Official Dick Pearson Lotw Fall Trolling Report....

[Illinois Dennis]

There you go Dick, all you gotta do is fill in the blanks buddy:

TUESDAY


WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

[dpear]

OK Dennis,thanks for making it easy.Here goes:

Tuesday:Arrived about 3:30 PM.Picked up at Youngs by Frank and chauffered to Oak Island.Saw one trolling boat on the way but he appeared to have nothing hooked nor did we see a stringer out so assume he was skunked to that point.
Upon arrival at Oak we stood in amazement approx 43 minutes at all Frank and Laura had done for us in our absence.Nothing major,just things like cut/stacked enough firewood to last our lifetimes,filled in under our rear entrance so as to stabilize our porch,(a task necessitated by some remodeling he did earlier for us and which required a minimum of 413 trips carrying/hauling dirt from a pile about 20 yds away),replaced the 'winter' door to our basement/crawl space and assorted related items that shortened our intended work load immensely.
After the 'amazement/ stage we proceeded to enter our cabin and its at this point I ran into my first problem of the trip.Assuming a freezing anmosphere would greet us,we both had dressed accordingly and I had not taken any precautions to prevent fogging of my eyeglasses.Upon entry we were immediately uncomfortable and our glasses horribly fogged due to excessive heat.It appears that someone entered the premises in advance and had a roaring fire going-ceratainly a setback but one we were forced to deal with-and did.(largely by divesting ourselves of stocking caps,sno-mo suits and 4 layers of Under Armour.)We proceeded to cope by kicking back in summer bermudas,making a pot of coffee and dancing a muskie jigg(a motion thing vs a hooking thing)utilizing the Metallica background music in my DVD as an aid.
Just prior to dark,I proceeded to my boat and started cleaning it out.Thats always an interesting event cause I inevitably find 10-15 muskie lures that have been missing for months.In the course of that I found a few exotic colored but hook rusted Jakes that I unloaded in Frankies boat.I'm sure you agree thats adequate compensation for those aforementioned tasks he had done for us.
After a couple lawn cart loads of lures and other critical items were hauled to the cabin,I called it a day as far as trolling goes.Doubt you'd be interested in my evening since it only involved a bacon wrapped tenderloin,spuds,etc and then the solving of a few 'Logic Puzzles' from the Sterling Innovation book and a chapter or two of Mortimer Adlers 'We Hold These Truths'.
Wednesday:I'm up,into my 3rd cup,and soon will venture over to see Frankie run a 'heat line' between a couple of cabins.(I picked this up in Roseau yesterday for him and I gurantee you'd be shocked at the price).I then will start our 'winterizing 'process in our cabin and hope that Frankie and I can wet a rusty Jake or two later.More to follow.

[dpear]

Quick postscript:Headed to Franks but was forced back by a herd of deer between the properties.I retreated to my enclave for another fortifying coffee and will try reach Frankies again later.More to follow.

[dpear]

OK,here's the wrap up for Wednesday.Got to spend a couple hours crawling around under Franks cabins on knee pads assisting with 'heat lines'.In the cold and always having been claustraphobic,I can only say that crawl spaces are great and doing this was much better than trolling.
As to trolling,we actually did go out for 4 hours or so.We caught one muskie about 45 inches and a couple pike.Slow and cold would describe it.
The rest of my trip can be summarized by saying:tomorrow morn we finish 'winterizing' the cabin,load up and head home.While it was exciting as hell to have the rod 'go off',you trolling guys are NUTS and I'm back to hunting.:)

[dougj@wiktel.com]

Dick:

Trolling is fun. Three 50"+ fish in the past three days.

Doug Johnson

[dpear]

Yes,I agree,that would be fun.Or at least better.I'm just a caster I guess.

[Illinois Dennis]

Dick,
Sounds like you had a good, overall experience this trip anyway. I'm assuming yanking the boat as well this trip. What Mr. Smith and the rest will tell you, half the fun of trolling is...... Frank! I bet the same holds true in tight crawl spaces.

[Muskie Junkie]

Doug J. did not elaborate on this but Gene Seuring got a 51 with him and Harvey Gustafson got a 50. They stopped by LOTW on their way home from Lac Seul where Harvey had already broke his personal best of 43 with a 46 then a 51. Jeff Gayhart also broke his personal best with a 49. Great job folks. :D:D

Steve

[dpear]

You nailed it there Dennis!And Scarlett-keeping her off the fish is a much better battle.:)
Yep dropping the boat off at Duaines shortly.Fini!
SoDaks version of Christmas,New Years and St Paddies day starts saturday-the Pheasant Opener.Only time/place in the world other than Iraq or Afghanistan where they hand you ammo when you step off the plane.Truly is a 'praise the lord and pass the ammo' place.

[Tim Kelly]

We started our pheasant and partridge shooting last week. The new (brown) dog's first day out, and he didn't disgrace himself totally, so a success!

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Tim--Kelly/20091010_0003.jpg

[dpear]

Tim,
Our attire here in SoDak is slightly different.Bib overalls,baseball cap and a sawed off orange sweatshirt to meet the color requirement.
My brown dog is very similar though,except he likely would be biting one leg of my bibs.
Good hunting!
Dick

[Tim Kelly]

You'll have to come over and then you'll have a chance to dress up in a daft tweed outfit and play with a big boys!

You'd be welcome any time.

[dpear]

By golly Tim,I'll talk to uncle Frankie about this.Maybe we'll come over.I can see myself in daft tweed,tarton scarf,Scottish border sweater,etc on a driven hunt but somehow trying to visualize Frankie in that attire-with partly rolled down Muck boots just doesn't compute.We'll bring Big(my 'brown' dog) to bite everyone and Scarlett to steal everything.Should be fun.

[Tim Kelly]

Bring a few vets along too. Man what a party!

The shoot I go on in that picture has a charity day once a year for Headley Court, which is the rehabilitation centre for injured military personel. Some US vets and some of our boys could make for a good day!