Three Svens

I got to go up to Red Lake this opener with Tom Allen and Rick Binder et.al.

We drove up Thursday morning and got to the lake around 4:30. Mrs. Binder's parents have a cabin at a little development some guy built a long time ago. He cut canals and an entrance to the lake. The lake basin is really shallow for several hundred yards out, so docks are out of the question. Plus on that big of a lake, the waves that whip up would beat your boat to death in a storm. Mrs. Binder's lot isn't developed, but it is on the canals, so we kept our boats there.

We stayed at Bear Paws Guides http://www.bearpawguides.com and had a few blocks to go to get to the boats. We loaded up our stuff, went to get Tyler - the guide - and headed out into the big wind.

Did I mention the shallow part?
The big waves part?
The brand spanking new Lund 18 Fisherman that Rick got at the boat show?

Let's just say that boat control with the OB tilted as high as possible to make it through the sand bar is a bit of a trick. Add to that 3' rollers and you get some dicy moments. Like the triple wave set that we almost dove into the third wave. It actually cleared the bow on Tom's 18' Crestliner and they took water over the bow. Thank goodness for bilge pumps! Eventually we got the speed figured out that kept the bow up and the motor out of the muck and kept us from getting pounded by the rollers. It was a wild ride. Do not try this in a little boat.

We made it over to the North side of the lake to a spot Tyler has been fishing for Crappies since ice out. It was on the 5-6 foot break line. He had one on within about 30 seconds and the fun began. We caught 34 crappies and tons of walleyes on 1/16 oz. jigs and minnows. Mike Binder caught several in a row on a jig with a beetle spin white plastic body.



The only thing that stopped the fun was the setting sun and the fact that we were a mile or so across the lake and we didn't really know where we were going. We found it before dark - and it was a fantastic sunset by the way - and the Setterholms had dinner all ready for us. Wow.