January 3, 2017 - Tuesday
27 degrees/snow showers/calm winds
Pentoga Road

It appears another inch or two of snow fell during the night. I guess we're about as warm as we're going to get today before the temperatures plunge well below zero. What is this, January in the north woods?

My five mile stroll went well and I could hardly wait to get back home to move the shack out onto the lake.

First thing was to check out the conditions via snowmobile. There's almost a foot of clear ice and the slush has frozen solid with a bit of snow on the surface. Perfect!

I returned home and did a few last minute maintenance chores. One was to put a new blade on the power auger.



I'll try carefully sharpening the old one by hand to use as a spare, but my track record of sharpening one-sided auger blades is pretty grim. I could do it when I was younger, but lately, my luck hasn't been too good.

I attached the shack and started down the road, but hadn't gone far before one of my homemade pins pulled out. The shack spun around and thankfully, nothing was hurt other than my man-ego.

There was nothing to do but get the trailer and take the ice shack to the lake as I always have.

I unloaded the shack, brought the trailer and Blazer home, loaded the Tundra with my ice fishing gear and took off.



Fishing was frustrating. Crappies and bluegills were certainly in the area. I could see them on the sonar rise to my bait, swim around, but nothing I used would entice them to hit. I changed lures, baits, techniques, all for naught. It was getting dark when I returned home with a mental promise to myself that I'd be back out on the ice first thing this morning.

Sargie was home by 7:30 and we had a supper of left over chili. After being outside all day, it hit the spot. Sargie opens today and rather than walk, I'll be heading back to the lake. 

The temperatures are to drastically plunge by late afternoon and I hope to have the outside Christmas decorations taken down and packed away by then. There's also snow to remove from the drive and deck before nightfall.

Guess I ought to get busy, think a deep fishing thought, and get my mental mojo going for putting meat on the table.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Look through the tree branches and you'll see my shack about half a mile out on the lake.