Seeing Red - and crappies and walleyes?

The coffee is on and I am just starting to come to my senses. It will be a while before I can get some of that coffee flowing through the veins.

I am packing up the Sno Bear and heading to Upper Red Lake this a.m. to meet up with four guys from Wisconsin. They originally wanted to head up and catch some of the famous Red Lake crappies, but I had to let them know that the crappies on Red Lake are pretty tricky to locate these days as the population is not what it used to be. They had planned this trip a while ago and they are going to stay in a fish house tonight.

Although my confidence isn't raging, I'm still excited to get up there and see for myself what might happen.

Red Lake is a relatively featureless body of water with little structure - some artificial and some natural. Most of the lake is just like a shallow dish that tapers out to the teens.

I have heard that the walleyes are biting OK, but that it's been a morning and evening bite. Oh well, I'm not going to get too bent out of shape. It's time to fish and all we can do is see what today brings.

All in all, I have to say that this has been a tough winter on the ice for me and some of my customers. I missed out on the early ice because I was still chasing white-tails around the woods, and then once the big snowfalls came, the lakes were hard to navigate. And during this period of deep snow and a lot of slush, I was without my favorite ice fishing machine.

Once I did get out and about, it seemed like I would hit the brunt of every cold front and the fishing was not good. I did hear a lot of reports from a lot of anglers, and I will say that the majority (not all) were having a tough go of it, too.

The other day, I was up on Leech and I finally got to set the hook into a few fish. That was a good feeling, and that is my hope for a little later on this afternoon up on Red. With the walleye season winding down (Feb. 22 close), I start to think of late-ice pan fish and those big, beautiful gobblers. It's almost turkey time, people, and you can get a head start on things by coming to the National Wild Turkey Federation banquet at the Nisswa Community Center on Feb. 28. Kids are welcome to participate in the youth calling contest and could win something very nice.

I'm coffeed-up and ready to rock to Red. Have a great weekend.

WALLEYEDAN Eigen may be reached at (218) 839-5598, walleyedan@brainerd.com or www.walleyedan.com.