Journal of a Minnesota Angler

I spent last week in Sunriver, OR attending a family reunion. Vince (my brother) attended as well and we, of course, had to do some fishing. The problem was, I’m a bass fisherman. And a lake bass fisherman at that. And the only thing around us was rivers. So I had to buck up and pretend I was something I am not: a trout fisherman. I had packed a spinning rod in the hopes of getting to some sort of bass haven, but in our first available day of getting out, we only had about three hours.... (more...)

After our crazy adventure in the afternoon, Ken, George, and I headed to the three bays near Liz Lake portage. We started at the Southern most bay and worked our way North. George opted for a propeller topwater and got a hit on his first cast. It was a little bass that shook itself loose before he could get it to the boat. A few minutes later, Ken landed a 10″ walleye on his pinkish fluke. On my bubble gum fluke, I scored a nice 13″ smallie. The first keeper of the night. Species:... (more...)

Lumberjacking Day 2 of our Gunflint Trail weekend turned out to involve even less fishing than day 1, which I didn’t realize until I sat down to write this blog post. You would have thought that so little fishing would have bothered me, but it didn’t because I was having too much fun doing other things. We spent much of the morning and afternoon taking down a couple of 30 ft trees because one of them was growing into the roof of the outhouse. We ended up taking down two trees (and a... (more...)

Instead of spending our usual week up on the Gunflint Trail, we decided to do two four-day weekends this year. The first was on July 4th and our second was this past weekend. We drove up late Friday night, but I was too tired to get up Saturday morning to go fishing. Because we visited the Fisherman’s Picnic in Grand Marais, I didn’t get to wet a line until 4pm. It’s a crime, I know. While the family was swimming, I decided to trek over to the neighbor’s dock where there... (more...)

The wilderness won a battle yesterday thanks to the decision of a Minnesota judge. AT&T will not be allowed to build a 450 foot cell tower in the middle of the BWCA. Instead, it will be a measly 199 feet. AT&T claims the shortened tower will cover 1/16th of the area a taller tower would, but actually, it will only be a 17 percent decrease. Full story: Judge says no to 450-foot cell tower near BWCA, but 199-foot tower OK For years, people have debated whether or not cell service should... (more...)

My July was horrendous, fishing-wise. The Minnesota weather really put a damper on fishing opportunities. Other than my July 4th weekend on the Gunflint Trail, I only got out one other time. I tried float tubing on a new lake in the Twin Cities Metro a few weekends ago and came away with nothing. Not even a bite. All other weekends were just too damn muggy. On more than one occasion, it was more humid here than in the tropical rain forest. In fact, the news just reported that we had 98 hours... (more...)