We fished walleyes all weekend. We had a decent opener. Caught 14 on Winnie. Kept 5 and the rest had to go back in. The released fish ranged from 18” to 24” The fish we kept were the perfect size for keeping on that lake. 17.5”. We got on the water around 8 and left at 4.
Went to Otter tail on Sunday. Fished from 6:30 till 11 and finished off catching our 2 man limit for The Weekend.
Spot 1 on Otter tail produced 2 – 3 lb largemouths. I think I have fished that lake for almost 40 years and have never caught a large mouth out there until this year. The lake has definitely changed with more weeds in it than what it’s always had before.

If you launch a boat by yourself you will love the drotto. I can’t believe I waited till this year to buy one. Definitely one of the smartest buys I have had.
As already mentioned a stand alone battery for your electronics and the boat with a master power switch to kill power to everything. Keep your big engine on it’s own starting battery.
There are plenty of people on here that own LiTime batteries and not one negative comment yet. Oh and they are cheaper than an AGM blue top batteries.

Congrats EPG!!

I have 360 but if I want to go mega live 2 I need at least one new graph since all mine are helix units.
Really torn on whether to make the plunge or not.
There are days I use the 360 while wallet fishing and then there are days I don’t even turn it on. Just depends on the situation.

We had a ok day on Winnie.
Caught 16 and kept 5. The rest were in the slot or above it and we had to throw them back. Just seems weird throwing an 18” walleye back.
My dad did get one above the slot that we threw back as well a healthy 24”.

Fujita cracked 100 lbs after day 3. He is on pace for a 4 day total of 130 lbs +.
Both Easton and Seth are fishing the last day. That is great that a pair of MN anglers make the final day.

gim wrote:

I think the winner had over 100 pounds in 4 days last year on Fork.

100 lbs for a 4 day tourney on that lake is pretty common now days.
It’s on pace to have the winner having 120 lbs or more.
Fujita has 65 lbs after 2 days.

JEREMY wrote:

So if they are not private parts can we just grab them like a hand shake?

Only if you are trying to tune in Tokyo.

Another vote for a jerk bait.
2 others that I like are a green pumpkin tube and drop shot with a 4” strait tail worm in Aaron’s magic. With reports of water temps closing in on 60 degrees there will be fish starting to bed. I like a drop shot for this a lot.

After being able to fly private air for the past 15 years you couldn’t pay me to fly commercial.
But then again I don’t fly for vacations either.
Too bad real ID doesn’t cover you for back ground checks for work projects. I bet I have had dozens of those through out the years.

Always a good song to listen to.

BigWerm wrote:

They must not be able or really don’t want to shoot them, because there were a few shots fired from a close distance and the polar bear didn’t seem to be harmed in anyway.

I later heard he fired a warning shot from a pistol to scare the bear off but haven’t heard anything about the rifle being fired.

Norway is more strict than the US when it comes to killing polar bears. So it’s very plausible he did not want to kill the bear but just run the bear off.

Not sure about over there but US citizens can hunt them but not in the US and the hides can’t be imported to the US either.

Bearcat89 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Full draw wrote:</div>
30 years ago a friend told me a boat was nothing but a hole in the water you throw money into.
He was 100% right.
But without the hole and the money you don’t have the enjoyment or the memories.

Boats are sure awesome and create lots of memories, instead of a 7 or 8 percent interest on electronics through the loan or the cover just put them on a card with no or little interest. Keep the boat load as plain Jane as possible. That would be my goal.

When I bought my last boat some of the electronics I bought with cash from a different vendor and some were on the boat already in a package deal.
I just put more money down than what the bank had asked for.
I then took out the longest loan duration I could to get the payment as cheap as possible. I then make double and triple payments. Those months when I get 5 paychecks instead of 4 I make an extra principle payment as well. Goal is to pay the loan off in less than half the duration in the agreement.

This saves some heartache when I was not working for a few months when I had my accident.

30 years ago a friend told me a boat was nothing but a hole in the water you throw money into.
He was 100% right.
But without the hole and the money you don’t have the enjoyment or the memories.

I don’t see the bank lending money for a cover from a different vendor. Now if it was purchased through the dealer and added to the bill of sale I see the bank allowing it.

Day 1 leader has 21 lbs. second place is 13 lbs.
A lot of ground to make up for those trailing the leader.
I wonder how many big fish are in town? When I caught my big fish 33 years ago it was in town just down stream from the dam.

I have very fond memories of fishing on Sharpe.

33 years ago on Good Friday I caught this 32.5” walleye out there.
Me and a friend were 19 at the time and ran out there with his dad’s Lund Rebel with a 40 hp Evinrude.
I don’t think we were there 10 minutes and the fish bit my jig and minnow.

I had heard lots of small fish could be had for the tourney as well. Someone will find them and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

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I agree I like it as well.
Watching the NWT videos is bland.

John Hoyer was on the Jason Mitchell podcast a little while back and said there will be a season 3 and they want to expand on what they started.

ganderpike wrote:

Also heading to SD. I’ll take all the help I can get, but should have enough time to make a few trips. Might try using a decoy for whitetails in October, and then make a trip west to get a feel for stalking.

Shoot me a text and I can point you to a bunch of stuff for mulies and whitetails.

Isn’t property taxes more of a local tax? County, city etc? CRP and other programs are funded through a the federal farm bill. I know money is fungible.
The same farm bill that funds the CRP program is the same farm bill that funds the WIA money given to most states for their programs. I am all for providing more access.
I get it that CRP benefits more people than just the landowner. I am not against it. As I said in my original post I am torn on the issue.

Just this week the wired to hunt podcast as well as the whitetail podcast had episodes about buying land and getting into programs to subsidize the cost of purchasing hunting land. So they are promoting using taxpayer money to purchase their dream hunting farms.

I have used 832 for the past 5 years. After the tariff talk and fishing supplies I decided I will be purchasing berkley from here on out.

I do put a cushion on my spools and after reading comments on reusing on a different reel I don’t see me needing to replace any line for awhile.

Pig-hunter wrote:

Also, if you were to open up all of this CRP ground to public hunting, all wildlife would be exterminated, run off and the places trashed by folks that could care less about conservation.

With that logic every public land hunter should hang it up. Everything has either been exterminated or run off.
To say a non landowner hunter doesn’t care about conservation is laughable.
Purchasing a hunting license or a tag is contributing to conservation. Purchasing guns, ammo, archery equipment etc is as well. Ever hear of the Pittman Robinson act? Not to mention joining any of the many wildlife organizations helps conservation. Last time I checked you don’t need to be a landowner to join.

I think WIA is one of the best things going for the public land hunters.
I have had a lot of good hunts on WIA in ND (Plots), SD, NE and KS. Here in MN I haven’t hunted much of it. 1 piece is the only thing that comes to mind.
For states like IA, NE and KS without WIA there would be a lot less public land to access. These states are ranked in the last 5 for amount of public land available.

Thanks Glenn.
I figured preference points had a shelf life if you didn’t keep putting in. Just didn’t know how long.
Both CO and Kansas is only 5 years.
I think I will just put in for a point this year and see how things go.
With my deer hunting trips planned for this year I think it’s best to wait.
I am sure there is some good hunting to be found in the no quota areas but will wait to hopefully draw an area that is known for good hunting.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Full draw wrote:</div>
My dream hunt is a brown bear with a bow. I don’t ever see that happening so might as well settle on a MN black bear with my bow.

I can not believe I am asking this question but what unit should I put in for.
I will probably go guided since I know nothing about prepping or baiting.
App deadline is May 2nd so I have a little time. Does anyone know how long you maintain your point(s)?
I put in about 10 years ago but haven’t since.

I’d find the guide and then start applying according to where they guide out of. The most popular zones have the most guides, but usually a few years (at least) to draw a tag. Otherwise there are some guides that work the no-quota zone and that’d be your best bet for this year. Justin Wiese with Wheezy Outdoors runs a guided bear camp in Zone 46 and 51 I believe, and they do well.

Thanks BigWerm.
I don’t think this year is in the cards so if it takes a few years to draw that is ok.
I will look into Wheezy outdoors.

Update with my 3 – 100ah batteries.
Fished the rainy river last Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Temps on Thursday night got down to below freezing. There was plenty of frost on my boat Friday morning.
The entire trip I used my on board Minn Kota MK 330 PC charger on the AGM setting. Every morning I had 3 flashing green lights on the charger indicating all 3 batteries were fully charged.

I don’t know how much power was used each day but everything worked flawlessly.
I can’t even answer if the heaters kicked on or not.

As I have stated in other posts. I do have a 20 amp LiTime charger and have used the charger just not on this trip. That thing will charge each individual battery very quickly.

My dream hunt is a brown bear with a bow. I don’t ever see that happening so might as well settle on a MN black bear with my bow.

I can not believe I am asking this question but what unit should I put in for.
I will probably go guided since I know nothing about prepping or baiting.
App deadline is May 2nd so I have a little time. Does anyone know how long you maintain your point(s)?
I put in about 10 years ago but haven’t since.

I am torn on tax payer money going to private landowners.

CRP provides a lot of great habitat. Sprinkle in a few trees on key high points and it’s great deer bedding.

But tax payer money being used to benefit only the landowner is a problem.
The one way things would sit better with me is if a landowner put their land into a conservation reserve and collected tax payer money. Then zero hunting should take place. The tax payer doesn’t need to fund a private landowners own hunting oasis.

With land prices skyrocketing and leasing prices going up every year. We are just pushing out the common hunter and turning things into a rich man’s sport.

When I was a kid before ethanol came along. The government had a program to pay farmers not to plant. Looking back this makes absolutely no sense to me.
They did it to curb the supply of small grain crops to raise the price of the crops.

William Beaumount wrote:

I have a full season with 4 litime batteries in my impact. I installed a shunt and monitor to show percentage and am always surprised how much(little) use the batteries take from a full day on the river. Definitely a good investment.

Can you monitor all 4 batteries off one stunt and monitor?