. Of course, Taylor nailed this nice crappie and the kids caught a few more before they decided to play soccer in the dark...
Taylor also caught this nice bass from shore and with the walleye she caught two years ago, she is becoming quite a fisher person. I told her next is to gut out grandpa's deer. We'll see how that goes.
Earlier that evening John, Glenda and all three grandkids went fishing. I lit up a cigar, poured a Jack and sat on the hill looking over the lake. I thought of all the years we've spent up here (17 to be exact). I thought of all the great people who made the journey up 94 to hang out with us. I don't know if this was ever a home or just a destination, a gathering point for us and our friends.
We pulled the boat that night. While John headed for the boat landing with the trailer, I made one last swing around the lake. A lake I've fished for 35 years. Sometimes I hated that lake. Sometimes I loved it.
But, the only constant in life is change and I think it's time. As Bob Seger said, "..turn the page".

DeweyFest!!!

T'was a fine time this weekend! Everybody took the time to drive on up, or over, to celebrate "The Old Norwegians" 60th birthday.
The NW wind and cold temperatures made fishing lousy, to say the least, but at least it didn't rain.
I got roasted by my 'friends", but they were pretty easy on me. It coulda been worse....
As you can see, much goes on at "DeweyFest" Brian is catching up on the latest news while Kurt concentrates on walking a straight line. Don't ask me why. I don't know...
A special thanks to Doug and Loretta for ALL the work they did in puttng this together. BTW, Loretta's the pretty one and Doug is the one with the funny foot...
I wish I had a better picture of me but this is all ya get. Wind burned dragging Kurt, Al and Mikey all over the lake.
Thanks to you all...... Dewey P.S. "What a long strange trip it's been".....

Noodling, Norwegian Style

So, Tuesday night I stopped at the culvert to make sure water was still flowing out of our lake. The water is still about a foot over the culvert but the vortex was really small. I saw a brown mass stuck in it and figured it was partially clogged with weeds. Being tired and since I was a bachelor last week and had to cook my own dinner, I said to heck with it and started to drive home. A pickup flagged me down. It was one of my neighbors, Charles, and he asked me I saw the weeds in the culvert. He wanted to know if I thought he could remove them with a rake without getting wet. I said'go for it" as I was tired and wanted to go home.
My phone rings aboput a half hour later. Charles was down at the culvert, had got all wet and said the water was too deep. He said he only had waist high waders and needed chest high ones. I asked him if he wanted me to come on down and, of course, he said yes.
When I waded in, the water immediately got all murky and I couldn't see a thing. I reached down with my bare hands and felt what seemed to be a piece of metal wedged in the culvert. Then I grabbed onto what I thought was a piece of rope. I pulled on it with no success and finally stuck both hands down around this object and started to twist and tuen it. Finally it came unclogged and I pulled up, by it's shell, the largest snapping turtle I had ever seen. My response was "AAAAAHHHHH" and some words I won't repeat and I dropped it. It was floating on it's back, as I picked myself up from the mud, and we just stared at it. Of course, since we had now cleared the culvert, a very large vortex now formed and guess what? The turtle was sucked back into it. We stared at each other as now the culvert was plugged again, AND, we knew what was in it. I looked at Charkles and said, "Are you sure that turtle was dead?" He "thought so"...
Well, once the water cleared a bit, I saw the tail and started to yank on it. When it broke free, Charles grabbed it by the back of the shell and we pulled it out of the water. We flung it to keep it out of the wonderful vortex we had once again created. As I pulled myself out of the muck, Charles hollered "it's alive!" Sure enough, it was swimming around. I had Charles push it to shore so it wouldn't get sucked into the ^&**(^%$% culvert again, and there we were.... So, we picked it up with the shovel, walked it across the road, and deposited it into the neighboring lake.
I then went home and poured a giant highball. The next day, the good old boys at work said I was lucky to have all my fingers....
Next time the culvert is plugged, I ain't stoppin'
The crappies started to come in this weekend so fishing should be good next weekend for DeweyFest. But first, I gotta go and try and get another turkey.....

Another season is upon us

Well, I hired a young guy that works for me, and his buddy, to help me and "The Great Indoorsman" put everything in the lake this weekend. The new dock is easier to put in but I should have had the front poles made longer. Hope the lake keeps going down. But, what the heck, it looks nicer and isn't that what counts?

Glenda heads for Wisconsin this week so Sam and I will be on our own.The Opener will be kinda different as for the first time in probably 30 years, I will fish alone. Although I do have this 105 lb four legged friend laying on the floor by me snoring as I type this. He always likes to ride in the boat.

One more week and it's off to Wisconsin in search of another turkey. Al says we are also going to look for morel mushrooms. That's gonna be interesting cuz I don't know the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous ones. Think I'll let him to the pickin' Two days of hunting and then it's a mad dash back home for "DeweyFest"

Hey Walker, good luck on your surgery tomorrow.....