Welcome to 2010! The beginning of each year brings New Year’s resolutions. I’m not much for resolutions as they tend to become broken promises. However, goals are more realistic and give you something to strive for. Here are mine for 2010: Fish 40 days out of the year (28 in 2009) Have patience to try new lures and new techniques Start float tubing Catch an average of 1.5 fish per day (1.04 in 2009) Catch an 18″ Smallmouth Bass (2009 best: 15″) Catch an 18″ Largemouth... (more...)
Thanx to my diligence in using FishSwami this year, I have a summary of my fishing excursions for 2009. Here are the results: Days Fished: 28 Fish Caught: 29 Locations Fished: 7 Patterns Fished: 6 Most fish caught in one day: 3 on June 14th Northern Pike: 10 Smallmouth Bass: 9 Largemouth Bass: 7 Walleye: 1 Muskie: 0 These probably aren’t very impressive numbers to you hard-core anglers, but I’m happy with them. Of course I would have liked to catch more (and bigger) fish, but the best... (more...)
Last time we were on the ice, Mark talked about the best bite being the hour around sunrise and sunset. We talked about the next time going out at 2:30pm and staying til after dark. We got our chance last night. My brother is in town for Christmas, so he and another friend of his, also an avid angler, joined us. There were quite a few fishermen out yesterday (see left). It was a nice brisk day without much wind. A perfect day to go ice fishing. We set up camp not far from our last outing.... (more...)
Ken was up at his cabin from Aug 4 to Aug 11. He had some friends up through Aug 9 and he came back with a fishing report. His friend, Eric, caught an 18″ walleye on the channel on the North side of Young’s Island on a small shad rap or fat rap. He said he was about 12′ down. His other friend, Ed, liked to fish with live bait. Ken had trapped some minnows for him and he had it on a hook with a spinner. Being so light, he couldn’t cast it from the boat more than 3 ft and... (more...)
Date: 8/8/2009 Time: 2-5pm Body of water: Bald Eagle Lake Location: White Bear Lake, MN Weather Conditions: rain in the morning, afternoon sun, rain again after 4pm I ran into Mark on the way out to look at the Hobie Mirage Pro Angler (I REALLY want one of those now). He said he tried to call me at about 9:30am to go fishing, but I never received his call. It turned out to be a good thing because it started pouring rain shortly thereafter. But he was interested in going out that afternoon. He... (more...)
Now that I’ve written about my fishing stories of my week up in Northern Minnesota, I wanted to tell you about a fish tale from my friend and colleague, Harley. Harley has also been going to the Gunflint Trail area once or twice a year for over 20 years. Someday when we’re up there at the same time, we plan to exchange fishing holes, but it hasn’t worked out yet. He happened to be up the same week I was last month, but our previous commitments prevented us from hooking up. He... (more...)
While this isn’t related to fishing, walleye was a VERY integral part of the festivities, so I thought you might like to see… Our neighborhood held our first ever wild game feast. Everybody brought wild game to share and we had plenty of food, so it was definitely a feast. Hopefully, this will become an annual event. Boiling oil Buffalo Breaded pheasant Beer battered pheasant Moose meatballs Venison Italian and Polish sausage Hossenfeffer in red wine and onion sauce over rice Wild... (more...)
Species: Walleye Size: 24″ Lure used: white pearl super fluke Date: 7/23/2008 Time: Evening Body of water: Poplar Lake Location: Gunflint Trail Weather Conditions: [don't remember] How I caught my largest walleye to date is kind of a funny story that I thought you might enjoy. Ken and I were fishing walleye alley trolling with Lazy Ikes. It was pretty quiet until Ken landed a 12″ walleye on his pole. The lure, because of its treble hooks, got all tangled up in the net. While he... (more...)
Species: Walleye Size: 12″ Lure used: leech on lindey rig Species: Largemouth Bass Size: 12″ Lure used: white pearl super fluke Species: Largemouth Bass Size: 12″ Lure used: white pearl super fluke Date: 6/14/2009 Time: 7:30-11:30am Body of water: Bald Eagle Lake Location: White Bear Lake, MN Weather Conditions: sunny Mark, Rob, and I decided to go to Bald Eagle Lake this morning in the Norther suburbs of St. Paul, MN. We had determined yesterday that we would meet up at 7am. ... (more...)
