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January 2007
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Winter finally arrived in the northland. Like most of you we have had an extremely mild season-that is until the last week. Then the bottom dropped out of the thermometer. The temperatures that you may see on the weather maps for Duluth usually are not indicative of what we are experiencing. As the temperatures fall, even though the lakes have “iced in”, they begin to “sing”. At night, it is not uncommon to hear the lakes snap, crackle, and pop as the ice gets deeper and deeper and expands more and more. At one point around Christmas we had a beautiful wet snow. It was cloudy that next day, but the trees were beautiful. We thought you might enjoy a couple of pictures taken early in the morning before the temperatures rose and the snow fell off of the trees and melted.
Then on New Years Eve, we had an ice and snow storm. No, we couldn’t hold a candle to the ones in Missouri and Colorado, but areas south and east of Ely did lose power for almost 24 hours. Our lights flickered quite a lot, but amazingly, we did not lose power. The next day, the sun came out, and once again it warmed up and the trees lost their beautiful white cover.
Our average seasonal snow fall is about 85 inches. According to The Ely Echo newspaper, we have had only 20 inches with about only five inches remaining on the ground. The snowmobilers are complaining as are the dogsled mushers. Paul is still training his racing dogs with the four-wheeler in open non rocky areas. Dogsled trips are on schedule, but they are being run mostly on lakes as opposed to going through the woods. Cross country skiers are okay, but they too are wishing for more snow.
At this time of year most of the fish are taking a break. The walleye and bass are dormant, and the Northerns are in a pre-spawn condition but are biting. The lake trout, however, are post-spawn and are legal to catch both inside and outside the border lakes. They seem to be partial to live minnows and ciscoes. Pan fish-crappie, blue gill, and perch- are also biting. Moose Lake is not among the favorites for winter fishing, primarily because there are no lake trout. The bears are also basically dormant, but are awake enough to give birth to their cubs. The cubs are able to crawl around to mom’s tummy and nurse. Mom will fully awake later, probably late March, depending on the weather, to find their cute fuzzy little bundle of joy happily nursing. Think about it-no late night feeding, no burping, or crying. The bears just may have a great birthing and early infant care system. About now, the male deer (bucks) are beginning to shed their antlers. The growth and shedding of the antlers are related to their hormone levels. During the fall mating season, the male’s level of testosterone increases, and the antlers become markedly larger. Obviously, the antlers help them fight off their foes. Then after breeding season, there is no more sparing for the females, their testosterone level drops, and they shed their antlers.
The best news is that by the end of the next week or two we should be past the worst part of the winter, and slowly we can begin to think about spring and our thoughts will turn to the warm days of summer and great fishing.
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