Arvid's Fishing Report

We haven’t had a big snow anytime this winter, but those 1” to 5” every other day sure add up. The snow piles and snow banks are getting quite large.

Forty years ago this past weekend is the anniversary of the March 1966 blizzard that came through the upper Midwest. Some of you were old enough and were around here to remember that storm. Diane and I were living in Bismarck and I was with an associate doing an audit of a grain elevator in Strasburg ND. We left Bismarck on Wednesday morning with no warning that a storm was coming. The storm hit on Wednesday afternoon and lasted until early Saturday morning. When the storm cleared all we could see of Klint’s car was the top six inches of the roof. Strasburg is the hometown of Lawrence Welk and a niece of his was caught and died in the storm. On our way back to Bismarck we saw cattle standing up against fence lines frozen stiff. After wonderful pheasant hunting the fall of ’65 I only saw one rooster pheasant in the fall of ’66. I understand that Baudette received about three feet of snow and that travel was by snowmobile for a day or so. All that snow took its toll on the deer herd that spring. And, as you might have suspected, the elevator audit didn’t get done that week.

The VFW’s annual fishing derby on Baudette Bay was held on Saturday. I have been attending it for as long as we’ve lived here and over the years we’ve been lucky and have had some success; especially when the girls were small. This year there were about 40 fish caught; all pike with the largest 7 lbs. 10 oz. Most were about 2 lbs. I didn’t catch any nor did my name get drawn for any of the prizes.

Baudette Bay on March 2006

Yard Stick – 23 inches under clothesline