Journal of a Minnesota Angler

Date: 7/22/2009
Time: 5:30-8:00am
Body of water: Poplar Lake
Location: Gunflint Trail
Weather Conditions: some clouds, little bit of rain

Being as passionate about fishing as I am, I’ve never gotten up super early to go fishing. Mainly because I’m not a morning person. I’d much rather fish late into the night than at the break of dawn.

However, Wednesday morning, I woke up at 5:15am and got an urge to be a “true” fisherman. I got out of bed, launched the fishing boat, and headed to Young’s Island.

I started on the South shore and spent 2 1/2 hours going around to the East and back on the North shore. Since I was by myself, I was able to go at my own pace and back track a bunch of times to thoroughly cover areas where I was getting hits. I got so many hits, I lost count. I ended up landing only two bass that morning, an 8″ and 10″ smallie.

The problem was that I was using a bubble gum colored fluke the whole morning. It’s so bright that I found I could watch it from the point it dropped into the water until it came back to the boat. When it got hit, I could see it dart randomly, but I was waiting for it to disappear before setting the hook. There were a few times where I would have set the hook just on feel and I’m sure I missed one or two nice smallies because I was going by what I saw rather than what I felt.

I got back to the cabin a little after 8:00 and no one was up yet, so I crawled back into bed and slept for another hour, feeling pretty refreshed (until later). Given that I could take a nap after a nice outing, I thought to myself that I should be a “true” fisherman later in the week as well.