Journal of a Minnesota Angler

After failing miserably as a spin casting river trout fisherman, I decided it was time to try being a full-fledged river trout fisherman. That would mean picking up fly rod. Brenda and my cousin left our reunion to meet up with some friends on the East coast, so on this outing it was me, Vince, my dad, and one of my other cousins, Julie. Julie’s mom came along for the ride so she could take pictures (of scenery). Vince had his own gear, but the rest of us rented fly rods, waders, and boots.... (more...)

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...)

I went to my dad’s place in Northern Wisconsin this weekend to help him pull the dock up. It’s a sign of the change of seasons and marks what will probably be the last open water fishing we’ll do for the season. However, it also means the fishing should be stellar. The fish should be bulking up for the winter. I brought my new toy up to get some of that action. Well, stellar it wasn’t. I was out for 8 hours total and bagged only 4 fish. But I did learn some lessons of... (more...)

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...)

On day two of my trip to Boulder, my brother wanted to take me trout fishing since I had never been. I’ve never really fly fished, so he brought me to a lake in the mountains where I could use a spinning reel to try my luck. We had ventured up mid-morning, so we couldn’t find a parking spot at the foot of our hiking trail to the lake. We unloaded our gear and my brother parked his car down the road and walked back up to where I was waiting from him. Just as we were getting stuff on... (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...)

As planned, we left Hayward after lunch, so I only got to fish for a little bit this morning. I was on the dock by 6:30 and went in at 8:00 for breakfast. I threw an orange/brown spinnerbait, chartreuse spinnerbait, green/black beetle spinner (which was too light to cast), scum frog, bubble gum fluke, blue booyah jig and pig, large green mimic minnow swimbait (the head was too big and kept bringing in weeds), white pearl fluke, and white spinnerbait. Nothing induced a strike despite the fact... (more...)

Here was my day in a nutshell: got up, fished, ate breakfast, went to town, ate lunch, fished, took down a tree, fished, started up our boat (that had been dormant for two years), fished, ate dinner, and fished. All in all, I probably fished for about 9 hours today. In the morning, from about 7-9am, I threw a bubble gum fluke, white spinnerbait, blue Booyah jig with blue speckled Zoom chunk, texas rigged Slurpie worm, scum frog, and mimic minnow swimbait with spinner. I only got hit once, but it... (more...)

I’m amazed how poorly things went in North Carolina. While I didn’t expect to do well, I didn’t expect to do as poorly as we did. I expected that we’d only catch a few fish decent sized fish at each location, but all we caught were little Spot fish and Croakers. They were just as annoying, if not more so, than the sunfish that we’re used to in freshwater. If I could do it again, I would have tried two other spots. They were told to us by one of the employees at... (more...)

Having had no real success catching fish off a pier, we decided to rent a pontoon. It would hold 10 of us and we would be able to take it out for 4 hours in the morning. Surely someone would catch something worthwhile in the middle of a sound. We rented the boat from Fishing Unlimited in Nags Head to go out to Roanoke Sound. It was a very well run outfit. We got on the boat a little before 8am and headed to the first of a few spots that the guide pointed out. He didn’t come with us, so... (more...)