Journal of a Minnesota Angler

I was scheduled to leave Boulder Monday evening, so my brother and I had the morning and afternoon to hit the big bass lake (that is, lake with big bass, not a large bass lake) my brother mentioned my first day there. I spent part of the morning packing and my brother respooled the rod and reel I used the other day with fluorocarbon since I had so much trouble with the mono that was on it. As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a 1/4 mile walk to the lake. We parked on the side of the road next... (more...)

My brother moved to Boulder, Colorado about 15 years ago. In all those years, my wife and I have talked about visiting him, but either time or money has gotten in the way. This year, we decided that if I went on my own, both the time and the money would be less of an issue. I was able to make my first trip to Boulder for my first visit to my brother’s place this past weekend. As my regular readers know, my brother is a bigger (and better) fisherman than I. So, of course, we would have to... (more...)

My last two days on the Gunflint Trail were uneventful. It was hard to match day 6. I do have a story of note, though. On day 7, Ken brought me to three bays near the portage to Liz Lake in the afternoon. Ken hooked a small smallie, but lost it and I caught another 11″ smallie, both in the second bay. That evening, we tried to go after a school of fish we saw earlier in the week that I’ll tell you more about later. The next day, we returned again in the afternoon. In the first bay... (more...)

When I started writing the drafts for my posts about my trip, I had intended to do a post for each day. As I was reading over them, I realized they were BOR-ing. They were uninteresting because there was no action. I  would be bored reading them, so you’d be snoring before you finished the first paragraphs. Therefore, I’m going to summarize the next 4 days of my trip into one sentence: I caught 5 smallies all under 12″ and a northern at 17″. Exciting, I know. I’ve... (more...)

Date: 8/15/2010 Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm Body of water: Lake Elmo Location: Lake Elmo, MN Weather Conditions: sunny and windy Our neighborhood camping trip was this weekend and I was hoping to do some float tubing on the lake at our campground, but circumstances prevented me from doing any. Instead, I was limited to only an hour of shore fishing just before we left. My wife dropped me off at the fishing pier while she and he kids went to the man-made lake on the grounds. Halfway down the walkway... (more...)

I had a lot of trouble with the title of this post. It could have been one of many: Float Tube-tastic Jig and Pig Magic Slump Squashed A Plethora of Firsts Fish Porn Galore But ultimately, I kept with the theme of my previous posts. Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: clear After a good morning and afternoon of fishing, I didn’t know how it could get better, but it did. While we were out on the boat with my... (more...)

Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy In my last post, you read that we had quit our morning fishing to have lunch and to get our bass boat in the water. The closest boat launch is really close to the cabin, but it puts into another lake in our chain of lakes, so we have to drive the boat through the channel to get back to our dock. I’m usually the one to drive the boat, but since my brother doesn’t... (more...)

Date: 7/31/2010 Time: 7:30am – 11:00am Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy After my initial success from the night before, I had high hopes the next morning. I woke up at 7:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to get up. My brother repaired my scum frog before we went to bed, so I cast with that for about a half hour with no bite when my brother came down to the dock. We decided to take my dad’s canoe out on the... (more...)

Date: 7/30/2010 Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage Location: Hayward, MN Weather Conditions: partly cloudy As I mentioned in my last post, my brother is in town. He’s here because my aunt, uncle, and cousin from Canada, and cousin from California are visiting. As part of the visit, we all went to my dad’s cabin in Northwest Wisconsin. The family got there first and when I arrived, the first thing I noticed was that lily pads had grown not more than 10 feet... (more...)

Today I had the pleasure of fishing with my buddy, Dan, who was present when I caught the biggest fish of my life. We didn’t have a boat and given all the hot weather lately, we thought our best luck for catching any fish would be in the Mississippi River. We thought the lake fish would be in deeper water that we wouldn’t be able to cast to. We decided to meet at Hidden Falls Park in St. Paul at 8:30am, but when I got there, the park was blocked off with barricades. It turns out there... (more...)