2026 has been a great year so far. We have been presented many obstacles in the first couple of months of our season but as a team, we can over come anything.
Once we got into the lakes on May 16th we hit the ground running. We had to cancel a number of groups for the first week of fishing but we didn’t have much of a choice. Taina, Aaron, Jeff and I were opening camps as fast as we could in preparation for the next groups that were only days away from showing up in Red Lake. We had snow and cold everyday opening camps and did not even turn the water on since it was freezing every night for the first couple of weeks we were up there. Once we could land, we had to break the ice up a bit more so we could actually get out after opening the camp. Things wintered well at all of the camps and the water levels are just perfect.
We left the camps in great shape last fall on purpose because I had an inkling that our Otter would not show up in time for the season. I was right, we did not get it in time for the start of our season, we still don’t have it in June, and we are going to still be waiting in July. We are hoping it gets here soon. Between delays on parts, to shortages of skilled mechanics to finish some last minute items are holding us up.
Since we do not have our Otter, we have been forced to charter all of our flying. We have been working with 5 other companies to get it all done and it has been going well. Having good friends who are outfitters and have airplanes has become a great asset. They have come through for us and we have been on time most of the time and even early occasionally. There has been days when everyone is available and we moved our fishermen in a shorter time than if we did it ourselves. Scheduling has been pretty much the same as before and our fishermen have been great in understanding our situation.
We were able to lease an Otter for the first month of our season that works in the far north, but we had to return it to it’s owner. I got plenty of Turbine time and will be ready to go when HXY shows back up at our dock.
The difference in power, speed, vibration and heat inside the cockpit on these airplanes is awesome. I still had a bit of energy at the end of a long day. Flying at higher altitudes in smoother, cooler air and going a little bit faster makes a huge difference on a pilots body. It is hard to believe that I flew that loud monster for 25 years.
Fishing so far this year has been good and turned into great recently. We had some rollercoaster weather at the start of the season, going from high temps of cold(40’s) to hot(80’s) and then back to cold(40’s), so fishing was okay and improving as it got hot but then the cold weather and rain hit and cooled the water down. The fish slowed down during that time but since then we have had some picture perfect days and comfortable temps in the 70’s. The fishing recently has been outstanding. Big walleyes are plentiful with quite a few being caught and released ranging from 26-30 inches on all of the lakes. The trophy pike have also been active. The largest pike so far was 45 inches, caught from shore at Jeanette lake. There has been too many 40 plus pike to count but there has been plenty of 40 to 42 inchers caught and released.
Jeanette lake received 3 new 16 foot Lund boats recently. We were able to drive them part way to Jeanette by road and met the helicopter on a logging road. We man-handled the boats into a big net, strapped them together and he had them on their way in no time. Our fishermen who fish that lake have been ecstatic with dry feet and the added room of the bigger boats.
Here are some pictures from some of our guests who have been up so far this spring.
