Amy Lindgren

It’s been warm and dry all winter here in the northland, so this week’s rainy snowfall was  needed. Even so, and as much as I love snow, I have to admit I would have been fine without this storm. At this point in the season, it feels like a setback to dig out the shovel again, taking care on the trek to the shed not to trample the tender green shoots poking up.

We’ll get to spring soon enough and we’ll have the bonus of needed moisture as well. In the meantime, the suddenly icy sidewalks put me in mind of setbacks we suffer in our work lives that are more difficult. These range from relatively small things, such as not receiving a requested promotion, to larger problems such as losing a job, to nearly catastrophic events such as a serious injury or personal loss.

As harsh as these situations can be, we need to navigate them with intent if we want to make a comeback. But how to do that?

Here are six things to do if you suffer a setback, whatever it may be. While these steps will vary in duration and intensity depending on your situation, you can use them as a general guide to help in your planning.

1. Step back: If the setback is happening now, don’t act or speak in haste. Even if it means leaving the room briefly, take at least a little time to settle your thoughts if you’re feeling shocked or overwhelmed. Also, try not to sign anything in the same meeting when you receive difficult news, whatever it may be.

2. Manage the crisis: If the setback has created crisis points — such as the loss of health care because of a layoff — focus there for the short term. You need to understand your options and prioritize time-sensitive steps to keep the crisis from growing.

3. Seek counsel: Whether that’s an emotional support such as a friend or mentor, or a heavy hitter such as an employment attorney, setbacks are easier to recover from when you don’t go solo.

4. Structure your time: If the setback includes the loss of a daily schedule, re-create that element by establishing a routine. Having a regular time for getting up, eating, exercising, and going to bed is one way of regaining control. It also keeps bad habits from forming that add to your woes later, such as sleeping too much or not eating properly.

5. Create work windows: As part of your daily structure, you need consistent time to work on difficult or time-consuming things. If you’re not employed, this could be an hour or two after breakfast and again after lunch. This is time you use for calls to the insurance company, paperwork for unemployment, conversations with your health provider, or any other personal business that could otherwise pile up or fall between the cracks.

Later, you can convert these hours to physical therapy or job search or even a home-based business as part of your comeback. (Do your best not to watch television or conduct other activities such as laundry during this time, or you’ll soon lose the concept.)

6. Make a comeback plan: Pull out your calendar and ask yourself: How long will this last? If the setback is on the small side, such as missing a promotion, the answer should be, “I’m done now, and ready for the comeback.” Then you can decide your next steps, whether that’s trying for a later promotion, switching jobs, or something in between.

For larger setbacks, the recovery period could take months or even years before you’re ready to move forward. The key is to plan things to do within that timeframe so you don’t slip too far backwards. That could include part-time or contract work, classes to update your skills, networking to explore new careers, etc. The specifics really depend on your circumstances and goals at this point. The critical thing is to keep a foot in the world you want to return to (or enter), so later you won’t have to build the ladder before using it to climb out.

Is this all hard to do? Oh, yes. Coming back from a setback can be one of the most difficult things you ever face. But it can be made just a bit easier by laying some stepping stones to follow on your way to the next chapter. Have faith that spring will come, even if you have to keep the snow shovel ready while you wait.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

Stay off your phone and put down that cheeseburger while you’re driving, state officials say, warning that distracted drivers will be the target of a law enforcement campaign during April.

“Scrolling through social media on your cell phone. Unwrapping that delicious cheeseburger. Checking that work email that someone just sent. Those are all fine — from the comfort of your couch. Behind the wheel? They could be deadly,” says the state Department of Public Safety, warning that law enforcement will be spending extra time in April looking for distracted drivers.

Between 2019 and 2023, distracted driving in Minnesota was a contributing factor in nearly 30,000 crashes, DPS said. It also annually contributed to some 29 deaths and 146 “life-changing injuries” during that time period.

“Simply put, a two-ton vehicle with a distracted driver behind the wheel can steal a life,” said Mike Hanson, director DPS’ Office of Traffic Safety. “Don’t fool yourself. You’re distracted anytime you shift your attention from driving. It can be challenging, but for everyone’s safety, focus on driving.”

The hands-free cellphone use law means drivers can’t hold their phone in their hands, officials said. Drivers can use their phones to call, text, listen to music or podcasts, or get directions only by a single touch activation without holding their phones or by voice commands.

Drivers who injure or kill someone while violating the hands-free law can face criminal vehicular operation or homicide charges.

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Kathy Cargill had me at McLaren, which distinguishes her from 99.99 percent of all other Minnesotans who are looking for their stolen Kias. McLarens are British super cars that can cost millions. Cargill collects them. Why, in this humble state, to arrive in a McLaren is like arriving at the local saloon’s Saturday night meat raffle in patent leather slippers and a tuxedo with gold lapels.

Cargill, the wife of a Cargill, as in the privately held food and agricultural giant, has taken it upon herself to engineer a beautification project on a strip of sand called Park Point, in Duluth. She has been buying up neighborhood homes, often paying more than they are worth. Some people sell. Some are holding out.

What is the woman up to? I keep seeing Eunice “Lovey” Howell, wife of Thurston, on “Gilligan’s Island.” That might be unfair to Cargill’s age. My only familiarity with her is a short McLaren video in which Kathy touts the enjoyment of driving her McLarens in Colorado. If you think I’m going insult a Cargill woman by guessing her age, you’ve got another thought coming. She appears youngish, and certainly knows how take a car through a mountain curve.

But other than that, who is she? For all I know, she’s from Hugo. And what in the world is she up to? There hasn’t been this much excitement on Park Point since the Greek freighter Socrates washed up nearly on shore in November 1985. People from miles around drove to see it. I did. And now those homes I remember must be owned by Cargill, for reasons nobody knows.

A climate change retreat? At lake level? Probably not. An Orwellian village? A Cargill family compound? The Cargill company is wildly successful. I’d take a cottage on Park Point, but the Cargills could have a compound anywhere in the world.

What is known is that Cargill doesn’t have much truck with the local gossip and asides. Lots of tut-tutting. She could very well be getting her first exposure to the modern political activist class, virtually all of whom think it’s their business to tell billionaires what to do even though most of them have never done anything except be an activist.

It’s delightful entertainment for the rest of us to watch Cargill put the back of her hand on her forehead, as though afflicted, when the mayor of Duluth, Roger Reinert, asks Cargill about her plans. Cargill told the Wall Street Journal that Reinert “peed in his Cheerios,” by which she apparently meant that it’s none of anybody’s business what she’s up to. She also threatened to withhold a pickleball court to those attempting to pry inside of her North Shore LS LLC.

It’s a humdinger of a mystery. The novelist Brian Freeman, whose entertaining Jonathan Stride series has Stride, a Duluth detective, living on Park Point, could definitely work this into his next adventure.

For now, it is admittedly enjoyable to watch the Duluth City Council and the DFL mayor – Reinert is practically a rock-ribbed Republican by today’s DFL standards – pull their hair out wondering why they don’t have a role to play or a voice to raise regarding Cargill’s plans.

Well, because it’s business, legal and private. Nobody has to sell to Cargill and those who have are certainly not complaining. It’s not like she’s from China, buying up our farmland.

Park Point is 7 miles long. A racetrack, perhaps? McLaren’s new North American proving grounds?

You all can worry up a storm. I just wonder if she has a McLaren Speedtail, average price $2,687,500, and they’re not even street legal.

Unless you owned your own strip of …

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic’’ podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

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Minnesota has just over 100 lakes and rivers considered prime for muskie fishing, and the state Department of Natural Resources wants your input on how to manage them.

This week, the DNR started a yearlong process as fisheries staff rewrite the statewide muskie management plan for the next 15 years.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries biologist Dan Wilfond holds a big female muskie captured during test netting on Island Lake Reservoir north of Duluth, Minn. In March 2024, the DNR started a yearlong process as fisheries staff rewrite the statewide muskie management plan for the next 15 years. As part of reworking the management plan, the DNR is seeking input from anglers. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

By many accounts, muskie angling in the North Star State is good, including the fact that state records for both kept fish and catch-and-release fish were caught in recent years. (Both from Mille Lacs Lake.)

But the DNR knows that not everyone is satisfied with the current state of muskie angling here, so they’re asking anglers to take an online survey to start the planning effort. The agency also has reached out to meet with angling groups like Muskies Inc. and the Minnesota Muskie Alliance.

“Do people want more fish? Do they want to catch five fish a day? Or would they rather have fewer but bigger muskies? We are asking for that input right now, on a statewide basis,” Leslie George, the Northeast Region fisheries manager leading the effort for the DNR, told the News Tribune. “This is about the next 15 years of muskie management. … Take the survey and tell us what you think.”

The process isn’t about specific lake or river regulations or goals; those are set in individual lake plans. Instead, the management plan is the DNR’s guiding philosophy on how to manage muskies statewide.

Keith Okeson, past president of the Lake Superior Chapter of Muskies Inc., said the DNR is already five years overdue in rewriting the plan. Since the last plan was written, Okeson noted, muskie angling pressure has greatly increased while stocking has declined.

“We had a world-class muskie fishery in Minnesota until about five years or so ago, and since then, it’s gone downhill, mainly because they aren’t stocking enough,” said Okeson of Moose Lake.

Okeson cited Mille Lacs as an example.

“The fishing pressure there went way up, the stocking went down, and all we see now are the big, trophy fish, the 55-inchers,” he said. “We need to see more year classes coming up through the system, not just in Mille Lacs but all the lakes.”

George said the DNR has been gathering more and different types of data in recent years that can help guide the muskie plan.

“We know more now about what lakes are producing well and what lakes maybe are under-producing,” she said.

While the last muskie plan also included northern pike, the new plan will be on muskies only, George said. Pike have been well accounted for in recent, region-specific changes in management efforts, such as length regulations.

“We’ll let those changes settle in for a few years and then take another look at pike down the road,” she said.

Changes in muskie management could include more stocking, and stocking bigger fish that are more likely to survive, George said.

Of the 102 lakes managed for muskies — that’s just 2% of the state’s fishing lakes — about 60 are stocked. The remaining lakes have self-sustaining populations. In the past, the DNR has stocked 10- to 12-inch muskies. But research shows many of them get eaten by bigger fish and that waiting another year, to release 15- to 20-inch muskies instead, might produce better results.

So far, the DNR has no plans to introduce muskies to waters where they don’t currently swim, George said, but that could change with public input.

“The focus is how to make the lakes we have better, provide a better angling experience,” she said.

A 2018 statewide angler survey found about 11% of Minnesota anglers pursue muskies at least one day each year, and that’s more than 100,000 people. Okeson said he believes the number is even higher now, and anglers use the latest sonar technology to find muskies easier.

Allen Brandt, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries specialist, Jason Kahler of the Lake Superior Chapter of Muskies Inc., and Alisha Hallam, assistant DNR area fisheries supervisor, remove fish caught in a test net on the St. Louis River Estuary during a muskie research effort in 2023. In March 2024, the DNR started a yearlong process as fisheries staff rewrite the statewide muskie management plan for the next 15 years. As part of reworking the management plan, the DNR is seeking input from anglers. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

“We have a lot more muskie fishermen than we did 10 years ago, and they are getting a lot better at catching them,” he said.

A webinar about the muskie plan update process is planned for this fall, and the public will be able to review and provide input on a draft plan by next winter.

Muskies are a large, popular predator fish native to Minnesota. The Minnesota DNR manages muskies by stocking them into waters, setting harvest and season regulations, population monitoring and research as well as providing outreach and education about muskies.

As part of the plan update, the DNR is considering ways to enhance muskie stocking in lakes that already have muskies, how to ensure that hatcheries can produce enough quality-sized muskies to meet stocking needs in these lakes, and options for improving public education surrounding muskie biology, ecology and management.

Don’t blame muskies

Muskies are often blamed for eating other popular but smaller game species. But recent Minnesota DNR science on muskie diets shows that, on a population level, pike and bass consume much more food than muskies in the lakes where they are both present.

The research found that muskies consumed a wide range of prey, but the primary makeup of muskie diets are yellow perch, white sucker, bullheads, invertebrates and northern pike. Cisco can also be important in those lakes where their populations are abundant. Walleye are not an important component of muskie diets.

Some big fish

Minnesota’s largest kept muskie was caught in 2021 and was 56 inches long and weighed 54 pounds. The largest catch-and-release category fish was caught in 2022 and was 58.25 inches long and estimated to weigh 65 pounds. Both came from Mille Lacs Lake.

Take the survey

To learn more about muskies in Minnesota, go to dnr.state.mn.us/fish/muskellunge/index.html.

To take the DNR muskie survey, scroll to the bottom of that page and click on “Tell us what you think.”

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