I am certainly glad that last week is behind me. It just seemed like everything I touched went to hell in a hand basket. From one thing to the next, each day, something either was broken or just did not want to start at all. The week started of with Mondays wind. The wind was blowing at 35 to 50 mph out of the North and there was just enough loose snow to make a heck of a mess with the snow drifting around the houses. Every house had 3 to 4 ft high drifts that were anywhere from 10 ft wide to 30 ft long across the roads. When it got cold during the blow, the snow got hard as a rock, so of course it made for some long and hard plowing days last week. That is what Jonathan and I did until Wednesday of last week. Thursday morning started off with, the 1 ton, not wanting to turn over at all, it would just click. So, I started up the red truck, I backed up to the 1 ton to hook up a chain, so that I could pull it into the warm shop and the red truck dies.
I tried to start it back up and it would only turn over, it would not fire. I knew where to start to look as I am very mechanically inclined. It ended up being the fuel pump relay at the tune of $125.00 thank you. We ended up towing both vehicles to the local garage down the road and had them take a look at both trucks. Now remember, I said we had plowed from Tuesday morning until dark and again on Wednesday morning until dark and I still had some roads and side roads to finish up before the weekend. I don’t like to plow past Thursday, just because I think it needs a day to settle down after we had plowed it for 2 days. I get a call from the garage on the 1ton and the starter was fried, at the tune of 200.00 thank you. Of course it is not your run of the mill starter that is just sitting on the shelf. I had to special order it and it will not be here until Monday or Tuesday. So we were down to the suburban and the tan and white ¾ ton trucks with no V plow truck and you needed to have the V plow to get through those hard snow drifts.
We ended up getting the red truck back at 2:30 on Thursday and decided to put the V plow on that. The plow sat pretty close to the front of the truck so I had to be careful on how high I brought the plow up. We did finish up the plowing on Friday morning and at 11:00 am I came in for a break and as I came up the hill, the plow was lifted up by the angle of the incline at the access and all of the sudden there was transmission fluid spraying everywhere. I let the plow down and drove to the shed to take a look at what had happened. The brace on the back of the plow had punched a hole in it the size of a quarter. Now I am not only down to one truck to pull houses with, the only other plow truck now has a hole in the pump housing. We were out early Saturday morning, switching out the pump casing, so I at least have something to bank up the 2 foam houses with, that I had just moved to deeper water just before I had come in to eat, which is when the hole was put in the pump.
The road out in front has been growing over the past week or so and is now making it difficult to get up and down the access for the wheel houses this weekend. Somehow the frost has gotten under the edge of twilight rd and is pushing it up rite as you go down the access. I have decided that if the county does not come out and at least grind it out and lay some gravel in it for now until spring, I will have to use the cement boat ramp as the new access for the remainder of the season for the wheel houses. I was out there today digging it out on the shoreline and of course it was right where I have been pushing snow all season. So it made for some ball busting in the skid loader this afternoon, but at least it was right on shore. There were a couple of spots that where pretty wet and slushy, from all of the weight of the snow, so I had to be very care not to get stuck on one with the loader. I did not want to end up breaking something else.
It is all done now and ready to use if need be. I do not really want use the cement boat ramp because, if the frost pushes up the boat ramp in the spring and shifts it or worse, breaks it up, it could be a very expensive fix in the spring. It is pretty much the only thing I can do to make it accessible for the wheel houses. Cars and trucks are fine going up and down the access where it always is, it is just that the wheel houses sit pretty low to the ground as it is and with the hump on the edge of the road, the wheel house get hung up on the front angle iron, as they try to go down. Anyway, Jonathan and I have been working hard all week and weekend to get things taken care of and we are back up and running on all cylinders. I did speak with the DNR today and was told that they had extended the walleye season this year until the 28th of February.
If the weather permits, we will keep the houses out until then. Usually, by that time of the year, things can get a little scary if we get warm weather with some rain as has happened many times over the past 5 years. You go to bed with snow all around and wake up in the morning to the sound water running, like a toilet flushing, only to look down at your hole as the water is rushing down them. The rain had melted all of the snow over night and the water was the only thing left and needed somewhere to go and your holes are it. Holes get very large in diameter after a few hours of having the water running into them. Not to mention that it makes it pretty spooky to go out perching after the houses come of and we are running around with 4 wheeler and sleds. I guy can get hurt pretty bad if you hit one of them.
Well, that is enough of the week from hell, here is the fishing report from the past few days. The deeper water from 26ft to 30ft was definitely better than the 12ft to 22ft. this weekend. There were a few walleyes that went over 26 inches and a few big Northern caught, but over all it was a slow bite. It was the slowest bite so far this season this past weekend. The good thing is that, the bigger perch are showing up more and more every day and the tullibees are here already. There were some guys that went out and caught over 30 of them and they were all over 14 inches long. They were going to take them home and smoke them up, little did they know, that the limit on them is 10 a piece and they had 15 a piece. So I took ten of them and sent them to the local meat market and they are going to smoke them up for me. They are a very good smoked fish and I use to net them here, way back in the day, when there were a lot of them. There were some nice perch being caught rite along with the tullibees and every now and then they would hook into a big pike and the fight was on.
They managed to catch 1 of the three they hooked into. There are some pictures coming, I just am waiting for them to email them and I will post them on the photo album. It was refreshing to see these guys talk about the day of fishing that they had after talking to so many that had not done so well, but hey that’s fishing. Even though they did not catch any walleyes, they had fun with the pike and the tullies. That is it for now at Rock Central, I hope that we do not get any more snow this coming week, I need a few days off from plowing after the past 4 days and it would be nice to see the weather warm up, just a little bit.
Have a great week
We will see ya
When we see ya
The Rockman
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Better too high than to low Better to fast than too slow The Rockman
