Journal of a Minnesota Angler

When I was out on my first outing of 2014, I got a text from my brother-in-law, George. He was at Greg’s cabin fishing with Greg and caught a nice little Northern. Wanting to make sure I get out often with Greg this year, I texted him directly and asked him when we were going fishing. We connected up a few weeks later. We hit a very popular local lake in the Northern suburbs. We scheduled to meet in the evening and got on the water a bit after 6pm. We first hit a weed island not far from... (more...)

The fishing opener everyone talks about in Minnesota is usually in mid-May, but that only applies to walleye and northern pike. Those of us who target bass have to wait an extra two weeks, usually the Saturday of Memorial Weekend. The bright side of a long, hard winter like the one we just had is that we bass fisherman in Minnesota don’t have to wait as long for bass opener. When the snow melts in March, it drives us bass anglers crazy. While I’m ready for winter to be over in February... (more...)

This is the best Christmas gift I got this year. My brother gave it to me. It’s a fish finder transducer made by Vexilar that turns your smartphone into a fish finder. The transducer transmits to your smartphone via wifi. It’s the most brilliant invention for anglers that has come along in a long time. Vexilar also has a camera that transmits to smartphones. We tried to get it to work yesterday, but it didn’t seem to work too well because it wasn’t in water the whole... (more...)

What a difference a year makes. If anyone was watching the ice out in Minnesota this year and last, they would see a striking difference. It’s like the Minnesota Twins in 1990-91 where they went from last in their division in one year to winning the World Series the next. Here are the ice out maps from the Minnesota DNR Ice Out Page for comparison:   Notice that in 2012 we had some of the earliest ice outs in history. Between the early hot weather and wind, some lakes lost their ice... (more...)

The weekend after my outing with Greg, MNAngler, Jr. and I went with my dad to his cabin in Northwest Wisconsin. We left Saturday morning and came back Sunday afternoon, but managed to catch some decent fish in that short time span. After settling in and playing around a bit with archery and pellet guns, the three of us took my dad’s canoe out. We were out for about an hour before MNAngler, Jr. got bored. It was sunny, but a bit windy and the only action we had was a nice largemouth that... (more...)

Days after getting back from the Gunflint Trail, I started to have withdrawal symptoms from not fishing. Going from fishing twice a day to not fishing at all can turn an avid angler crazy. I sent a text to Greg to see if he was up for fishing sometime soon and fortunately, he was. We rendezvoused on the Wed night of the hottest week of the summer. The few days leading up to the day were all in the 90s and Wed had a high of 94. I wasn’t sure how good the fishing would be, but I was going... (more...)

We had planned to end our week on the Gunflint Trail on Saturday afternoon. I had one more opportunity to wet a line before we left, so I took full advantage of it. I headed out to Kloek Channel and I started with a green texas-rigged worm. On one of the retrieves I had a follow that tried to hit the worm just as it was coming to the boat. It made a splash, but missed the lure. It looked to be about a 14-incher. On the next cast, I did get hit and it was a small smallie at 10″. After action... (more...)

Friday was fish fry day. We needed to land a few more fish because we let our two 17″ and 16″ go. The family thought I was premature, but I really wanted to let those big ones reproduce and breed smarter fish that can outsmart predators and get just as big. I had to have faith that we were good enough fishermen to feed our family. In the morning, I headed out to Voyager’s Bay on my own. Just as I arrived at the mouth of the bay, another boat was motoring past me into the bay.... (more...)

On a day ripe with American celebration, I hoped for fireworks both on and off the water. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. Thursday morning, July 4th, I found George on the three season porch as I was headed out to the boat. I asked him if he wanted to join me and he said yes. We headed out to Kloek Channel and were out for about an hour and a half. The only thing we were able to land was one 12-incher on a white super fluke. The funny thing was, it was a walleye. I felt a little... (more...)

After the great outing we had on Tuesday, I had high hopes for the rest of the week. On Wednesday morning, I headed out to Kloek Channel and landed a 12″ smallie on my second cast on a white super fluke. A few casts later, I hooked into another one but when it got near the boat, it spit out my hook and also left a trail of regurgitated crayfish behind. Near the end of the morning, I switched to a green wacky worm and tossed it near the opening of the channel where I once caught an 17-incher.... (more...)