Lots of great fish being caught and released!

Brothers Rich and Dale Prugar had a great week and head home tomorrow. Rich caught and released this 42 1/2 -inch northern pike and Dale did likewise with several big walleyes.
Almost everybody the last couple of weeks have released ALL their big fish! Way to go, guys and gals! It is great to see that so many anglers understand the importance of letting the big ones go. We're currently enjoying a tremendous fish population, thanks to anglers like these.
What about those people who kill big fish? They will be the subject of future blogs when I have more time to write. But in short, they harm the fish population and do nothing to sustain our fishery for the future.
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This pike didn't eat its prey headfirst

Ben called me into the fish shack this afternoon to show me an unusual sight: a northern pike that had eaten two tulibee or lake herring.
Pike eat tulibee all the time but what made this incident exceptional is that the fish were swallowed tail-first.
Our fishermen report daily about northern pike grabbing the walleye on their lines. In every instance the pike grabs the walleye in the middle and after a bit lets it go and grabs it headfirst. The fins, including the ice pick-like dorsal fin all collapse when swallow headfirst. You can test this yourself by sliding your hand along the fish from head to tail. The fins all flatten. Do it in the reverse direction and the fins flip away from the body and your hand gets stuck.
It is believed that pike prefer soft-rayed fish like suckers and tulibee over spiny-rayed fish like walleye and perch.
That may be true but pike sure attack the walleye on our lines. Maybe they key-in on those fish because they are in distress and can't defend themselves while being reeled into the boat.
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Sunny skies return just in the nick of time

There's only a few inches of headspace left in the boathouse for the Lickety Split. The lake level is just below flood stage. Fortunately, we have had three days now with sunshine and the lake has stopped rising. Two of those days, unfortunately, also produced thunderstorms in the afternoons. Today, however, was absolutely beautiful with no rain and temperatures in the low 70s F (20-22C).
Ben and I (mostly Ben) mowed all the grass in the camp today. To appreciate this feat you need to remember we just had 17 consecutive days of rain, the grass was trying to take over the camp and the ground is saturated.We modified our lawnmowers so that they were not bogged down by wet grass and went at it with a vengeance. To our surprise, we got the whole place mowed by suppertime.
The yard now looks great and maybe even more importantly, is not a good place for black flies and mosquitoes to take up residence.
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'Fireball' seen in sky over Red Lake!

After weeks of living under a dense atmosphere, the sky turned an incredible blue this morning and a large fireball was seen overhead, at first to the east and then slowly moving toward the west!
The heat from this fireball was intense, making all of us uncomfortable inside our rain gear and rubber boots.
The object was so bright that we wished we wore darkened "fireball" glasses. It also makes exposed skin turn red, prompting us to consider inventing "fireball" skin cream.
We are even considering cutting our rubber boots so that just the soles remain with perhaps a bit to go between the toes.
More later.
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This dessert tastes as good as it looks

Speaking of desserts, here's a new one for us this summer: strawberry-chocolate cake.
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Where will the top of the meringue finally end?

Jenn Bucci, our cook, keeps making lemon pies with higher and higher mounds of meringue on top.
I believe this pie topped-out with four inches of the delicious stuff.
How high can meringue go? We're starting to defy the laws of physics here.
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It's been extremely busy, wet and "fishy"

As often happens at this time of year, I can't even find a moment to write on the blog.
So in the interest of brevity, we have had a full house for several weeks now; the fish are biting like mad and the weather has been terrible!
It has rained so much in the past two weeks that the yard resembles the "flood year" of three years ago. The lake is high but is still at normal high level.Last week nobody really minded the continuous rain. Walleyes and pike were practically jumping in the boat and everyone had excellent rain gear. This week is a different story. The fish are still biting but we have a number of people who didn't bring rain gear or rubber boots. Oops!
I think we are on our 14th consecutive day of rain. If you were going to wait for a non-rainy day to go fishing, you never would have fished at all.
For goodness sakes, if you are coming to camp in the next week or two, or anytime for that matter, BRING RAIN GEAR AND BOOTS!
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Photo of nesting loon shows bird's beauty

Angler Bob Preuss took time off from hauling in big northern pike this week to snap this incredible photo of a loon on its nest.
Note the beautiful detail of the head, often difficult to see when the bird is on the water.
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Beautiful pike being caught and released

Bob Preuss hoists a 38.5-inch pike for the camera of brother Jeff, one of several big pike he boated this week.
All of the big fish were released! Way to go, Bob!
It was a great week with beautiful sunny skies and very warm temperatures. Everyone is heading home with suntans and stories of fish caught, moose and bears seen, and wonderful weather.
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Scenes along the road to Red Lake

Bow Narrows angler John Andrews, whose photos have frequently graced this blog, did it again during his and son Matt's trip to camp the first week of the season this year.
John got these photos of a mother black bear and her two cubs along the road on the way to Red Lake. He also got great shots of other wildlife while out fishing. Those pix will appear in future blogs.
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