Walleye on Lake Kabetogama

We both caught beautiful walleye.  Jim caught more than me and the biggest so he is winning.  I caught the most walleyes in the keeper size range.  You can only keep walleyes under 17 inches.  Of course most of the walleyes you catch are just over 17 inches which is frustrating for those looking for a walleye meal and having to throw them back.  We like to eat walleye but we like catching big fish even more so for us the fishing is great.  We've been using leeches trolling with lindy rigs which works the best when its windy.  We try to tell our guests what we have found works best - some listen, some don't but usually the ones that do catch something. 

It's finally summer weather with the temps in the 70s and now even low 80's.  The kids are playing in the water even though the water temp is only 70 degrees.  I'm looking forward to the water being warm enough for me to get in -- closer to 80 degrees is better for me.

Finally Fishing

We finally got the boat in the water and caught some walleye.  A few were too big to keep but we did catch enough for our first walleye dinner.  It was scrumptious!  While we were fishing we watched the eagle sitting in the tree.  He was fishing in the same area we were.  We didn't see him catch anything.  I had to show off my fish cleaning abilities.  Not a great picture of me but a good one of me in action.

The water temp of the lake is now in the mid 60's so its warmed up quite a bit.  The big water tower and water trampoline were put in the water this past week.  Now the kids will be having a blast in the water until they turn blue.  That's ok though because they have learned to turn the sauna on and go warm up enough so they can go back in the water.   Oh- to be that young again!

Ellsworth Sculpture Garden Revisisted

A group of us workampers and one guest took our first pontoon ride of the season.   One of the new workamper couples that came on the ride are from Louisiana and our guest was from Florida.  The couple from Louisiana have never been this far north and after being here a month had not been on the lake yet.  We also took our Florida guest because the National Park tour boat service doesn't start until later in the month.  He really wanted to see some of the sites on the lake that you can only get to by boat so we took him with us. 

We went to the Kettle Falls hotel and had lunch, then we zipped over to the Ash River and stopped at the Ashkanam resort then we stopped at the Ellsworth gardens.   The ride to Kettle Falls was a little brutal.  It was cold -- in the low fifties - so more like forties on the water- cloudy and windy.  We gave the guy from Louisiana one of our winter headbands to wear that covers your ears.  He had never seen one before and liked it especially since the hood on his sweatshirt wouldn't stay up.  We gave our Florida guest a parka to wear.  We did forget about how wet you can get when the waves are high.   Some hot wild rice soup and a little alcohol helped warm us up while we dried out.

At least on the way back the sun came out and the wind died down so we could enjoy the ride.  We got to see three or four bald eagles along the way.  We managed to enjoy the sculptures without freezing to death. 

The Mighty Little Boat Launcher

Jim and the manager are launching the pontoon boat.  It's the first week in June and we are still trying to get all the resort boats in the water.  When we first came to the resort we were amazed that they used this little Tracker to launch every size boat.  It's also amazing that the boats are connected to the front of the Tracker so that you go forward instead of backward.  It confused Jim at first since he was used to backing boats into the water.
Our boat is in the shop getting a new onboard charger and some new wiring for the electronics.  The truck goes in for service replacing bad seals on the front axles.  At this rate we might get out fishing by July.