I have been busy with the front end all weekend. With the warm temps, comes the hard work of keeping the access open. The ice heaved up on Thursday. Friday I had the track hole here busting it down. We were able to use the boat ramp access on Saturday to get on and off. Thankfully the warm weather is out of here and the ice will settle back down for a week or so, or until it warms up again. Sunday was a day of opening up all of the roads and making sure that all of them were wide enough to accommodate the upcoming snow and wind. With just a few weeks of the season left, I have moved my entire fleet of rentals, for the 5th time this season, out into 30 ft of water just off of the North side of the Second Reef, just as the bottom transitions from the hard sand into the silt where the bugs live.
Now, all we can do is wait them out and see how the perch bite is going to turn out this season. I do know, that the tullibees will come in first and the perch will not be far behind. Over the years of watching the perch on the camera, I have observed and learned so much about their foraging habits over the years. I have seen the tullibees come in by the hundreds and they will all at once, start to dive down into the silt and loosen up the bugs. The perch come in and steal the bugs right out from underneath the tullibees and if there are enough perch in the school, they will start to chase the tullibees away and take over the area and they will feed in the muck until the bugs are all gone. Then they just move on to another area and do it all over again. They are definitely in competition for the same food sources during the winter months.
The tullies have started to show up over the past 5 or 6 days. I have a feeling from what I have seen so far the past few weekends, the numbers of tullibees and perch that are being caught; there will be a great perch bite towards the end of the month and into the rest of the hard water season. It is only going to get better from here on out. The bite this weekend was slow once again, except for the tullibees and a couple of big walleyes. The perch that were being caught were in the 10 to 10 ½ inch range. The perch that were caught were spitting up the mayfly nymphs. There were some very nice tullibees in the 1 to 2 lb range also being caught. My friend Jordan caught his first walleye over 28 inches on Saturday morning, and what a beautiful fish it was. I have a picture of it on the photo album, along with another picture of a very fat 25 incher sent to me by one of my season road pass people from last weekend.
So, there is still a good chance that we will see the walleyes start to show up with the perch as they start to show up to feed on the bugs; the walleyes will be feeding on them. Now, I have some bad news on the Rockman front. I have been dealing with major pain in my left ankle and I will be going in for surgery on the ankle joint on the 16th of the month. I have been dealing with a lot of pain over the past 8 months with my ankle joint. I shattered the heal bone over 15 years ago when I fell off of a power pole on the property back in 1995. The joint is completely shot and I have to go in and have it fused together. I will be on the mend for 2 ½ months. The first 6 weeks in a cast with no weight on it and then it will be physical therapy for another 6 weeks. So, as you can imagine I am not too happy about it on one hand, and relieved that it is finally going to get fixed and I will not have this pain anymore on another. The worst thing is, it will keep me off of the ice for the perch season this year. I am already trying to come up with some way to make it out at least a couple of times during the perch bite, but patty is having none of that. She has already put her 2 cents in and of course it was not I favor of any fishing while I am on the mend, for any reason.
That is just not cool, but she is right, I have to get my foot fixed while I am in my down season or it just will not get done. So, with that being said, I will still be keeping the road open as long as we can, as Jonathan will have to take over. I think that he is ready, and I have taught him everything I know about the ice and the business and what needs to be done. I will be turning the responsibility over to him on the 16th of February. I just can not wait any longer, with the severe pain I am in daily, I am not at the top of my game anyway, so I decided last week to see the doc, and get in asap to get done what I should have gotten done over a year ago.
The procedure that they are going to do is, they are going to put 2 screws up through the bottom of my heel bone and attach it to the bottom of the ankle joint, fusing the two together and eventually the bones will fuse themselves together. I will still be able to flex my foot up and down, but I will lose the ability to move it from side to side at all. It is going to be a long recovery and I will hopefully be completely mended by the opener if all goes well. So wish me luck and we will leave the rest of it in Gods hands as Patty has put it. I will be putting in a lot of hours in the plow trucks after the storm blows itself out later this week, but I am going to try to get in some fishing too, as my days are numbered.
Thanks for the report, Rockman & I wish you the best on your upcoming repair to your ankle. Just remember--even us tough guys sometimes have to get mended. Try to enjoy your time off your feet & don't let not being able to be on the ice stress you too much. Good luck to both you & Patty, she may need it more than you--just kidding--kinda.
Good luck on your procedure, Rockman. We are pulling for you dude. Just keep catching those walleye's as the best cure and it will heal fine. Thanks for the nice report. Malmo Mike...
