Its Monday morning after the Super Bowl and I am still reeling. One for the ages. Just incredible.
Where was I. Oh yes, fishing! As many of you have noted our first two television shows from last summer have aired and we thought they were wonderful. Lindner’s Angling Edge along with Babe Winkelman’s show aired back to back over the past few weeks and the response has been astounding. To give you an idea of the breadth of the reach of television, on average we get about 7,000 web-page hits a day. When each of these shows aired that number was close to 60,000 hits in a single day. So much so that our web provider called and was worried that something might be wrong with so much bandwidth being used.
The phone still hasn’t stopped ringing. As such we are rapidly filling up and will continue to do so with 3 more shows yet to air. If you have been dragging your feet this winter give us a shout as we are starting to sell out and would hate to miss some of our old friends.
There is one part of the season that historically has availability however until very late in the booking season. Believe it or not the opening (May 18th) sells out slower than nearly every other time in the summer. This continues to baffle me as this time-frame can be one of the hottest all season! The fish are seeing the first baits of the season and can be extremely aggressive as they put their feed bag on from a long winters slumber. They are shallow and hungry. BIG PIKE can be seen cruising the shallows in northern bays sunning themselves, stacked up like cord wood. Lake trout can be caught off the docks, one of the few times all summer you can catch a laker in 10 feet of water. They are incredibly strong and a blast to catch. The walleye are usually done with the spawn and boy do they get hungry.
Here is the nice thing. As we usually have spare room that gives me some time to relax a bit and get out on the water. And no lodge owner likes to fish alone. So I get to fish with anyone who happens to be at the dock when I pull up. I have met some wonderful friends fishing in May I have. Bottom line is we would love to see you at the open.
June still has a few cabins left and will sell out soon. We also have spots left for our Humminbird sonar conference at the end of July which will be a first for us. Want some hands on learning about how to use technology to catch fish in an incredible fishery? Then this is for you!
Speaking of which we are in the process of finishing up some major upgrades. The new bathroom look wonderful. Just great. I think you will love them. We plan to upgrade the depthfinders on the main lake to include high resolution with GPS and side imaging, a wonderful tool for walleye fishermen as well as bass guys working structure and drop-offs. For example, last August in the heat of the summer I spent a lot of time mapping the lake and I found a KILLER bass spot I had never seen. It is on one of the common routes we all take to get around the lake (I won’t divulge my secret here but will tell you in person). So I am glued to my finder and saw this nice little drop that then leveled out into a nice flat maybe 150 yards long. And on this drop was a stack of fish all sitting at 25-28 feet. So I drop my bait down and wham, a 19 inch bass comes up. I fished that spot for 45 minutes and must have had a dozen fish 18+ inches with a 21.5. And nearly every time I went back I had the same success. A finder is the only way I would have found this. Especially when fish go deep during the day in warm weather.
I can’t wait to scout even more spots next summer. I also mapped the entire lake with my new technology. Ever contour line with vegetation and bottom composition has been digitally mapped. So I can display underwater humps, drop-offs, flats, weed beds, you name it. All over the ENTIRE lake. In 2 foot contour levels. Talk about a game changer. My ultimate goal is to copy that electronic information onto SD cards and then when we get the new finders for the fleet insert them into each boat. You will then have your own personal map.
Anyway, there are many new things in the works and I won’t ruin the surprise here.
See you in a few months!
Ted