We are well into October and you could not ask for nicer weather. Theblack flies are being fooled into believing it is spring and are a little bit of a nuisance, but I am not complaining. It could be sleeting sideways by now and the sun feels really nice. My wife and I have been able to finish painting the house and most of my winterizing projects have been finished ahead of schedule for once.
The fishing on Saganaga was really slow this past weekend. I cannot figure out why they do not want to bite. We worked all day to catch four walleyes, a couple of bass, and one accidental lake trout that came out of 45 feet of water. Thefishare easy to find on the graph, but they just do not want to feed. Some of the walleyes were spitting up smelt and all I can figure is they are either eating at night or they are tuned into bigger minnows than I am offering them.
Rifle season for deer is just a few weeks away and I just might have enough time to give it a try this year. I took a Hunters Safety Course in Iowa when I was about 10 years old, but there is no way I would be able to produce the actual card. Fortunately, if you were born before December 31, 1979 you do not need it in Minnesota. If you do need this course it is actually called the Hunters Education Course and is available on-line at www.hunterexam. com. There is a fee if you pass the course, but I did not read far enough to see how much they charge.
The Loon Lake area that I live in has been notorious for whitetail but ever since the wolves have been so prevalent, we do not seem to see as many. I hike the woods around our property a lot and see sign of moose, deer, and wolves. There were big moose prints on my neighbor’s driveway—deep ruts in the gravel. It looked like two bulls were getting territorial and going at it head-to-head. At first glance, I thought maybe a wolf attack, but there were no wolf prints nor did it look like a kill site. It was probably just a quick standoff since it was in such an isolated area of the road. Wolf sign is very easy to find and they seem to be getting less and less skittish every year. Last winter they would hang out in our driveway while we were home. In the four years that we have lived on this property we have not seen this many wolves before. I even heard that a wolf took a bite at one of the Gunflint Pines’ Brittany spaniels last week. They do not have any natural predators up here and are populating very quickly. We have always had the reputation of being the “friendly woods” up here on the Trail and I hope that does not change any time soon.
Canada has a wolf-hunting season and it might be time to consider it up here as well.
Cory Christianson, a graduate
of the University of Iowa, has
worked as a fishing guide on
the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If
you have any fishing reports or
stories to share, send an email
to: christiansoncory@hotmail.
com or call 218-388-0315.
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