This past weekend was the opening of the winter trout season here in Minnesota for inland lakes outside the BWCAW. Our first day started out well with some nice rainbows and a beautiful day.

Our second day was not as good. We got a late start and tried a different lake for brook trout. Grant hooked one fish that was easily over 20 inches, but that was all of the action we had that day.

On the following day, the temperatures dropped significantly and we had issues with the snowmobile. The plan was to drop Cory off at the lake and come back and get Grant. Cory and I found ourselves stuck in slush and we wound up breaking a tie rod on the sled, so only one ski would steer. Being that it was some 30 degrees below zero windchill (Fahrenheit) we had to quickly devise a way to get us out of there.

We managed to make it back and later decided to drive to and lake trout lake and fish for the few hours that we had left of the afternoon. Grant finally got one in the bag and iced a nice laker.

While driving back through Grand Marais, we saw what looked like a dog down the road standing by a mailbox. Once we got closer we realized it was a black wolf acting strange. Perhaps some of the locals in Grand Marais have been feeding them, which would explain why this one looked so sickly. Feeding wolves is a mistake.

This same thing happened earlier this year in another part of Minnesota where some wolves were spotted. People kept leaving food along the side of the road to lure the wolves to the side of the road where they could get pictures of them. Consequently the wolves were developing a non-fear of humans – and getting hit by cars.