Journal of a Minnesota Angler

The title of this post might lead you regular readers to think that I made it back to Boulder to fish with my brother. No such luck. As you know, I’ve been a bit preoccupied as of late. So in order to save you from another exciting post about Lego League, my brother was kind enough (without me asking) to write a guest post. I very much appreciate the effort. Who knows, maybe I can convince him to make it a regular feature. Thanx, bro. So if you are anything like me, you’re getting tired... (more...)

After our crazy adventure in the afternoon, Ken, George, and I headed to the three bays near Liz Lake portage. We started at the Southern most bay and worked our way North. George opted for a propeller topwater and got a hit on his first cast. It was a little bass that shook itself loose before he could get it to the boat. A few minutes later, Ken landed a 10″ walleye on his pinkish fluke. On my bubble gum fluke, I scored a nice 13″ smallie. The first keeper of the night. Species:... (more...)

Lumberjacking Day 2 of our Gunflint Trail weekend turned out to involve even less fishing than day 1, which I didn’t realize until I sat down to write this blog post. You would have thought that so little fishing would have bothered me, but it didn’t because I was having too much fun doing other things. We spent much of the morning and afternoon taking down a couple of 30 ft trees because one of them was growing into the roof of the outhouse. We ended up taking down two trees (and a... (more...)

Instead of spending our usual week up on the Gunflint Trail, we decided to do two four-day weekends this year. The first was on July 4th and our second was this past weekend. We drove up late Friday night, but I was too tired to get up Saturday morning to go fishing. Because we visited the Fisherman’s Picnic in Grand Marais, I didn’t get to wet a line until 4pm. It’s a crime, I know. While the family was swimming, I decided to trek over to the neighbor’s dock where there... (more...)

Sunday, July 3rd was my last day on the Gunflint Trail. My family and I had decided to leave early to avoid traffic and allow me to settle down before I started my new job. But we wouldn’t be leaving til late. That afternoon, Ken and I decided to head to Bearskin Lake where his uncle has a cabin. We had visited with Ken’s aunt and uncle the day before on the way back from replenishing our water supply. His uncle showed off his new (used) pontoon he purchased from a family friend. Ken... (more...)

After an abysmal first day and second morning, Ken and I headed to Walleye Alley in the evening of day 2 to try our luck. I remembered a small bay with lily pads at the end of the alley that felt promising. We started down Walleye Alley and it was very windy. It was perfect conditions to drift with a lindy rig, but I didn’t have enough foresight to bring that set up. So Ken trolled while I cast with a bubble gum fluke. Casting was very difficult due to the windy conditions. My line was... (more...)

Last Friday was my last day at a job I held for nearly 11 years. I found a new improved gig and took a week off before diving into new challenges. Monday was my first day of freedom. It was the third straight day I didn’t have to go to work and the third straight day I got up earlier than I would normally to go to work. Sometimes I wonder about my own sanity. I told Mark about my time off when I first decided to make a jump so that we could hopefully go to Mille Lacs for the day. Unfortunately,... (more...)

Sunday morning I once again got up a little after 6am to be on the lake on my float tube by 6:30. This time I followed the Northern shore toward the channel only until the shore turned. The curve of the shore hid water beyond the curve from the morning sun and I didn’t think it was warming the water enough in that area for fish to want to congregate. I started with the Slurpie worm I had success with the morning before, but nothing bit on my first pass. I then decided to switch to an orange... (more...)

I went to my dad’s cabin in Northwest Wisconsin this weekend and started off the weekend early. I got up at 6:15 Saturday morning to get my float tube in the water by 6:30. Apparently it was too early because when I sat down in my float tube, I went, “Ah!” when water went down the back of my shorts. I had brought my old float tube (due to space constratints) and it sits several inches in the water. That, in combination of forgetting to buckle the shoulder straps of my waders... (more...)

I got a chance to go out on my tube on Father’s Day. I was going to go panfishing with my kids, but they were engrossed in their activities for the afternoon, so it was an opportunity for me to explore a new local lake. The lake I had in mind is a bass catch and release lake, so the theory is that there should be some lunkers in there. I launched off the swimming beach at the Southeast corner. As I got away from shore, the bottom showed a shallow grade. I spotted some reeds about a thousand... (more...)