Here is how the Minnesota DNR Climatology Office ranks this year’s Twin Cities’ meteorological winter (December-February):

*Estimate including average temperature for February

*Through Thursday, Feb 16

*Through Thursday, Feb 16

The warm temps have scared me off the ice, although I heard metro lakes have about a foot of ice on them. That’s good enough for a 4-wheeler, but not enough for cars. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying. There have been a record number of cars needing to be pulled out of lakes.

Between the thinner ice and other activities (like Lego League), I’ve only been ice fishing once this year. Fortunately, I’ve registered for a tournament next Saturday. I’m looking forward to catching some ice crappie and, if I’m lucky, an ice Northern or walleye.

I read on the Outdoor Blogger Network that 5.11 Tactical is holding an adventure contest. Yes, the page says the deadline was Jan 9, but OBN assures me I have until Friday morning, Jan 13.

The main rule says, “We want to hear about your outdoor adventures – this can be anything related to your experiences in the outdoors.” I don’t have an idea for a new post (as I haven’t done anything outdoors for about 4 months), so I’m going to submit one of my posts that has already been published. Most of my blog entries are (obviously) about my fishing adventures, but I’m looking for a post that is more unique. I narrowed it down to one of these:

• MNFlyAngler – a bass angler out of his comfort zone
• Lumberjacking, Almost skunking, and Ridiculousness – several unusual adventures in one day
• Another Almost Fish for MNAngler, Jr. – a story about my son and the fish he almost caught – who doesn’t like a story about kids?
• Wacky Worm-irific! – typical fishing story, but with some surprises
• Why It’s Safe to Use a Heater When Ice Fishing – ok, not really an outdoor adventure, but interesting nonetheless

Which one do you think I should submit? Or, is there another post of mine that you found more memorable?

Thanx for your help!

Last May, I wrote an open letter to BassProShops asking them to open a store in Minnesota. In my idyllic mind, I saw my post collecting thousands of signatures (i.e. comments) to start a grass roots effort that ultimately brought BassProShops to Minnesota.

Well, that didn’t happen.

Frankly, I was surprised there wasn’t more interest. But, no matter.

Yesterday, Macy’s Inc. announced they would be closing the Bloomingdale’s store at the Mall of America. The store anchored the Southeast corner of the Mall since it’s opening in 1992.

The Mall says it will be splitting the space into shops for five new retailers. They will also be renovating some basement space adding 60,000 square feet of retail area.

It sounds like they already have deals in place for the spaces. It would have been a perfect opportunity for BassProShops. But from the sounds of it, we’ll still have to wait for the Mall’s expansion plans to move forward before seeing BassProShops in the state.

I’m not holding my breath.

Happy New Year!

I haven’t had all that much time to think about what I want to accomplish this year fishing-wise. The Lego League season and holiday season has kept my mind too occupied. So I’m going to cheat a little. Because I did so poorly in my goals from 2011, I’m going to carry them over. But I’m also going to make a couple of adjustments because of my new job.

• Fish at least once a month during open water bass season
• Float tube at least four times during open water season
• Find a float tube buddy
• Catch a bass on 4 different plastic lures (color doesn’t count)
• Catch a bass on 6 different lures (plastic lures count)
• Catch my limit of walleye on Lake Mille Lacs or the Gunflint Trail Secret Lake
• Fish 3 new bodies of water
• Return to Colorado to fish with my brother
• Fish with a fellow blogger
• Catch a keeper ice Walleye or ice Northern
• Qualify for Master Angler in Minnesota

I wrote in my last post that I accomplished none of my 2011 goals. As I re-read them more carefully for inclusion in this post, I think I may have accomplished two of them–the two having to do with catching bass on different lures. I’m not sure of the numbers, but the point of those goals was to try new lures and new presentations. I had a lot of success with worms in different presentations last year, so even if the numbers weren’t quite there, I would consider my ultimate goal accomplished.

I’m also adjusting my blog goals from 2011:

• Issue 2 Avid Angler Challenges
• Review 2 products
• Write a How To
• Increase 2011 traffic by 20%

We’ll see how these play out given my new job, but I hope to write more than just my adventures.

I hope 2012 brings you and yours much happiness, prosperity, and full live wells. Happy new year!

If you were to judge my year simply on the goals at the beginning of the year, you would say that it was a dismal failure. I accomplished none of my fishing goals, only one of my blogging goals–barely (doubled blog traffic, accomplished yesterday), and only one of my online presence goals (1000 Twitter followers). I’m lucky to have established enough momentum in 2010 that I accomplished those two goals.

This year, life got in the way. I got a new job in July and have been having so much fun in it that fishing took a backseat. That coupled with my overcommittment to Lego League basically took away a quarter of my fishing season. I didn’t touch a fishing rod from late August to late December. I missed the best fishing time of year!

Still, I have no regrets. The job move was the best in my life, affording opportunities I could have only dreamed of. And I’ve had a ton of fun volunteering as a coach, mentor, and tournament director for Lego League.

My posts have been few and far between in the second half of the year and I can’t help but wonder how much more traffic I would have gotten had I kept up. I also feel bad for not keeping up with my fellow bloggers. They are an amazing community and am constantly amazed by their support.

I’m still mulling over my goals for 2012. They likely won’t be as ambitious as 2011, although I didn’t think my 2011 goals were all that ambitious at the time I wrote them.

I appreciate all of you coming by even though I’ve been absent of late. I apologize that I haven’t given you a lot of material to read since August. I hope to still keep writing, but probably not at the rate I had been. This blog was a bit of an escape for me when my previous employment wasn’t keeping me well enough entertained. It was filling a void. And while the void is no longer there, I still love to fish and still yearn for the tug on the line. So I’ll definitely be back with stories in 2012. Just not as many.

Thanx for sticking with me. Thanx for reading. And have a Happy and safe New Year!

Yes, after four months of not touching a rod (except to put them away for the winter), I actually got out and baited a hook. Vince was in town for Christmas and we hit the ice the day after the holiday.

It was a bit of a risk because it’s been unseasonably warm so far this winter. We’ve had multitudes of day above freezing and many of the larger lakes have thin ice, and even open water. Check out the story about the ice anglers that ended up on a large ice raft to see what I mean.

Vince and I hit a local lake that had a bunch of other ice anglers on it, so we were comfortable that it had safe ice. It turned out to be 5-6″. Quite thin for this time of year. You could hear the ice cracking at times.

  

The thing that really kept us on our toes, though, was the wind. It took us twice as long as normal to set up Vince’s shelter and we had to stake down two sides to keep the wind from pushing them in. You can see in one of the pics below how the wind was bowing the pipe supports. The last pic shows how much our shelter stakes struggled to keep our shelter down.

 

We wouldn’t have gone out at all except this was Vince’s last day in town and he had driven all his ice fishing gear up from Boulder. He wasn’t going to be denied.

We got on the ice at about 10am and all was quiet (fishing-wise) for about an hour and a half. Vince’s fish finder was showing very little signs of life. There were some fish on the bottom and we could entice them up a few feet, but they weren’t interested in the minnows, maggots, or spikes we were presenting.

At about 11:00, I had realized I needed some pictures, so I stepped outside. The wind had seemed to pick up since we got there. It must have been going 30-40 MPH because I could hold my hands out and pretend I was wind sailing. The lack of snow left allowed my boots to double as skates. I couldn’t help but laugh at my inability to get around.

At about 11:30, blips finally started to show up on the graph. First a couple, then more, and then even more. The graph was almost solid color between 6 and 12 feet. Vince started to get some ticks. So did I. But none of them would take the bait. Vince had stuck with maggots the whole time, and I had given up on minnows and switched to spikes. But the fish would have nothing of it.

Finally, after about 20 minutes, I managed to hook one. And what I pulled out surprised both of us.

It was a shiner! We were fishing for bait! I didn’t even know that was possible.

A few minutes later, Vince pulled up a small perch.

That was promising–for a moment. Vince’s next 3 fish were shiners. He got one more small perch before finishing with another shiner. The four fish I was able to land were all shiners. Ten fish and only two perch in the bunch. Not bad numbers-wise, but not the species we had hoped for.

We packed up a little before 1:00 and gave our leftover minnows to a group nearby. The outing was fun–and entertaining, but disappointing. Still, I can’t complain about bonding time with family.