Journal of a Minnesota Angler

Date: 8/15/2010 Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm Body of water: Lake Elmo Location: Lake Elmo, MN Weather Conditions: sunny and windy Our neighborhood camping trip was this weekend and I was hoping to do some float tubing on the lake at our campground, but circumstances prevented me from doing any. Instead, I was limited to only an hour of shore fishing just before we left. My wife dropped me off at the fishing pier while she and he kids went to the man-made lake on the grounds. Halfway down the walkway... (more...)

I had a lot of trouble with the title of this post. It could have been one of many: Float Tube-tastic Jig and Pig Magic Slump Squashed A Plethora of Firsts Fish Porn Galore But ultimately, I kept with the theme of my previous posts. Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: clear After a good morning and afternoon of fishing, I didn’t know how it could get better, but it did. While we were out on the boat with my... (more...)

Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy In my last post, you read that we had quit our morning fishing to have lunch and to get our bass boat in the water. The closest boat launch is really close to the cabin, but it puts into another lake in our chain of lakes, so we have to drive the boat through the channel to get back to our dock. I’m usually the one to drive the boat, but since my brother doesn’t... (more...)

Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 7:30am – 11:00am Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy After my initial success from the night before, I had high hopes the next morning. I woke up at 7:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to get up. My brother repaired my scum frog before we went to bed, so I cast with that for about a half hour with no bite when my brother came down to the dock. We decided to take my dad’s canoe out on the... (more...)

Date: 7/30/2010 Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy As I mentioned in my last post, my brother is in town. He’s here because my aunt, uncle, and cousin from Canada, and cousin from California are visiting. As part of the visit, we all went to my dad’s cabin in Northwest Wisconsin. The family got there first and when I arrived, the first thing I noticed was that lily pads had grown not more than 10 feet... (more...)

Today I had the pleasure of fishing with my buddy, Dan, who was present when I caught the biggest fish of my life. We didn’t have a boat and given all the hot weather lately, we thought our best luck for catching any fish would be in the Mississippi River. We thought the lake fish would be in deeper water that we wouldn’t be able to cast to. We decided to meet at Hidden Falls Park in St. Paul at 8:30am, but when I got there, the park was blocked off with barricades. It turns out there... (more...)

Date: 6/6/2010 Time: 8:00-11:00am Body of water: White Bear Lake Location: White Bear Lake, MN Weather Conditions: overcast, windy My phone rang at 7am Sunday morning. “Hello, ” I said groggily, knowing full well who was on the other end. “Let’s go!” It was Mark. Saturday, after our outing, I asked him if he was going out Sunday. He said to have my phone close by. Frankly, I didn’t think he would go that morning. Saturday night I had gotten all my stuff ready... (more...)

Species: Largemouth Bass Size: 16″ Lure used: Texas rigged Slurpie watermelon worm with bullet weight Date: 5/16/2010 Time: 6:00-9:30am Body of water: Lake Vadnais Location: Shoreview, MN Weather Conditions: sunny If I didn’t get out fishing on the biggest fishing weekend of the year for Minnesota, I couldn’t very well call myself a fishing blogger in Minnesota. So I got up at 5:45am Sunday morning and headed out to Lake Vadnais. It looked promising because the map at the Minnesota... (more...)

Species: Largemouth bass Size: 16″ Lure used: minnow with hot pink jighead set under slip bobber Date: 4/23/2010 Time: 7:45am – 1:00pm Body of water: Lake near Finlayson, MN Location: Finlayson, MN Weather Conditions: overcast         Last weekend, when I went fishing with Mark, he mentioned that he was taking today off. After watching the weather during the week, I decided I needed a break from work, so I took the day off as well. After some discussion,... (more...)

Species: Crappie Size: 10″ Lure used: minnow with hot pink jighead set at 6 1/2 feet below slip bobber Species: Largemouth bass Size: 10″, 10″, 7″, 10″ Lure used: minnow with hot pink jighead set at 6 1/2 feet below slip bobber Date: 4/18/2010 Time: 2:30 – 5:30pm Body of water: Local metro lake Location: Twin Cities, North suburbs Weather Conditions: sunny I was working in my garage on one of my projects leftover from last week, my back to the street, when I heard,... (more...)