Minnesota Resorts Blog

       We just did the Forth of July festivities.  Aaron and I go to Grand Forks to get the forth of July fireworks.  We come back with a truck load.  We get all levels of fireworks and we start with the youngest of the kids. 

    They get to use sparklers, smoke bombs and Roman candles.  We then work up to the teenagers they get to fire off the candles, parachutes, and other mid range fireworks.   The customers sit down and then Aaron’s crew really gets to work.  

  He gets 3 other college guys to help him.  They have 3 different staging areas.  Safety is of course a main concern.  The guests are very close to the action.  In 9 years we have never had even a slight burn to us or our guests.  He ends to night with a 250.00 grand finale.  The croud always goes wild at the end.  This year Aaron started with the youngsters and was working for 15 min and a storm rolled in.  The storm was something like seen in a movie, it was actually rolling up there and really black. We posponed the fun till the 5th.

   Something we always do on the 4th of July is a boat parade.  All the boat owners on the lake meet at a certain spot in the lake and we preceded to circle the lake.  Everybody decorates their boat and we honk our horns.  Kohl’s send out 2 jet skis with drivers and we hand out bags of candy to the people waving from the docks.   This year I was honored with leading the parade.  I felt a land owner that has been here longer  should have been able to do it, but I was beaming.  Our guests with boats join us and the kids have a great time.  These are memories.    Jim

    We are in a good routine, all the building are set up for the July rush.

  We have been working on our new cabin. It took 4 months to complete.  It was finished 2 hours before the first guests checked into it.  We were very excited  to show it to those first people.  The guest were elated when they saw it.  New is so nice!!   

  This new cabin is 202 set in the corner of the woods, the deck in elevated and is set up in the trees.  This cabin used to be a tree house and now have a second floor under it.  It will be very popular. 

   Aaron is having great success with his guiding service, he charges 90.00 for 4 hours of fishing.  His customers have been very successful the past 2 weeks.  They have caught lots of Bass, walleye, northern and pan fish.  For Christmas we got him a really nice landing net and wind/rain suit. 

  I remember last year he was using one of the resorts old landing nets and a big 30 northern ripped a hole in the net and it got away.  Well it was a catch and release anyway, and Aaron did get pictures of it while it was being landed and while it got away.  Fun fish story.    Jim

Now that it is the 2nd week of June there are kids all over the place, pool, playground, beach, frog pond, ping pong table, volleyball area, trampoline, docks, bike area, horse shoe pits, saturn water toy, docks, at the sand castle contest, cook out area, at the minnow races, kids craft, bingo, they were at both of the ice cream socials, the movie night, pool, video game area,,,,  Jim breath.  Yes it’s nice to see the kids here.

  I hired another full time college student her name is Abby, she is a joy to have around.  She has worked cleaning cabins for 3 years, but now she is full time.  This brings us to 4 full timers, 15 part time and Deb and I.

  She will have her hands full as she joins Ana in all the staining and powerwashing of decks. There is also 5 cabins a year to stain, along with all the daily chores.  They take care of the boats. Clean the beach and rake it daily. Clean the fish house, pool, laundry and grounds daily.  They stock wood, get garbage, and even repair stuff.  We are glad we have them.  Ana by the way has been here for 5 years. 

  There was a hail storm this week, our roofs took a pounding.   Jim

    Fishing opener  is already past and the Summer is just ahead of us.  The docks, and boats are all in the water.  The water is high, but it is high everywhere in the country.  I am grateful there is almost no damage like some of the states get.  The water was trying although to wash under our boathouse. 

  Fishing has been good so far and we have lots of pictures for the guests. 

  We are working on our new cabin #202 it will be a 3 bedroom 3 bath unit.  With 2 Jacuzzies, a second living room, dishwasher, infloor heat, airconditioning and a great deck.  Thank you to all the guest reserving this unit sight unseen, we have no pictures yet and we have quite a few bookings already.

  Customers needed air conditioning this week and 2 of them broke.  This always happens the first time of the year.

  I had to get a new truck this Winter, it is a 3 year old Dakota with a plow.  The last one had the engine sieze up after Tires Plus worked on the cooling system. I think they never pressure tested it and thats it the engine is shot.  Too bad I almost got nothing for the trade in.  See you on the docks.   Jim

  All of the Winter lease families have left except a few nurses for the Bemidji hospital.  We will keep there here for as long as we have room.  It is steady income. 

  The helicopter pilots have arrived.  These guys fly helicopters and planes that carry water for putting out fires.  The Spring grasses are brown and there can be up to 20 fires each day.  This year we had 4 guys. One guy stayed for a month.  For workers coming into the area we give them special rates. 

  David one of the guys I hired to help with the docks, will be working for us this Summer

We are about finished putting the docks in for the year.  I counted 24 sections of dock.  I have 2 younger guys helping this year.  I still put my back out.  It will take about 8 visits to the chiropractor to get everything good again.

  The ducks and loons have been here for about a month already.  They started coming well before the ice was off. 
They congregate in the open water at the channel. 

  We have already done a light raking to the grounds to get the leaves and some of the debris up. 

  I can see the buds are getting fat everywhere,  they will start to pop soon.

  Next week the college school year will be finished and all our Winter lease students and families will be leaving.  Jim

   In the first part of this series I talked about how Aaron shot at his trophies and I also described what had occurred during the wait right after his shots.

  Now lets get into the the worst part of a hunt, the game preparation and the drag out.

  It was still only 9am and it was just starting to warm up a little. We stayed at the 2nd kill for now to start gutting the beast.  Aaron always seems very happy for me to step up to the deer and gut it for him.  So I stripped off my heavy orange camoflauge coat and placed it on a tree branch stub.  I always carry a set of thin clear plastic elbow length cleaning gloves.  I worked silently and diligently at removing all the insides of the deer.  I temptingly looked at the large liver and heart knowing these are tasty. but left them again for the varments to feast on later that night.

   After cleaning myself up a bit, we needed a game plan on which direction we needed to pull this guy to the nearest trail.  We were about two lengths of a football field in.  This deer fell in a popple cut and the trees were everywhere.  I mean they were literally 10 to 12 inches apart from each other.  Also the trail will have to be blazed all up hill.  I took the two drag lines out of my pocket and secured them around the deers neck.  This will be very tricky as the size of the antlers will be getting cought on the young trees every 1-2 feet.  We moved the guns and clothes up the hill about 1/2 way, surveying the land as we went.  Now dragging a doe through these trees would usually be quite a challenge, but the bucks antlers being so big will need us to work in constant coordination.  Now remember Aaron is 19.   We don’t always see eye to eye on everything.  It took about 1/2 an hour to get to the 1/2 way point. 

   I have always pridemyself for being a semi strong guy, and I have always thought I could tough almost anything out.  But now just turning 50 this year, I’ll say I’ve lost something, I don’t know what, but something’s gone.  In the past I could put the drag line around my waist and  pull a deer through the woods like a football player pulling weights.  But on this hunt I could only get the animal about 5 feet on my own.  When Aaron would regrab the rope and pull we would start to move right along. 

  Oh, did I say these trees must have something against us for invading their territory.  My arms and face were constantly being slapped and whipped by these attackers.  Yes, I said it, attackers.

  It took almost a full hour to get this deer to the trail and load him into the back of my pickup.  I was huffing and puffing almost the entire time. Now I’m thinking how do I get someone else to drag the other one.  i called Eric my neighbor to see of he could come and give a hand. He was in the woods and said he would try to get to us.

  We walked down to the other buck and I started working on the messy part of this 2nd animal.  i had this one cleaned within 15 min and we were ready to start the uphill battle all over again.

  This guy, like the other, only traveled about 15ft from where he stood at stood time.  He fell straight down hill and lay 15 ft from the small swamp-creek. 

  We decided to take this one the other way to another path But we had  to first get him through the water then up the incline to the level path to the truck. 

  The creek was only about one and a half feet deep we stretched logs across for someplace for us to walk. 

  It took another hour to make it to the truck.  While we drove back to the resort Aaron stood in the back of the truck and leaned against the back window.  I think he was affraid these guys would get away somehow.  In the short trip back he had aready posted his story and photos on facebook and some other social media. Electronics we are stuck with it. 

  My pride was also bursting as I had called Deb to tell her to meet us outside the lodge in a minute.  Deb called Tara, Aaron’s girlfriend, up at their cabin and the both of them were standing in the parking lot as we pulled in. 

  We did hugs and told our story ‘a few times’, before cleaning up and heading into town to get them weighted. 

  We went to Gander mountain and they both came in over 200 lbs, they will shurly taste good over the long cold Bemidji winter.  Jim

 This was one of the best years for us Hunting. 

   Aaron, my son, and I have been hunting Bemidji for the last 8 years together.  I have mostly been the lucky one hunting.  We have stands  two miles behind  the resort in the Buena Vista State forest. 

    While sitting opening morning, at about 8:30 I heard a shot go off in Aarons direction.  One minute later I get a text saying” I think I hit a buck”.  I texted him back and said to wait 30 min for me to get down and walk his way.  Ten min later I hear another shot .  He texted again” I might have hit another deer”. I told him to wait 20 min for me again to get to him.    

   As I sit there waiting I think about the controversy over that stand he is in.  Two years ago he decided to pass sitting in his stand, 6 days into the hunting season. He said he would hunt closer to the resort, as we always get a group of deer living close to the resort for the Winter. .

  Now he has always sat in that stand and I would sit 1/2 mile away from him.  He has never been very sucessful there, and I have never sat there as I always liked my deeper woods location. He has heard many deer cutting through the swamp edge at the bottom of the incline.  The mature treeline also runs right there.   So I with his permission of course I decided to sit in his nice 20ft aluminum platform stand.  His stand sits on the side of a small hill, that is part of a 2 mile square clear cut that was completed 6 years ago.  Popple are growing up over most of the clear cut, but this one small hillside has decided to stay open from the encroaching small whip size trees. 

  I sat most of the afternoon and neither heard or saw anything. Then I just looked up after quietly switching my crossed legs. Right in front of me 40 yards away was a nice buck just standing there, I think he was trying to get my scent figured out.  I brought my gun up and shot.  He moved forward and hid in some 15ft tall brush.  5 min later he stuck his head out and I spotted him again.  I took another shot.  He bolted for the woods. 

  I called my son and he came to enjoy the tracking of this big buck.  One hour later we finally cought up to him, this was now after full darkness blanketed us.  There he lay a nice 13pt great big buck.

  I had that trophy mounted and it hangs with honor in the resort store.  This good luck of mine never sat to well with Aaron, he still claims that was his deer and I stole his opportunity to get it.

 I thought about that prior hunt and hoped todays adventure would be just as exciting.   20 min later I headed his direction. It took me about 15 min to walk the distance to his stand.  When I got there he was nowhere to be found.  After I stood there for a few, he yelled from down in the swamp/ creek bottom.  I got to him and he stood over a really thick 8pt buck.  He said this was the first one to come out and he pointed to a spot opposite his stand in a thicket of 6 yr old popple trees.  As we got near the thicket we started to see a blood trail.   30ft inside the trees was another big long tined 8pt buck. 

   Yes thats two 8 pointers withing 11 min of each other.  He said he saw a fork and a doe also that morning.  I thought what the heck, I sat for 2 hours and did not see or hear anything.  To be continued next blog.    Jim

The temps are about normal.  The ice is about ready to form this week.  We have been getting a few flurries.  There is supposd to be a snow storm this week.  We always look forward to the ice froming, probably because it is different then looking at the waves.  We can kind of do a count down.  We can tell about a week before it freezes.  The water turns darker.  The waves loose all their kick.  Actually at the end there are no waves. 

  We can see the thin layer now, but as the sun comes up this will eat away at the film and tonight will bring another try at complete freezing. 

  The brown needles from the leaf burn are noticable now.  It tees me off to see the brown needles.  Too late now but I wish we wo0uld have taken out time on this Falls leaf burn.  The only good thing is it will look better by June. 

   This years leaves went fast because we bought a second walk behind leaf blower.  It can blow the leaves up to 20 ft away.  This one is stronger then my other one, but also is about 50-100 lbs more weight to push around.   Ouch.      Jim