Journal of a Minnesota Angler

When I was out on my first outing of 2014, I got a text from my brother-in-law, George. He was at Greg’s cabin fishing with Greg and caught a nice little Northern. Wanting to make sure I get out often with Greg this year, I texted him directly and asked him when we were going fishing. We connected up a few weeks later. We hit a very popular local lake in the Northern suburbs. We scheduled to meet in the evening and got on the water a bit after 6pm. We first hit a weed island not far from... (more...)

The weekend after my outing with Greg, MNAngler, Jr. and I went with my dad to his cabin in Northwest Wisconsin. We left Saturday morning and came back Sunday afternoon, but managed to catch some decent fish in that short time span. After settling in and playing around a bit with archery and pellet guns, the three of us took my dad’s canoe out. We were out for about an hour before MNAngler, Jr. got bored. It was sunny, but a bit windy and the only action we had was a nice largemouth that... (more...)

Days after getting back from the Gunflint Trail, I started to have withdrawal symptoms from not fishing. Going from fishing twice a day to not fishing at all can turn an avid angler crazy. I sent a text to Greg to see if he was up for fishing sometime soon and fortunately, he was. We rendezvoused on the Wed night of the hottest week of the summer. The few days leading up to the day were all in the 90s and Wed had a high of 94. I wasn’t sure how good the fishing would be, but I was going... (more...)

George came into town last Saturday so he, Greg, Ken, and I squeezed into Greg’s Alumacraft and hit a lake that Greg has been on, but we other three hadn’t. Since it was forecasted to rain in the afternoon, we got up early and were on the water by 8am. We started at some lily pads not far from the boat launch. It was quiet for quite a while until Ken hooked the first fish of the day, a 14″ bucketmouth. He hooked it on a super fluke in the baby bass color. I’ve had that... (more...)

As much as I’m into fishing, I don’t really get into the pro tournaments. I don’t follow the pro anglers or the tours. As such, I don’t fish tournaments myself. Fishing is an enjoyable recreational activity for me and I don’t know that I could take the pressure. However, the folks in the blogosphere have taken it upon themselves to have virtual tournaments throughout the year. The WalleyeGuy has his Walleyepalooza Fishing Derby and aquaFire Fishing started a fishing... (more...)

George popped into town unexpectedly this weeekend to visit his mom and a few relatives. He was able to plan a fishing outing with Greg and Greg’s son and asked me if I wanted to tag along. Far be it for me to refuse fishing time, especially since I haven’t wet a line for two weeks. We hit a lake in the Northern suburbs where Greg and I had tried earlier this summer. After getting on the water at about 10:30am, we decided to start at the other end of the lake where Greg and I saw a... (more...)

A week after my last float tube outing, I decided to head back out to the same lake. I wanted to try the other direction from the launch. The wind was blowing toward that shore, so that was a good sign. However, to force myself to cover more ground, I decided to go across the lake and work my way back around. While I crossed the lake, I didn’t want to lose any fishing time. Since I heard the lake had pretty sizable Northern, I threw a five of diamonds as I went across. When I got to the... (more...)

I had a chance to go out on my float tube for a few hours on Saturday morning. I hit a lake that I had never fished before, but have had my eye on it for a while. It is across the street from one of the lakes that I used to hit with Mark in our early days of fishing together. The lake is small, but deep. I rarely see boats at the public access and I think that’s because the more popular lake is across the street and the public access goes through about a 200 ft channel of lily pads. To... (more...)

This past weekend was our annual neighborhood camping trip. In previous years, boats were towed along, but this year, Mark was towing a camper and Steve was towing a trailer, so no boats could come. However, I brought my float tube and was able to get a few hours on the nearby lake by myself. Do to various goings on, I didn’t get on the lake until about 3:30. It had been sunny most of the day, so my plan was to look for fish in the lily pad field not far from the fishing pier. I put in... (more...)

Last Thursday night, I ran into my neighbor Mark while he was walking his dog. I asked him, jokingly, when we were going to go fishing next. He said he was going the next morning at 5am and that I was welcome to come along. Since there wasn’t much going on at work that day, I decided to go. We didn’t leave our houses until 5:30 or so because Mark’s wife didn’t want him to wake up the dog too early who would in turn rouse up the rest of the house. By 6am, we were fishing. We... (more...)