Week 6 = fish, fish, and more fish

First off, I want to apologize again for the long delay between blogs, but our internet went down again for a few days. I realize it is out of our control, but I am sorry anyways.

Now to the good news...fishing is excellent!
Last week was one of the better fishing weeks that I have seen in a long while.
Although some groups put up bigger numbers than others, all of the groups in camp boated some
really nice fish. We saw consistently good fishing from Saturday to Saturday. It was not uncommon to here that a single boat caught 50+ fish by dinner. Some partners even caught 50+ after dinner. As you will see the fishing was not all about numbers, there were some very big fish as well. Many walleyes in the 20-25 range and lots of "slot" size pike. We did not have as many laker this week, but I do not think most guests tried that hard for them.

Thanks to the Thorgesens, we saw the lead for largest walleye change hands twice. Rick started off his week with a beautiful 27 incher. Two days later Ken boated a 27 of his own. Then 2 days after that, Rick beat the season record with a monster 28 1/4" walleye. His reign a top the leader board only lasted one day because Ken managed to catch a huge 29+" walleye the last day of their trip.
that is going to be tough to beat!

Ken with his 29 inch walleye

Jim and Jim...

Jim Castner and Jim Kalina together have been coming to Black Bear Lodge for a combined 80 years. Jim Kalina is our longest returning guest, he has made an amazing 48 trips! I would like to tell you how many fish they have caught, but it would take way to long to come up with that total. They are both excellent fishermen when it comes to any species that Red Lake has, but typically they are after big walleyes. This year was no disappointment for the boys. They caught a lot of "over" walleyes last week. I believe their biggest was 26 inches with many in the 21-24 inch range. They also boated a few nice pike was well. 

We always enjoy their company every year and we look forward to another week with the 'Jim's'.

Jim Kalina

Jim Castner

Arkel crew

This group of "men" deserve their own post on this blog. Proportionally to their size, 

these boys caught the biggest fish of the year. They consistently caught big fish everyday.

Preston, Logan and Matthew caught a total of 9 trout this past week. I could not remember how big each fish was in the following pics, so I will list them for you..

Matthew - 30 inches

Logan- 32", 32", 31"

Preston - 34", 36", 36", 33", 39"

Also, Hailey and Brook boated a couple of their own the night they joined the boys.

They measured 33" and 32" respectively.

And lets not forget they "gang" caught plenty of walleye and pike as well.

Way to go crew!!!

Resting up between big fish.