Journal of a Minnesota Angler

My brother-in-law, George, was in town for a wedding and he invited me out fishing with one of his friends. It happened to be a day where my son had his Cub Scout model rocket launch, so I told him I couldn’t make it at his scheduled time of 8am. However, if he made it earlier, perhaps I could make it. After a flurry of text messages, we settled on a 6am start and my father-in-law, Ken, was joining us as well. Whenever I get up that early to go fishing, I tend to question my sanity when... (more...)

A few weeks ago, I heard about a lake near my office that was supposed to hold monster bass. Schedules had prevented me from going after work since I heard about it, but I had to work this last Saturday morning, so I took the opportunity to hit the lake afterward. During the week, I had gotten some advice from a Twitter friend and fellow blogger, mdtolic, about where to fish and the most effective baits. I bugged him so much he asked if I wanted him to just put fish in my tube. I wasn’t... (more...)

I went to my dad’s place in Northern Wisconsin this weekend to help him pull the dock up. It’s a sign of the change of seasons and marks what will probably be the last open water fishing we’ll do for the season. However, it also means the fishing should be stellar. The fish should be bulking up for the winter. I brought my new toy up to get some of that action. Well, stellar it wasn’t. I was out for 8 hours total and bagged only 4 fish. But I did learn some lessons of... (more...)

While I occasionally target walleye and muskie when I’m out on the water, my favorite species to fish for are bass. They are feisty, unpredictable, and like to put on a show. They are the most fun to catch because they are hard fighters and love to jump out of the water. The reason for the acrobatics, of course, is because they are fighting for their lives. Instinctively, they know that jumping out of the water gives them the best chance to shake the hook out of their mouth. As a bass fisherman,... (more...)

This is my new toy: This is my new toy in the water: While I loved the tube my brother gave me for Christmas a few years ago, I didn’t like that my butt sat in the water. In this new tube, I sit above the water. It has an all vinyl bottom, so it gets pushed in the water a bit more, but I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it. I broke it in at a new lake not far from my house. I started with my go to bait while on a tube: a green watermelon jig and pig. That didn’t... (more...)

I was scheduled to leave Boulder Monday evening, so my brother and I had the morning and afternoon to hit the big bass lake (that is, lake with big bass, not a large bass lake) my brother mentioned my first day there. I spent part of the morning packing and my brother respooled the rod and reel I used the other day with fluorocarbon since I had so much trouble with the mono that was on it. As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a 1/4 mile walk to the lake. We parked on the side of the road next... (more...)

My brother moved to Boulder, Colorado about 15 years ago. In all those years, my wife and I have talked about visiting him, but either time or money has gotten in the way. This year, we decided that if I went on my own, both the time and the money would be less of an issue. I was able to make my first trip to Boulder for my first visit to my brother’s place this past weekend. As my regular readers know, my brother is a bigger (and better) fisherman than I. So, of course, we would have to... (more...)

My last two days on the Gunflint Trail were uneventful. It was hard to match day 6. I do have a story of note, though. On day 7, Ken brought me to three bays near the portage to Liz Lake in the afternoon. Ken hooked a small smallie, but lost it and I caught another 11″ smallie, both in the second bay. That evening, we tried to go after a school of fish we saw earlier in the week that I’ll tell you more about later. The next day, we returned again in the afternoon. In the first bay... (more...)

When I started writing the drafts for my posts about my trip, I had intended to do a post for each day. As I was reading over them, I realized they were BOR-ing. They were uninteresting because there was no action. I  would be bored reading them, so you’d be snoring before you finished the first paragraphs. Therefore, I’m going to summarize the next 4 days of my trip into one sentence: I caught 5 smallies all under 12″ and a northern at 17″. Exciting, I know. I’ve... (more...)

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...)