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Newsletters>
2007 Little Moose News
December 31, 2007
December 15, 2007
Dear Friends of Little Moose Lodge
We have completed our third season as owners of Little
Moose Lodge successfully with excellent business growth. In
our second season our guest list doubled that of our first
season in 2005, and this past 2007 season our guest list
increased 50% from the 2006 season. Naturally we hope this
trend continues and the best way to ensure it does is to
continue providing you our valued guests with world class
hospitality in a clean and comfortable camp. Of course the
great fishing and hunting also helps.
We would like to acknowledge the Beckel, Hoeft, Thompson,
Hoggren, Blue, Wallace, Barth, Reiner, Thomas, Hartmann and
Wahl parties who have been coming to Little Moose Lodge
since we have been owners and most of you for years and
even decades before our ownership! Other repeat guests we
wish to acknowledge also include the Cook, McGinty,
Violante, Bradley, Kolodka, Janisch, Scanlon, Carpenter,
Chinn, Roach, Brizzolara, Murphy, Despins, Sheloff and
Vandernoot parties. Thank You to all of our first time
guests as well, we hope to see you again very soon!
We continually upgrade our website with information and
pictures, so check it out often. Thank you to those who
have sent email, letters and pictures of your vacation at
Little Moose Lodge. It means a lot to us that you share
your memories long after your vacation’s are over.
One of our bigger projects accomplished this past season
was the large addition to cabin #8, it now can comfortably
sleep 8-10 guests. All of our cabins now have new
refrigerators and about half the cabins have new mattresses
and bedding. We also installed another larger new
ultra-violet filtered water system to compliment our
existing one. Our guests this past season enjoyed new
padded swivel seats in our fishing boats as well as a
couple new 30 HP four stroke Yamaha motors that performed
as well as our Honda fleet.
Improvements will continue in 2008, including furnishing
all of our cabins with new dishes, cookware, toasters and
coffee makers. We will keep adding more new mattresses and
bedding to keep our cabins comfortable for you, our guests.
Our dock space is usually filled to capacity so we plan to
add another one or two docks for 2008.
This past season our weather was very good, not as hot and
dry as the previous season. We had a lot of rain in April
and early May and the early part of June which helped to
bring up the lakes water level. Higher water levels provide
excellent spawning conditions for the walleye, pike and
bass; so the 2007 year class will add to the great fishing
Clearwater-Pipestone Lakes provide. The summer months we
enjoyed very nice seasonable weather with only a few very
hot days, so the fishing remained good all season long even
through the so called “Dog Days of Summer”.
On July 4th we put on a fireworks show on the lake, lasting
about a ½ hour, it was awesome. We thank our guests that
also provided some of the fireworks. We are looking forward
to doing it again on July 1st and 4th in 2008.
Walleye fishing was excellent all season, Dale Beckle, a
fond guest has been bringing his family to Little Moose
every year since the 1950’s summed it up the best “Best
fishing ever in all my years coming here”. There were many
times our guests enjoyed a bite that was nonstop for hours.
One example of this is when I guided Robert Braendle’s
grandson Ian, a young fella who never caught a walleye
before, after 1 hour and 20 minutes he was a veteran, we
caught and released 53 walleye between 13-19 inches!
The walleye fishing on our chain of lakes has a bright
future with tons being caught in that size range. Again
this year our guests also caught many large walleye,
Clearwater Lake as usual led in the big fish department.
Top walleye honors were shared by Gary Hendrickson and
Marilyn Doebler with 30 inch walleye caught and released in
June and August respectively, on Clearwater Lake. Many in
the high 20’s were caught this year. The best walleye bite
though in my opinion is September, when they were stacked
in 30 feet of water and you can catch 15-20 eye’s per hour
all day long, scenery is spectacular with the fall colors.
Smallmouth bass fishing was good throughout the early part
of the season, the summer months were hot and cold with no
consistency. One exception though was Cedar Lake where we
have a boat cache on this smaller lake that is only minutes
from the lodge. Berkley Gulp white grub tails was the hot
lure, 50 fish days were very common with brutes in the
17-22 inch range caught. My fishing buddy caught the three
biggest smallies of the season; 22 and 20 inch slabs from
Cedar Lake and another 20 inch from Albert Lake, lucky me
got to net all three! Although he got to net my 28 inch
walleye from West Jackfish Lake.
Early season Muskie were aggressive, as many were caught
before the June 23 opener. Dan Brizzolara wears the muskie
crown this year; he caught and released a huge and healthy
49 inch monster! Honorable mention goes to Brett Altman
with a 48 inch muskie caught in July; John Boyle who caught
a 46 inch muskie in August and Rob Raymond caught his 45
inch muskie in July. Clearwater Lake produced three of
these four heavyweights.
As with the Muskie fishing, the Lake trout fishing on
Pipestone Lake was popular with several fishing parties.
Wahl family did very well again this year as well as the
Hoggrens, the largest were caught by Rick Hoggren and Bill
Wahl, both fish reaching 30 inches.
Northern Pike fishing was very good all year; the biggest
ones were caught early in the season before they headed to
deep water. Barb Hoggren’s 41 inch northern was caught in a
bay close to the lodge in early June.
This was our first year offering Whitetail hunting trips,
and overall it was very successful three weeks. We had
eleven American hunters in camp and eight were successful,
seven of these gentlemen got their biggest bucks to date.
Some of the bigger racked deer were taken by Ken Louchart
who got a nice 11 pt buck, Fred Campbell and Ray Kihn each
bagged 10 pointers, Tom Ellis shot a nice 9 point buck on
his first day and Ray Cantrell shot an 8 pointer. We also
had six Canadian hunters in camp; four of them got their
deer. We will continue the Whitetail hunt next year,
although we will keep the hunters in camp minimal to
increase their chances of success.
We probably will not be attending any trade shows this
winter, both Terry and Monica are living and working in
Edmonton, Alberta. Our daughters Kristy and Terrilyn are
attending university in Edmonton. We can still be reached
either by email or our toll free phone number.
If you are attending any of the All Canada shows early in
2008, you may want to stop by the booths to apply for your
passports if you don’t have one yet. The date has not been
set for when you will be required to have a passport when
crossing back into the USA by land, but it could be as
early as July 2008, although that does not seem likely at
this time. We recommend getting one as they will eventually
be required.
Included with this newsletter is our 2008 rate sheet. Our
rates have increased slightly for 2008, but we have
remained determined to be the lodge that gives you the most
value for your money spent. This coming year we have added
a docking fee for personal boats, of course electrical
outlets are still available for your use. Beginning in 2008
the GST (Goods and Services Tax) will be 5%, the previous
years it was at 6%. We are now members of Northwest Ontario
Direct Marketing Fund, so there will be a 1% fee on the
accommodation portion of your plan. This 1% tax works out
to be about $2.50 per guest for a one week stay and goes
directly to the fund which helps to market our area.
If you already plan on spending time with us next season,
please give us a call as early as possible so we can
reserve a cabin for you, we’re already starting to fill
some weeks up in 2008, and we don’t want to be in the
position of telling any of our past guests that we are
full.
We promise the service and friendliness we have established
the past three years will continue, and we are looking
forward to your company in the ’08 season!
Your hosts
Monica, Terry, Kristy and Terrilyn Berryman
PS Check out the following to see all of our guests
trophy fish that qualified for Ontario Angler Awards. We
sincerely apologize to anyone we may of overlooked. We
realize that there was many other trophy fish caught but
not documented or verbally reported that we may have forgot
about.
Name State Species Size Lake Caught
Gary Hendrickson MN Walleye 30” Clearwater June
Marilyn Doebler TX Walleye 30” Clearwater August
Rick Benson IA Walleye 29.25”Clearwater July
Jason Margraff HI Walleye 29” Jackfish June
Jack Scanlon MN Walleye 28” Clearwater May
Terry Berryman ON Walleye 28” Jackfish July
Jason Margraff HI Walleye 27.5” Clearwater June
Luther Galdhutt MN Walleye 27.5” Rice May
Mike Jordan MO Walleye 27” Clearwater June
Brittany Sibert MN Walleye 27” Despair June
Amber Sheloff ON Walleye 27” Clearwater Sept
Mike Hendrickson MN Walleye 26" Despair June
Mike Hendrickson MN Walleye 26” Clearwater June
Aaron Lawher WI Walleye 26” Clearwater August
Ed Ergenbright IA Walleye 25.5” Clearwater July
Mike Jordan MO Walleye 25.5” Clearwater June
Mike Hendrickson MN Walleye 25.5” Clearwater June
Joe Griesgraber MN Walleye 25” Clearwater May
Brittany Sibert MN Walleye 25” Clearwater June
Terry Berryman ON Walleye 25” Clearwater May
Curtis Sheloff ON Walleye 25” Jackfish July
Terry Berryman ON Walleye 25” Albert July
Dan Brizzolara IL Muskie 49” Clearwater June
Brett Altman IA Muskie 48” Clearwater July
John Boyle WI Muskie 46” Clearwater August
Rob Raymond NJ Muskie 45” Pipestone July
Mike Wallace MN Muskie 40” Pipestone June
Barb Hoggren IL Pike 41” Clearwater June
Bailey Braendle MO Pike 36” Cedar August
Rick Benson IA Pike 34” Rice July
Michael Petrula MN Pike 32” Clearwater May
Dale Huhnke IL Pike 32” Footprint August
Jason Margraff HI Pike 31” Panarama June
Rick Hoggren IL Lake Trout 30” Pipestone June
Bill Wahl MN Lake Trout 30” Pipestone August
Russel Janke MN Whitefish 25” Clearwater May
Curtis Sheloff ON Crappie 16” Jackfish July
Terry Berryman ON Crappie 15” Jackfish July
Thomas Huhnke IL Crappie 15” Jackfish August
Curtis Sheloff ON Smallmouth 22” Cedar July
Curtis Sheloff ON Smallmouth 20” Cedar August
Curtis Sheloff ON Smallmouth 20” Albert July
Gary Bird MN Smallmouth 19.5” Clearwater May
Russel Janke MN Smallmouth 19” Pipestone May
Bob Dedic MN Smallmouth 19” Despair Sept
Jason Margraff HI Smallmouth 18.5” Cedar June
Barb Hoggren IL Smallmouth 18” Clearwater June
Rick Hoggren IL Smallmouth 18” Pipestone June
Paul Huhnke IL Smallmouth 18” Jackfish August
Chris Wallace MN Smallmouth 17” Clearwater May
Barb Hoggren IL Smallmouth 17” Pipestone June
Rick Hoggren IL Smallmouth 17” Clearwater June
Terry Berryman ON Smallmouth 17” Albert July
Bailey Braendle MO Smallmouth 17” Cedar August
Harriot Sheloff ON Smallmouth 17” Stonedam Sept
Terry Berryman ON Smallmouth 17” Cedar Sept
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