The Head Party!!

There were 37 contestants in our local deer contest and 9 heads brought in. It seems more and more hunters are letting the small ones go, which is nice to see. I was at a hockey game and was late in showing up but got to see a few of them.



This one was shot only a few miles from my place, I didn't even know he was there! Sure reminds me of my brothers deer last year. Here is the post 2007 Deer Party

The winner scored 161 and change. A real trophy!

Bombardier Time Already!!

We have had a nice fall and deer season is over, no big buck for Johnny! Hunted quite a bit but didn't see anything worth taking this year. My standards are getting quite high now. Our local end of season deer head party is this weekend. I hope to get there to get some pictures of some Bucks from around my place!

The ice is getting thicker and finally we have 11-12 inches close to shore. The 1954 "Auto-Neige", we call it a "Bombardier" is back out there as a 3rd man. My brother has made many changes and improvements to the old girl to make our lives easier. He has put a net roller on the front to pull out the nets, and a net puller on the back to pullem back in, he loves to work with metal!

Fishing has been better than we have seen in many years so we are both tired and sore but happy to be catching fish! The Bombardier is nice since the net puller does all the pulling, Jamie takes out the fish and I clean them all. Suckers, Northerns, Whitefish, and the oh so valuable Walleye!

Here is Jamie on our first day out west withe Bombardier checking the ice.

So many days start out nice and calm.......


And before you know it it starts to blow!!!! It can be so nice in shore but drifting and cold out on the lake!


Then it gets even windier, Manitoba, where we live is a very windy place for some reason, gives you a good tan though!!!!

Good times out on the Lake!!

The Old Jigger!!!

The Battery died on our electric Jigger so we thought we would bring out "The Original" We come to realize fairly quickly that technology has come a long way. It is a lot more work setting nets the old way. We finished off the day on some good ice but will be buying a new battery for the electric Jigger so we don't have to use the Board any more!






This beautiful ice is great for skating on!! So clean it is almost scary. It has been Minus 20 Celcius lately so the ice is making really fast with no snow out there.



My Brother Jamie with a nice Walleye!

Lake Manitoba Freezing Over!

The freeze up is a little late this year but most of the ice in Long Point Bay on Lake Manitoba is perfect. My Brother and I set a bunch of nets and hopefullly the wind does not break it up. There was about 2 inches of ice and it was perfect for setting. Here are a few pics. The next ones will be of fish, hopefully.


There was some open water 20 feet away from where our net ended up. This would make most people nervous!!!! I've been doing this since I was 10 years old. Just be careful and make sure you and your partner don't fall in!




Then after one more cold night, there was lots of good ice, No open water.... except out in the big lake. It takes awhile to freeze that big body of water.




This is the Jigger. It travels under the ice to take the line out for pulling our nets under the ice. There is about 2 inches of ice here.



I have been hunting a lot lately but haven't seen any bucks worth shooting. They are there but just haven't hooked up yet. Hunting slows down a lot when fishing starts:(

Hockey well under way!

Rena and I are back in Manitoba now and settling in. Hockey is well under way and I am happy to report that Maija's team started out with a win!! Most years we get a beating in our first game of the season but these kids are going to be contenders this year!! This was also their first game of Body contact and they took to it like naturals. After each one on the team(only 9 skaters) got nailed at least once. My daughter Maija got nailed on her first shift. The team we were playing had a few 2nd year PeeWee's on their team so they really took it to us right off the hop. We were down 3-1 at the end of the first and it did not look promising. After having a talk with them to settle everyone down, a new team came out. We scored 3 unanswered goals in the second to take the lead after 2 periods. The biggest thing was that we were taking the physical play to them! Our team looked like they had been playing hitting hockey for years. We totally dominated in the 3rd period getting one more goal icing the win at home. With not many skaters, they will have to get in shape and be tough as nails. Ironman Hockey I call it!! Lets hope they can keep it up.

The Bucks have just started scraping here in Manitoba and it is snowing here today and getting colder. This will definately get them fired up and next week should be good hunting. My stands are set up and I am ready for the rut. Maybe this is the year.......

New Pictures!!

Things are winding down here in Red Lake. Spending some much needed time in the office with Rena! Here are some new pictures from 2 couples who were at Blackbirch this summer.