LilliepadUSA: Day 12 (19th): Headline News: Nick Lillie catches his first Northern Pike!

Hello Everybody,

I woke up this morning hardly believing that it is Saturday already and our time on Gull Lake is almost at an end. It is pouring down rain outside and all of our neighbors in the surrounding cabins are already almost done packing their vehicles...and we haven't even started! When I finally did go out to the car to put the Stowaway2 back on the car, a small crisis emerged. The lock pin on the trailer hitch that holds the Stowaway2 box in place would not unlock! I could not put the box on the car without somehow unlocking this pin. Well, try as I might I could not get it to unlock and I was starting to get worried. Thankfully Kent came by and told me that Mill's Fleet Farm, a large store in Baxter ~ 8 miles away, carried these locking pins and could probably remove the one I had. As usual Kent was right -- Fleet Farm had several clocking trailer hitch pins to choose from and their automotive center used a blowtorch and removed the older one (no charge). Crisis avoided! Fleet Farm was fantastic and quite a smart operation. Two reasons why I say that: first, with my purchase in the store I received a coupon for $0.04 off per gallon of gas -- smart way to capture more wallet share from their customers. Second, they had a sign right next to an American flag that offered to trade in people's tax refund/economic stimlulus checks for a Fleet Farm gift card and add 5% to the total! (see the picture below). Great business sense.

After filling up with gas at Fleet Farm's Gasmart, I headed back to Gull Haven to continue packing in the rain...and it ended up being a really nice morning and early afternoon. I asked for late checkout which relieved some of the time pressure, and allowed Jill to cook some of the last fresh things we had out of the fridge before moving to a smaller cabin on the other side of the lake. Yes, we had one more night on the lake, just not at Gull Haven. After packing up the car and eating a delicious lunch of Jill's fresh beef tacos, we headed over to the main Grand View Lodge property. While I was checking us in, Jill and the kids signed up for water skiing and tubing at 3 pm. We dropped off our day bags in the room, got in our swim trunks and headed to the boathouse where we would catch our last ski boat of the trip. It was so much fun! Josh led the way with some awesome tubing, followed by Jake who completely owned the tubing landscape. Then it was Natalie's turn to water ski and she did GREAT!! She skied for quite awhile before willingly (i.e. she didn't crash) giving up the rope. Nick was up next and he was positively beastly on skis -- he skied in the wake and over the waves out on the side of the boat. He also gave up the rope willingly. Finally it was my turn, and while I haven't skied in 30 years, I got up and had some fun behind the boat. Fortunately, Jill the photographer was on board, and took some fabulous shots, including some of our boat driver, Adam, who was awesome to us the whole time we were at Grandview. Take a look at some of the photos below:

After our wonderful "last ride" on the speed boats of Grandview, we all went swimming in the beautiful indoor swimming pool. The water slide in there is so fun, especially w

hen being chased by 3 children! I say 3 children as Nick was up in the workout room, running on the treadmill. This is a part of Nick's training for soccer and he has been very good about keeping a workout schedule, certainly better than all the rest of us! It was about 6:30 pm when we finished in the pool and workout room and the kids ran down to the lake shore, not quite ready to go in the room yet.

They jumped in kayaks that were at the boathouse and paddled around the swimming area -- take a look:

It was an idyllic, Minnesota night.

Fish Story, Part 2

It was close to 7 pm and Nick and I debated whether he should try and catch a Northern Pike one more time. I told him we wouldn't be able to stay out too long, probably about an hour, two hours at the most. Nick wasn't sure. He had been disappointed thus far and wasn't sure he could stand one more disappointment. I told him that it was choppy out on the lake which is good for northerns, and that I had a good feeling about it. He finally decided to go and we were off.

Well it was one of the scariest boat rides I have ever been on. The choppiness by the shore turned into whitecaps in the middle of the lake, and at one point, the boat was turned onto its side and Nick was slammed against the side of the boat. I felt we were going to capsize at that moment. I even had images of Nick as Captain Ahab and the Big Northern was his Moby Dick, ready to gobble him up when he fell in the lake. Luckily we didn't capsize, Nick quickly put on his life preserver, and we slowly but surely made it across the lake to our favorite Northern spot. The water was so rough it was all I could do to keep the boat straight while trolling parallel to shore. In fact, I had to put my rod down just to concentrate on trolling. We couldn't even troll in one of the directions because we were pushed violently toward shore when we went in that direction. Nick really wanted to catch that fish!

We weren't there but 10 minutes when Nick caught a fish, another rock bass. With a look of determination, Nick dropped his line in the water again after I had unhooked the bass. As we were bumping along Nick got a huge strike. He quickly jerked the rod upward setting the hook, and his rod bent over almost double. Nick said, "Whoa, Dad, this is a big fish." I cut the motor, hopeful we had finally hooked Nick's Moby. The fish was pulling so hard and Nick was laboring enough that I knew he had finally hooked a northern...now all we needed to do was land it in this crazily bouncing boat! The fish was running on the left side of the boat (Nick was on the left side of the boat too so all was good) when all of a sudden he reversed directions and went under the motor to the right side of the boat! I told Nick to keep his rod tip up and quickly grabbed the line and lifted it over the motor before the fish could use the propeller blades to sever the line (fastest way to lose a fish). I told Nick to switch to the right side of the boat where the fish was and it was on that side of the boat that we netted and boated the fish, a beautiful 10 lb northern! Nick was incredulous and after high fives and smiles we headed back to Grandview Lodge with his fish.

When we returned (uneventfully thankfully) to the other side of the lake, we did a little victory "flyby" past the lodge, waved to the crowd, and then docked the boat. A few people came out to the boat to see the fish, although not as many as when Jake caught his. Jill I think that is primarily because this side of the lake was little less rustic than the Gull Haven side. In fact, we soon discovered that this side of the lake didn't even have a fish cleaning shack! We didn't mind much as that gave us one last chance to go back over to Gull Haven to see the place, clean the fish, and say hit to Kent. We arrived at Gull Haven to much more fanfare as several little kids came running out to see the fish. It was awesome to watch Nick show the kids the fish and patiently answer their questions. After measuring and weighing the fish (28", just under 10 lbs), I filleted it and Jill came and picked us up as it was to dark to drive the boat back over. Once back over at our cabin, we watched a lightning storm with hot chocolate and popcorn until bedtime.