May 4, 2008

Good evening,

It was a nice weekend, today was exceptional.  We got rid of a lot of ice and I am quite surprised how fast it went.  It's not totally off right now, but I just got the report from the sky, no not from God.  I got the report from Brent Wiczek who was up flying this afternoon.  He said there was a small patch out in the middle of Mille Lacs, a patch on the south end of Pelican, an area on the east side of Gull and in Steamboat and Wilson Bay, and he also said there was quite a bit of ice up on the Whitefish Chain.  Most other lakes in the Baxter, Brainerd, Breezy Point, Lake Shore and Nisswa areas are ice-free.  How are the walleyes going to react?  hard to say until we get out there and get after them.  I am not ready yet, but I will be ready by the time Saturday a.m. rolls around.  I am still waiting on my new Ranger 620 (courtesy of Nisswa Marine.com), not quite sure when it is going to be here.  On opening day, I will be hosting Governor Tim Pawlenty and the first lady and this means I won't need my boat.  I will be using John Janouseks' for the day, hopefully the walleyes will be attracted to it.  I will have a Ranger loner for the first few guide trips of the season and I am anxious to run my first Ranger boat.  I spent a couple of hours transferring tackle into my New Mills Fleet Farm tackle boxes.  I do still have a lot of work to do before "game time", but hopefully I will be ready to rock by Saturday a.m..  Right now I am a little wiped because I have been trying to get everything done and things don't always work that way.  So I guess I will keep on keepin on and see what is next on "the list".  I'm having some new rods made and they should be done by Tuesday, can't wait to get some reels on them and get fishin!  If you are wondering where to get your fishing tackle, Mills Fleet Farm is the place.  They have an unbelievable selection of baits, line, rods, reels and everything else under the sun.  If you are by the Baxter Fleet farm, make sure to stop and see the turkey video at our kiosk.  My last turkey hunt of the season will take place starting on Mother's Day morning with my daughter Alex.

Have a good night,

Walleyedan 

May 2, 2008

Good morning,

It looks as though we had a little moisture fall from the sky over night.  That is a good thing, we need all of the ice melting we can get right now.  We also have wind as I look out and see the tops of the trees swaying in the breeze.  We need to bust up that stuff fast!  The opener is only a week away, oh boy.  Lots to do.  I will be up at Breezy Point on Pelican Lake for the Governors Opener and I will not be the only one, it should be an exciting time and that might just be an understatement. I have the honor of guiding (hosting) the Governor and the 1st Lady.  I suppose I better get some rods rigged and make sure I have the "goods".  These next week will most definitely be one of my busiest to date.  I have some work to be done with Mills Fleet Farm and then it's media time and all of the hoopla that surrounds this huge Minnesota tradition.  I am still deciding what presentation is going to be the ticket.  Will it be the standard Fireball and a spot-tail shiner?  Will it be a Lindy Rig and a red tail chub?  Will it be one of the Mills Fleet Farm exclusive Rapala's?  Or will it be a jig and a Gulp Alive emerald shiner?  Hard to say, but we will do our best to get some of those whitetails to bite our presentation.  Doesn't that sound good, a walleye dinner about now.  Hard to say what Tom Whitehead has up his sleeve or what Toby Kvalevog is thinking but it will be fun no matter how you slice it!  There will be about 100 other "hosts" that will be kicking off the season at this event as well and as most of you know, this area of Minnesota is loaded with awesome anglers.  I have to go now or the kids will be late for school and I will be late to open up the garage sale!  Have a great day and say a prayer that the ice is gone by midnight next Friday.  BuyARangerBoat.com.

Have a great weekend,

Walleyedan

April 26, 2008

Good morning, or is it?  It's 6:23 a.m. and as I look out the windows all I see is white.  I have not been out, I have only opened the door for the dog but it looks like we have a few inches and it's still snowing.  What a great day for a marathon, or a fishing tournament, or an annual golf outing, it's kind of a bummer but the Lord knows we need the precipitation up in these parts.  So I guess we should just continue getting ready for our garage sale (next weekend at our new shop in Nisswa) and just enjoy the day.  We have big news!!  I am hosting the Governor and the 1st lady on opening day up on Pelican.  I received a phone call earlier in the week and hearing the news sent chills throughout my body.  I am completely honored and look forward to all of the hoopla.  Tom Whitehead will be hosting the Lieutenant Governor and I guess it's going to be a competitive day on the water.  I guess we will have to pull out the bag of tricks and put some of those Pelican Lake walleyes in the boat.  Toby, one of our regular guides will be hosting as well and he is holding out on who he will have in his boat, what an exciting time for the area.  We are only 13 days from the "big day" and things are going to be quite crazy from here on out.  It has been one fantastic year thus far for us.  From signing on as a spokesperson with Mills Fleet Farm back in January, moving out of our previous location and into our new "spot" in Nisswa (across from the waterslide), to our continuing relationship with Nisswa Marine, things are going well for our business.  We are thankful and feel very Blessed.  The ice is still covering Gull lake, so I would say that in about 7 days it should be out of here!  Boy, do I feel for those turkey hunters that are opening their season today.  It would certainly be a good morning for snow camo.  Perry Bunting, a friend of mine is out with his son Wyatt (who is 8) this a.m. and hopefully they will get a crack at a big tom.  I was down to Lake City earlier in the week with Kent Blake (a friend) and I bagged one of my biggest birds to date, a 24 pounder with a 9 inch beard and 3/4 inch spurs.  What an awesome hunt that was and we got a lot of it on video.  Hopefully we can show it at Fleet Farm one of these days.  The next turkey adventure is going to be the week after opener when my daughter Alex will try to call in and shoot her own bird......we'll see how that all shakes down!  She will be using one of the calls that Flash made for her.

Gotta go,

Walleyedan

April 17, 2008

Good evening.  It's between periods 2 and 3 of game #5 of the Wild and Avalanche and it's about time to give you a little update from the lake country.  Hey, I just saw my mug on the Mills Fleet Farm commercial for the second time (isn't that special).  Anyway, all is well and all is happening up here.  The lakes are starting to loosen up, the turkey season is on, our guides are getting ready to rock, I spotted my first pair of loons, Bar Harbor might be sold, My new Ranger 620 (courtesy of BuyARangerBoat.com) will be here by opener, the Governors opener is closing in on us, the wood ticks are out, the snow is gone (finally) and yes I bagged my Merriam (wild turkey) in South Dakota.  I should have had my two birds in the bag by 4:00 p.m. opening day but one of them came in silent and I wasn't able to drop him on the fly.  Next up is my Minnesota hunt, hopefully that will be a success as well.  I have a couple new friction calls thanks to Flash.  The most recent call he made for me is a glass call with a photo of my bird from last year (under the glass).  He also made my daughter a couple of friction calls, one of which had a photo she took on our first hunt together.  We had a guide meeting tonight and had some good discussion.  At this point, we are going with 4 regulars (myself, Tim Hanske, Toby Kvalevog and Bruce Meinz) and will then work with our list of fill-ins.  The trips are starting to roll on in and it looks like we will be having another busy season.  Bruce had asked if we have had any crappie trip inquiries and the answer was no.  But, I told him I would mention it in my report and hopefully some of you will get the crappie itch and want to come on up once the ice breaks.  Oh, oh the Avalanche just scored twice (3-1).  Let's go Wild!!  I am going to plant myself in front of the television for the last 6 minutes and see if I can cheer them on.  Call or email if you are interested in booking your open water crappie or walleye trip.

Good night,

Walleyedan

April 9, 2008

Hello, how she go?  I hope all is well with you, things are just fine here in the woods of Lake Shore, Minnesota.  Except the fact that we still have snow on the ground and the reports say there is more to come!  Let's hope they are wrong.  It's kind of tough to say we don't want it because we certainly need more water in our lakes and that is very, very important....thanks God.  I have not been on the water or the ice for quite some time because of my schedule here on land.  I was over in Green Bay, Wisconsin last Thursday and Friday for the Mills Fleet Farm sport show.  It was cool, and not only did I get to work in the friendly confines of Lambeau Field, I got to meet a lot of people (including jumpin John Gillespie) and was able to listen in and learn from some of the gurus from Garmin, Hummingbird, Berkley, Minn Kota, Lowrance and others.  Overall it was a great experience and I hope to be at the fall show.  I have heard a lot about the new Rapala Subwalk and now I have some to check out on those monster smallies over on Mille Lacs come June.  The opener is only 30 some odd days away and it will be time to get things rockin once I go bag a couple of Toms (turkeys).  I can not wait!!  Yesterday I was digging through some of my gear and of course my son "wanted some stuff".  I gave him one of my mouth calls and he is making sounds and probably isn't too far away from a yelp.  He is only 5 years old, so don't tell me you can't use a diaphragm call. It's a good thing to learn when that wily gobbler is in tight but you need him to move a hair or two in a certain direction.  I will be anxious to call in my first bird with one of my Flash calls.  They are homemade and Flash is a call making machine.  Things are busy around here and there seems to never be a dull moment in the business world.  I want to thank Mills Fleet Farm, Nisswa Marine (BuyARangerBoat.com) and the Mills Auto Group for there support.  I also have many, many more people to thank including the folks at KFAN radio for giving us the plugs.  They will be up at Grand View Lodge for the opener and we will be providing some gear and possibly a guide.  I will be involved in the Governors Opener up at Breezy Point. The area will be buzzing to the max that weekend!  For now, it's off to a meeting at G.V.L..

Have a great day,

Walleyedan

March 30, 2008

Hi, how's it going?  It's 9:35 p.m. and all is well.  Just got done watching the Big Give.  Normally I do not watch television, but my wife was talking about this show so I figured I would hang with her and check it out.  It was pretty good, it's an Oprah show.  Any way, that's my story about that.  It was a nice day up here in Lake Shore today and I didn't do much, and you're not supposed to on Sunday.  Although I did gather a number of my open water rods and started to do a little inventory.  I also went on a little bike ride with the kids and maybe this is something I should keep doing with the turkey season right around the corner.  Last year when I went to South Dakota turkey hunting it was not a good situation as far as my out of shape body, my legs wore out and I ended up having to back down the hills because my quad muscles were tore.  I am getting absolutely psyched and can not wait to hear my first gobble of the '08 season.  There are a lot of things going on and it's just going to get busier as we approach the open water season.  I spent a couple of days last week at some of the Mills Fleet Farm stores (Oakdale, Brooklyn Park, Hudson, WI and Lakeville) and enjoyed my time talking with a number of the employees on hunting and fishing.  Saturday I was on the road again and road tripped down to Owatonna for two seminars at the Home and Recreation Show at their Four Seasons Center.  Great people, long drive.  I did meet Joy and Darcy, who own Bear Paw Lodge near Armstrong, Ontario.  They were very nice as well and I think I am going to try and get the family up there for a week this summer.  I would love to bring the new Ranger up there and do a little exploring, we'll see.  This is going to be another busy week and it is going to be capped off by Tim and Kaarins' wedding.  Just got word that we have a little weather moving in tomorrow, not sure if I want it to be rain or snow.

Gotta go,

Walleyedan

Good morning to you.  It is Easter weekend and I'm sure you are getting ready to go to grandmothers house or you are getting your house ready for grandmother.  We are having Easter at our little house in the woods.  We went to Good Friday service at church last night and it was a good one.  I hope all of you have a nice Easter weekend with the family.  I had a busy week and visited 4 of the Mills Fleet farm stores (Fargo, Fergus Falls, Alexandria and St. Cloud).  It's pretty neat to see all of the different stores and meet some of their personnel.  I will be working with Mills Fleet Farm in a variety of situations and I am extremely happy to be working with such an awesome family run business.  If you haven't shopped Fleet Farm for your sporting goods in the past, I would say that you have been missing the boat.  They have an awesome selection of fishing and hunting gear.  And of course everything else under the sun.  If you are heading out into the woods to hunt turkeys this spring or are getting pumped to wet a line in the Rainy River, you should make a stop and check out the latest in products.  One product that I am going to load up on is the new perch colored Northland Fireball jig.  As far as the turkey scene, the new Skinz that go over your decoy are really a hot commodity.  The Skinz make your decoy look like the real deal!  My last time out on the ice was Tuesday when I fished one of my favorite pan fish lakes.  The "bite" was on and I had a blast catching crappies and sun fish.  We ate some sunfish last night and the kids gobbled them up, I guess I need to escape for another outing very soon.  Well, I guess for now that is about it and I will have to get back to you when I have something else to say. 

Go gophers (hockey)!

Walleyedan

Good morning.  It is 8:44 a.m. and we woke up to a light dusting of snow up here in Lake Shore, Minnesota.  It's spring break for the kids and two of the three stayed up with me last night to watch the gophers beat the Minnesota State Mavericks from Mankato.  Wow, was that a series.  I'm hoping the Pohl boy is doing o.k. this a.m..  I did not fish this weekend, instead we headed up to to Cross Lake to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade.  We stayed overnight at the Whitefish Lodge and Suites.  What a nice place, the kids were loving the bunk beds and of course the pool, hot tub and sauna.  The home made waffles were a big hit on Sunday morning.  I would highly recommend a stay at this hotel, they have it all and are also walking distance to Rafferty's Pizza and to Cross lake, which is on the Whitefish Chain of lakes.  The snow is still hanging around up here in the north country, so you sno-birds might want to stick it out for another week or two.  But, when you get back it might be a good idea to call and book your fishing trip, we are starting to get a fair number of bookings.  The walleye season will be kicking of on the 10th of may this year and it will be a very exciting opener and Mother's Day!  Governor Tim Pawlenty will open up the season on Pelican Lake in Breezy Point, Minnesota.  Hopefully I will have my new Ranger boat by that time (buyarangerboat.com).  I have talked with a number of people and everyone is getting pretty pumped up for the open water season.  I was in Fleet Farm the other day shopping for the Arts In Bloom auction the other day and it got me in the mood for open water.  The Fleet Farm shelves are looking pretty well stocked and once again they look to have the largest selection of Rapala lures on the planet.  I best be going, the list of to do's is long.

Have a great break!,

Walleyedan

March 10, 2008

Good morning,

How are you?  I am a bit relieved, our computer issues are being resolved and it is starting to make me feel better.  I got some help this a.m. from Antonio and I think he may be the most intelligent person out there, or maybe I should say the second most intelligent person out there besides God.  He really did ease my mind on this computer stuff.  So anyway, winter is over!  Thank goodness.  I fished a couple of times this weekend and struggled on both occasions.  Once with Toby and Tim and the other was with the Inglemans.  Both trips were fun, but the fish did not want to cooperate.  I am hoping that with the nice sounding forecast that things will really start shaping up under the ice.  We have a lot going on in our lives, but I think with a warming trend things will go that much smoother because we are going to feel better mentally.  It's been a pretty long winter in the woods.  I went hiking with the family yesterday and it was nice to be out breathing some fresh air.  After the family walk, Alex (my oldest daughter) and I went on another hike back in the woods.  We brought her new pellet/bb gun that she won at the turkey banquet.  She is a pretty good shot.  We saw a lot of turkey tracks and I can not wait for some of this snow to melt so we can go back and get some birds to respond to our calls.  In the meantime, if any of you readers would like to fish we are more than ready to get on a good pan fish bite.  We will continue guiding on the ice until it is no longer safe to do so.  It sure does seem that a lot of people are ready for spring, we have been booking a fair amount of open water trips already.  One thing we would like to do this spring is more pan fish trips out of the boat.  If you would like to chase some crappies around, call and book a trip.  I would guess that the best times are going to be the 10 days leading up to the walleye opener (May 10).  I hope all of you have a nice week and I will be talking with you soon.  Congrats to Hill Murray on being the 2008 state highs school hockey champs.

Walleyedan

Good Friday morning to you and yours.  Sorry for the late report, but I have been on a whirl-wind tour the last couple of weeks.  It all started when my wife surprised me with a cruise to Cozumel and Grand Cayman.  It was our first cruise, and we had a great time.  Perry and Cindy Bunting and Dave and Jenny Bessingpass came too.  From ice to the Caribbean, pretty interesting.  I didn't fish.  After returning last Friday we stopped at the Miami boat show and then for a quick stroll around south beach.  Then it was on to E.P.,  where we stayed at my parents and then headed down to the U of M Aquatics Center for the YMCA state swim meet where the Brainerd Dolphins won the whole kit and kaboodle!  Nice job coaches and swimmers.  After the meet I road tripped over to Appleton Wisconsin to have some meetings and photo shoots with the Mills Fleet Farm people.  I will be doing some work with Mills Fleet Farm and it should make for a good time for all.  I will keep you posted on what this will mean, but I will tell you that we are running the guide service just like in the past.  My position with Mills Fleet Farm will allow me to stay on the water where I do my best work (most of the time).  Fleet Farm has an incredible selection of fishing and hunting supplies and is consistent with their affordable prices on the goods we need for the water or the field.  Last night was my first time on the ice in quite some time, Tim Hanske handled the ice fishing stuff while I was away.  Last night we had a group of 17 executives from the Best Buy Corporation and we had a good time.  They caught 6 or 8 walleyes and a bunch of perch, we were just happy that we had some action.  The walleye season closes on Sunday and I am still trying to decide on whether or not to take the kids out to the fish house for their first sleep over.  I probably should.  Wow, won't that be fun!

Talk to you soon,

Walleyedan 

Good Sunday Morning,

It's 8:10 a.m. and myself and Daisy (our goldendoodle) are the only ones up in this household.  It's not the norm, but yesterday was a very long day and our little guy has the nasty croopy cough going on so the more sleep the better.  We were at the section swim meet in Grand Rapids yesterday and that gets to be a long day.  The swimmers did very well and a lot of them qualified for the state meet which is held at the U of M aquatics center in two weeks.  I was last on the ice on Friday.  We had a couple of trips on Gull Lake, one big one (25 people) and I finished up the day fishing with Glenn and Sandy Cook out of the Sno Bear.  The Otto Bock group trip was pretty slow going, but the people had a good time and seemed quite happy just being out on the ice.  We didn't get skunked, the one gentleman won the whole pot for the first, most, biggest and smallest!  Not quite sure what he got for his accomplishment, but he did catch the only walleye!  The trip with Glenn and Sandy went better, they each caught a couple of walleyes and we had opportunities at a number of more fish.  Fun outings.  The walleyes we caught were roaming the "edge" in about 15 to 16 feet and they seemed pretty hungry when they showed up.  The Jigging Shad Rap was doing the trick as were the tip-ups with a Creep Worm and a small shiner.  The weather has finally mellowed out a little and now that we have a couple of feet of ice we should be good to go for the remainder of the season.  Hey, it's super bowl day.  I do plan on watching the game on the Ericksons  70 inch big screen, should be fun.  My guess is that it will be a good game but I think Randy Moss will be the deciding factor late in the 4th quarter.  If you would like to schedule a late ice crappie trip up to Red Lake, let's line it up now.

Have a nice week,

Walleyedan
www.walleyedan.com
218-839-5598

I am a year older today (40), but on the bright side we are a day closer to the 18th annual Brainerd Jaycees ice fishing extravaganza.  In fact we are really close, the gun goes off tomorrow (Saturday) at noon.  I'm pretty certain most of you readers know what I am talking about, but if you want to read more, go to icefishing.org.  I will be out on the ice tomorrow and will also be trying my skill/luck.  So far in my 16 years of fishing, I have not scored any prizes.  I have caught fish (walleyes and perch, but I haven't caught anything big enough to get on the board.  We will just have to see what is in the cards for this year.  Maybe my lucky t-shirt will do the trick.  If you want one, we will have some for sale at our Sno Bear (and also at our shop) so make sure you come by and pick one up!  We also have some fancy new stocking caps in many colors including pink.  If you are looking for something to do before the contest, swing on into Grand View Lodge tonight for the pre-party.  I look for fishing to be pretty good this wekend with the warm weather coming in.  We spent some time on Gull and Whitefish this week.  The fishing wasn't awesome, but we did catch some fish.  The largest was caught by Shawn Ryan of Rosemount who caught a beautiful 21 inch walleye on a jigging shad rap.  If any of you are interested in a pretty cool ice fishing excursion, sign up for a guided trip in the Sno Bear.  Take a look at the fishing page if you want to see a picture of the Sno Bear, it's wild!      

Walleyedan

Walleyedan's Guide Service
Dan and Shelley Eigen
9287 Anderson Rd.
Lake Shore, MN. 56468
www.walleyedan.com
218-839-5598

Hey we're at 0 degrees, we're having a heat wave.  I was thinking that we would be at 20 inches of ice by Saturday the 26th, but with this most recent blast of cold air, I think we might be at 2 feet!  The furnace went out a couple of times over the weekend when the temperature was 20 below, not really the best situation.  But we did survive!  I am hurrying and scurrying to get all things situated for my p.m. Sno Bear trip with Marc Ryan and his son who are heading up for the evening "bite".  I think I might head up north and check out one of the honey holes that I fished this fall.  The Brainerd Jaycees ice fishing extravaganza is 5 days away and the excitement is going to be building by the minute.  I plan on having the Sno Bear set up in the vendor area and we will be selling some goodies, make sure you find us and check things out.  If you want some warm clothing, this might be the week to check out our line of Arctic Armor.  My last trip to the ice was on Friday night when Keith and Michelle Hennen (from Jordan) were out with me.  We set up the bear on the Bow Tie and caught 1 walleye and had another tip-up that we didn't score on.  Let's just say that the cold front is to blame for that slow bite.  I better get my rear in gear, isn't it amazing how the time fly's.  If you our up here in our neck of the woods, make sure to stop by our new shop in Nisswa and check things out.    

Walleyedan

Walleyedan's Guide Service
Dan and Shelley Eigen
9287 Anderson Rd.
Lake Shore, MN. 56468
www.walleyedan.com
218-839-5598