Journal of a Minnesota Angler

After an amazing Saturday (morning, afternoon, and evening), I was looking forward to an hour or two Sunday before we had to leave. But alas, it was not meant to be. I woke up a little after 8:00 and my brother was already on the lake in the canoe. My brother came back when he saw me and asked if I wanted to go out for a while. I had a couple of things to do, but my son wanted to go. The two of them were out for about a half hour and when they came back, my brother calmly said he wanted a picture... (more...)

My brother came into town Wednesday night and even though he spent 8 hours at his home airport waiting to fly in, his friend and I decided he should get up at 7am the next morning so we could all go fishing. We all met at my dad’s house where he was staying at 7:30am. Due to various complications, and a half hour drive to a new lake suggested by my brother’s friend, we didn’t get on the water til almost 9:30. We spent 3 1/2 hours on the water trying about a dozen different lures... (more...)

Date: 7/5/2010 Time: 8:00am-10:30am Body of water: Bennett Lake Location: Roseville, MN Weather Conditions: sunny I defied my urge to sleep in yesterday morning by getting up at 7:30am to go fishing. For the second day in a row, I tried a lake I had never fished before. This time, I ventured to the 22 acre lake about 5 minutes from my house. I started at the pier where there was another guy going after carp. The water was so stained, you could barely see six inches below the surface of the water.... (more...)

Date: 7/4/2010 Time: 6:45pm-8:45pm Body of water: Lake Demontreville Location: Lake Elmo, MN Weather Conditions: overcast with threat of rain I took off for a new lake last night with my rod and reel, tackle, camera, a towel, swimming suit, and swim shoes. The Minnesota DNR lake map didn’t show a pier, so I decided to take Sybil Smith’s advice (bullet #9) and not be tied just to the shore. I intended to do some wading. Surprisingly, it gave me a lot more freedom than I expected. When... (more...)

As planned, we left Hayward after lunch, so I only got to fish for a little bit this morning. I was on the dock by 6:30 and went in at 8:00 for breakfast. I threw an orange/brown spinnerbait, chartreuse spinnerbait, green/black beetle spinner (which was too light to cast), scum frog, bubble gum fluke, blue booyah jig and pig, large green mimic minnow swimbait (the head was too big and kept bringing in weeds), white pearl fluke, and white spinnerbait. Nothing induced a strike despite the fact... (more...)

Last Friday, I was volunteering to help setup for an event not far from work, but we couldn’t start until 9pm. Since I live a half hour away, I decided to check out one of the FiN lakes near my office instead of going home and coming back out again. I checked with Matt to see if he was available and we ended up at Blackhawk Lake in Eagan. We started fishing off the fishing pier. The problem was that there was thick weeds and algae all around the dock. The algae was so thick in spots, they... (more...)