Relative Something

For a completely different variety of outdoor adventures from managing Wintervale Ranch, I have been given an introduction to my friend Brian’s YouTube channel, “Miks Retirement Adventures.” If you want to tag along on his real-life escapades with cooking, self-reliance gardening, living off the land-game and fish, as well as tapping trees to make maple syrup, visit the link and check out some of his videos.

Brian has been our primary host for this weekend’s adventures in ice fishing for perch on Cass Lake.

Despite the threat of challenging weather, we lucked out, both up here and, per Cyndie’s report, at home. She says there was no snow at Wintervale, contrary to the predictions of 2-4 inches of snow possible. Up in Cass Lake, yesterday was not as windy as predicted. That challenge actually swooped in on Friday afternoon while we were driving up.

We saw pine branches falling from trees as we drove, a large sign toppled over, flags hanging on for dear life, and a whiteout of snow blowing across the lake.

Yesterday was much more reasonable, which was good because too many hands made the setup of one of Brian’s portable fish houses infinitely more complicated than it is supposed to be.

The air temperature was around 7°F, which wasn’t a problem. Adding the shelters and turning on a small heater made bare-handed functioning perfectly comfortable.

Using a battery-powered auger, Brian drilled through the 30 inches of ice with relative ease. The shelters were moved into position over the holes, hooks got baited, and the waiting for the fish to bite commenced.

There was a fair amount of activity from perch that were embarrassingly small. We started to make a game of trying to catch the smallest one. I reeled in a little guy that fit pretty well into the bait bucket with the minnows.

I did catch a couple that were kept and included in the batch that Brian ultimately filleted for whoever was most interested. We already had plans for a spaghetti dinner with a delicious homemade sauce.

There is a quick turnaround on this trip, and we are heading back to the Cities already this morning. My return to home life doesn’t mean I won’t still be able to enjoy fishing trips with Brian. He chronicled a recent adventure in winter camping in the BWCA and his pursuit of lake trout in this video:

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I can watch him do all the hard work of recording and narrating while seated comfortably in my recliner. I hope those of you for whom this appeals will check out his channel, and if you find it a fun watch, subscribe in support of his efforts. You’ll be doing the world a favor by keeping one more retiree occupied and out of trouble.

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