February 22, 2023 – Apologies for the Absence, It’s Been a Busy Winter!
Hi All,
I apologize for not having posted anything for a while, and for not getting the journal from our Montana hunt done yet. As things tend to always go, it has become a pretty busy winter. Shortly after getting through the holidays, my good friend Jake from Wisconsin came up to visit us for a weekend of ice fishing and visiting. We had a great time and a very successful weekend of fishing walleye and lake trout. We had a nice walleye dinner one night and were able to send Jake home with his limit as well. Linds also caught this beautiful laker that was around 10 lbs:
Two weeks later I was off to Thunder Bay for an annual 5 day fishing trip with friends, but not before Lindsay and I spent 2.5 days making over 100 pounds of sausage with deer and moose from this fall. We made burger patties, jalapeno and cheddar brats, andouille, chorizo, breakfast sausage, summer sausage, and kielbasa. It was a busy couple of days but we really enjoyed it and have been enjoying the spoils of the hard work, especially on the ice.
The day before leaving for my trip to Thunder Bay, I got a message from Jake informing me that he had told his brother in law Adam about the fishing we had while Jake was up here on his trip, and that Adam was now on his way North to do some DIY ice fishing of his own. Now it may sound a little sudden and crazy that Adam would pack up on such short notice and come all the way up here from Wisconsin, to try his hand ice fishing where he has never fished before, all while living out of his truck. However, Adam films and hosts his own Youtube show and social media platform called Free2Prowl, where he films and posts all of his experiences. He has a retrofitted F-150 that he travels and lives in while on the road chasing various wildlife, and hunting and fishing adventures.
Unfortunately I was off to Thunder Bay the next day for a trip that had been planned for months, so I wouldn’t be able to fish with Adam and show him around. However, I was able to meet Adam in Thunder Bay on his way through. We chatted for about an hour and I gave him some tips and waypoints and he was off to Ignace to start fishing. We kept in touch basically daily while I was fishing on my trip, and he was exploring the area around home.
We had a great trip in Thunder Bay and explored a few new lakes. It is a relatively new area for us to be fishing, and there are a lot of lakes that we can access, so we have been exploring and learning more and more each year. This year we fished 4 different lakes and caught fish in all of them varying from walleye, lake trout, brook trout, and splake.
I got home with two days to spare before we were on our way down to Wisconsin to visit Jake and his fiancée Elizabeth, for Elizabeth’s bridal shower. Adam would be on his way back to Wisconsin to continue his fishing trip the day after us, but in the meantime we were both in Ignace, so I was able to take him out to a lake he hadn’t been to yet. We had a blast fishing together and had a good day, catching 10 lake trout varying from around 1-3 pounds. The next day Lindsay and I were on our way down to Wisconsin, and were there through this past weekend, returning home Monday night. If you want to see more of Adam’s trip up here or to follow him along check out his socials on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Tik Tok at Free2Prowl.
Now we have a week of downtime to get caught up around the house and then we are off to Cuba with Mom for two weeks. We will be joined by her brother Brian and his wife Marj for one of the weeks and are really looking forward to spending some time with them. Currently we don’t have too much planned for the trip and are really looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. So far this winter has been warmer than usual, but when temps have dropped it has been very cold, so we will enjoy a break from it.
We have ordered our calendars and news letters and they should be printed soon. I suspect we won’t be able to get them out until mid March after we are home from Cuba, but you can expect to start seeing their arrival then. I’ll be sure to get another post up once we get back from Cuba to give another update as we get closer to spring.
Take care,
Ryan