May 2023 has been a hot one.  Our guests have been enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures.  Everyone has returned from the bush with dark tans, sore hands and are happy as can be.  Fishing has been very good so far, which is a given, but like normal, the numbers have been awesome and the size has increased with every day of sun and warmth.  During the first week and a half our guests have caught a ton of 40 plus inch pike!  The largest pike so far has been 43 inches and we have had a number of those caught and released already.  Walleyes have been very plentiful and the size has been increasing daily as the big females come back to life from their resting period after the spawn.  Largest walleye caught so far has been 26.5 inches but that record is probably already broken by someone out there right now 🙂

Along with the great weather, the camps have been running smoothly with all the sunshine for the solar and perfect water levels.  Water temperature was reported to be around 60.  We have had some rain in the north but not as much closer to Red Lake.  It is getting quite dry and we have told our guests to not have any fires right now until something changes.  We are supposed to get some rain in the next few days so we are not complaining too much if we get delayed with weather.  We will get everyone moved when we can, our guests at this time of year have seen much bad weather over the years and have probably been delayed numerous times.  It is just part of the trip.  Be on vacation from the moment you leave home.

We had one last camp to open last week, so we took Jack out of school packed up the crew and went to get it done.  We had a great day so we decided that we would fish for a couple hours and have fish fry at the camp to test out our equipment.  George caught his first fish of his life, a small Pike 🙂  and Jack caught his own lunch.  It was hot and windy that day but we caught fish right close to the camp at Shearstone.  The boys were so tired after a long hot day of fishing and working.  George didn’t even wake up when we landed at home, sleeping in the airplane for another hour after. 

And Yes, that is Aaron flying the Otter.  He has become a Commercial Pilot and we will be training throughout the summer and he will begin to share the flying with me.  First time since 2000 that anyone else has flown from that seat.  Aaron is a great pilot and the training is coming along great.

We have started to get some pictures from our guests who were in during the first week of our season.  Here are some pictures from Vee Lake.  Courtesy of Jorge Brasil from New Mexico.