Press Lake Camp
Fishing and Hunting Camp

April 13, 2022 – The Winter That Won’t End And Some New Orleans Pictures, Finally!

Posted on April 13, 2022

Current vacancies for the 2022 season:

May 28 – June 4 – 3 Cabins available

August 27 – September 3 – 1 Cabins available

September 10 – October – Scattered openings every week

 

Hi All,

Well, I guess Mother Nature is getting caught up for the drought last summer. We are in the middle of April and still have about 30″ of snow in the bush and still have close to 36″ of ice on the lakes. And to top it all off, we are forecasted to be hit by a massive blizzard that could be another 12-18″ of snow before the weekend. We have been seeing warm days where the snow has begun to melt, but most nights it is back down to 20-25 degrees F and everything refreezes. We are hopeful that by next week we will start seeing it go fast, but until then there isn’t a whole lot we can do besides enjoy the late ice fishing season and wait until it is all over. We do have a plow lined up to get us into camp late next week or early the week after as a contingency plan in case things aren’t melting, and fear not I’m sure the lake will be open in time for the season opener on the 21st of May.

As I mentioned above, we have been out doing a bit of ice fishing. Walleye season closes on April 15th, and this time of year they tend to concentrate near the mouths of the rivers they spawn in and feed quite actively before dark. With the days getting longer we enjoy getting out for lake trout in the morning and then either switching spots or lakes and fishing for walleye in the evening. Of course I’m not great at remembering to take pictures but here is a shot of some walleye Lindsay, myself and one of our friends caught last week.

I think we are all done chasing walleye until May as we have a bunch of family coming for Easter and we will be getting ready for that, but I do hope to get out for trout once or twice more next week before the ice starts to go.

I’m a little late I know, but here are some pictures of our trip to New Orleans. Of course we did an airboat tour, which was Lindsay’s first time being on one so we had lots of fun! We were fortunate enough that my Aunt Kristen was able to join us from Atlanta for the last few days of the trip as well, which was awesome as we don’t get to see her nearly as much as we would like to. She even came down in time to make it out fishing with us on the Gulph.

 

 

We were there over Mardis Gras which as you would expect was both crazy busy, and an absolute blast. We spent a little too much time enjoying the sights and parades ourselves though, and didn’t take too many pictures. Mom has always loved parades so she really enjoyed going down and catching one or two of the parades daily. The highlight of the trip for me (and I’m pretty sure everyone else too) was of course getting out fishing. I have read about how great the Red Drum fishing is off of Louisiana, and boy it did not disappoint! We hired Captain Ed from St. Bernard Fishing Charters (who I can’t recommend enough) for a day on the gulf, and the 4 of us caught A LOT of fish. We were mainly targeting bull reds and sheepshead and we must have caught at least 20 reds close to or pushing 20 lbs. and easily another 25-30 sheepshead. We all had a great time and cooked up a really nice meal when we got home!

 

 

All in all we had a really great trip together, and after 2 years of Covid it was nice to be able to get away from home and explore the world a bit. I hope everyone has a great Easter, we are looking forward to spending it with my mom and Lindsay’s family. We are even cooking up a Louisiana style shrimp boil with seasonings we brought back north with us, alongside some of the red fish we brought home as well!

 

Ryan