Nothing ever stays the same on the lake!

It has been a pretty good year for my brother and I fishing on Lake Manitoba. The walleyes have been around but we have had to chase them to keep catching. Here is one that is probably the biggest we have ever seen, 35 inches!


As the temperatures warm up and cool down, the lake breathes a lot. There is a small rocky island under that mountain of ice. At freeze up, all of that area was perfectly flat.




The ice will not even break sometimes and bend.

Our nemesis, the Crack, pushes together and goes down at times, making it too deep to cross and too dangerous. Getting stuck in the crack or worse, putting the Bombardier to the bottom and having to go swimming. It would be a long walk back to shore if you are wet and getting hypothermia. We crossed here the day before.


We found a place to cross but after crashing our way across decided that we would not cross here again.....There is ice under there but it has 5 feet of water on it.

We recently had a foot of snow and a huge wind along with it making the road near the lake high with drifts and even the old Bombardier could not make it through. We had to get the tractor to get us out.

Hard travelling comes with all the snow. And following that is breakdowns. The 1953 Bombardier has seen some metal fatigue jumping cracks and crashing over rock hard snow drifts. Our back axle broke. Seven miles out. It was a nice sunny day so my nephew Trent and Maija jumped on the snowmobile and followed our tracks out to get us. We tore the Bombardier apart, and left the kids out there while we went home to weld.




Back in action, at least it was not a stormy day and 40 below.

Hockey Day in Canada!

Saturday was Hockey day in Canada. There was thousands of hockey games being played in every corner of our vast country. Both of my girls were involved as well. Taina played at the same time as Maija so Rena and I were in 2 different places. Taina's team tied 2-2, and she had one goal for her team. Maija's Peewee team played an exhibition game against a new rival. The Oakville Seals. We were playing in their arena but it was a nice small ice surface, perfect for a first meeting. Both teams had many chances in the first two periods but Oakville held a 2-0 lead on us after the second period. We had many chances but not too many quality shots on their net. After the intermission, we came out and scored in the first minute of the 3rd period. We were taking the body and had a strong forecheck going. I knew we were coming back! Halfway through the last 20 minutes we tied the game, shorthanded! Our kids were gaining momentum each shift. Then we let their best player get too much room for one shift. He is a strong player and found the back of our net after getting his own rebound, finishing off his hat-trick with 4 minutes remaining. We held them in their end for the rest of the game but could not find a way to tie it up even though we pulled the goalie to make it 5 on 5 since we had a player in the penalty box. A good game. They want to return the game so we will be playing in our rink next time....