Back Fishing!

Jake's nice 20 inch channel Catfish, no turtle pictures!

Making up for lost time the last week saw 3 fishing adventures, 2 on the Mississippi River and yesterday was a day on Mille Lacs before it closes to walleye fishing on July 1st for a month. Starting with last Wednesday night, originally I had a trip planned to Mille Lacs but with the 96 degree temperatures and 35 MPH winds, it was better to stay on shore.  Here is my Facebook post regarding the night's adventure: "So last night I spent a couple of hours drowning some nightcrawlers off of John Meyer's dock. Accompanying me was my little fishing friend, Jake Hanson, Limo's boy, and is always the gracious and enthusiastic guest. While I got set up with our circle hooks and sinkers I tied onto Jake's line a new prop frog bait, a great selection for smallies and virtually snagless. After casting out the crawler rigs, John has nothing to hold the rods, I weaved them into our lawn chairs and waited. Before long Jake's pole was heading towards the river taking the lawn chair with it. A desperate grab saved both the rod, the chair, and the fish was on. Yelling for Jake to get up here he grabbed the pole and soon about a 15# carp emerged. Forgetting to bring a net the fish eventually tangled around the dock and snapped the line. Within 5 minutes the other rod was headed towards the river, again Jake ran up to grab the pole and it was another huge carp. Plan B didn't work so good either as the hook came out. Deciding there was more action on the dock, Jake decided to stay and within 5 minutes again another ferocious hit. After setting the hook Jake stated this fish feels different, it was....we had hooked a huge soft shelled turtle and it wasn't very happy! Hoping to get a picture with Jake, using a pliers I unhooked it, it wasn't having any thoughts of cooperating and lunged at us. I didn't think a 65 year old guy could move as fast as a young teenager as I provided the evenings entertainment. As the sun set I assured Jake this was prime catfish time and before long we had a double, a nice 20 incher and a 16 incher. Teaching Jake how to hold a catfish without getting stung, he did pretty well, so we finally got our evenings picture. Jake's a pretty good fisherman and a lot of fun to be with. It reminds me when I was his age fishing catfish on the Buffalo river with my dad's friends. I told Jake, in 50 years you'll be telling the story of fishing with your dad's old friend when we caught this turtle! Thanks John for the use of the dock and helping to create some great memories for a young man that truly appreciates the experience regardless of the generation gap." Fishing with Jake is a lot of fun as it reminds me when I was young and fishing with Kevin, and that's a long time ago!  He is eager to learn and pays close attention to my advice, which is hard to find these days and is great for my ego....we both get a lot of enjoyment hanging with each other!!!

Dave's Personal best Smallmouth bass.

The second trip of the week was on Saturday with another young man, David Grant, the son of agood friend of mine, he just graduated from High school..  He loves fishing and has been with me a number of times.  Last week we went to the fishing garage sale together and bought some stuff that one always needs!  Determined to get the jon boat out of the shed and running, this became the excuse to get it done.  Dave showed up at about 5:00 in the afternoon, having a few things left we hooked the boat up to the Polaris Razor and headed for the neighbors boat landing.  knowing my luck we decided to start the motor while at the shed, just in case!  It started as though it was yesterday it last ran, rather than last September.  EFI and electric start, what a great combination!  After repairing my neighbors gate we got the boat in the river and headed upstream for about 4 miles.  It is surprising how low the water is for this time of year.  Hitting the bottom a couple of times it is nice that the motor has a rock guard on it, although it slows the speed by a mph or so, it absorbs all the damage.  Both Dave and I are partial to square bill crankbaits as they seem to not get as hung up on the bottom as other types, we both started casting our favorite colors as the long drift began.  Of course it is important to show the kid some leadership I caught the first smallie, a 15 inch fish.  Admittedly this was the earliest I have ever fished the river but with the water level down, maybe it would be great.  Soon we entered a stretch where there is a lot of rip rap along the shore line, meant to keep the erosion down but also it is prime habitat for smallmouth.  Giving Dave some tips on where to cast, a very nice fish hit his lure and we scrambled to get the boat away from the shore.  Finally netting it, a nice 19 inch bass, Dave's personal best smallie, we snapped a couple of pictures before releasing it.  We caught a few more fish including another smallmouth caught on a bottom rig using nightcrawlers, a total surprise.  It certainly wasn't our best trip fish wise however as with Jake, most of the fun is being with these bright young men and trying to teach them something.  Telling Dave he needs to try this again, this time maybe spend some more time trying to find some walleyes as they are in the river.  Notice Dave's hat, an American flag however the red strips are actually fish silhouettes, it's really interesting.  Well on Sunday a package arrived with that hat inside, thank's Dave, now we both can look swanky!

27" walleye, largest of the day!

The third trip of this week was with a couple of friends, Jack Taylor and Pete.  Pete had gotten some red-tail minnows as the reports were the walleyes were hungry on Mille Lacs.  We had cancelled 2 earlier trips because of the weather and Tuesday looked good so we decided to take the Ranger out.  Stopping at Prince's bait we picked up leeches and crawlers, along with the red-tails we were set.  Launching on the west side of the lake, it was a bit rougher than we expected.  The temperature was very nice and our first stop was the mid lake gravel bars, about 5 miles or so out.  We hit the first bar which had another boat on it so we decided to stop at the next one a half mile north.  Jack put a leech on, Pete did a red-tail and I rigged a crawler harness.  Not more than 5 minutes of dragging and a nice walleye hit my crawler.  We continued to have a steady bite alternating between my crawler, Jack's leech's and Pete's minnow.  After about 10 walleyes we decided to hit the first gravel bar that we stopped at as the boat that was originally there had left.  With a fairly string north wind we drifted at the perfect speed of about 1 mph.  It was perfect drifting weather and we caught another 16 for a total of 26 walleyes for the day.  Having never used a red-tail for walleyes I changed my rig and hooked on a big one.   Letting the line down to the bottom, after about 3 minutes the rod told me there was something going on below.  Lifting to see if I could feel the bite there was nothing.  Again there was a tap tap then nothing.  After a few minutes of this I began to reel in the line, it was obvious that the line was not behind where it should have been and ahead of it's normal position.  As the reel cranked the line in all of a sudden there was a very heavy fish on the line.  Apparently the fish had grabbed the minnow and swam towards the boat which negated any traditional feel of a bite.  Netting the walleye it was the largest of the day, 27 inches.  Many of our fish were long but skinny, this fish was fat and healthy.  Back in the water it went as we saw a storm approaching from the north.  Deciding we had enough we barely made it to the landing when the sky unloaded on us.  Luckily we had time to get the boat on the trailer and the cover on before the bulk of the rain came.  It was another successful trip, plenty of walleyes were caught however one cannot keep any walleyes from Mille Lacs this year and to add insult to injury, the month of July walleye fishing is not allowed.....period!  Based on the great fishing in June it would not surprise anyone that it will shut down for the year.  As always I'll keep my political comments to myself!

Next trip will be on the river or maybe sneak back up to Mille Lacs before July 1st.  Monday is the funeral of our good friend Tim who passed away from cancer on April 3rd.  Even though there should have been 2 trips to Lac Seul this year, the current situation has us thinking about flying somewhere with Bruce to try a new fishing experience.  More on that later!