General reminder, Trucks don't Float.

So I went did a float today with a buddy for smallmouth bass.  The day was perfect as far as the weather goes. But my day started out like this.

 

Alarm clock goes off.  Ok, time to shower.  Oh crap I forgot to pack a lunch.  Oh crap, I have a WI, MT, and CO fishing license, but no MN license.  I go online to take care of that.  Good.  Oh crap, I need gas.  Oh crap I need cash, ok, I can get cash when I get gas.  Good.  I fill up, get cash, oh crap.  I forgot my cell phone.  Normally not a big deal, but I was going to a place I wasn't sure I could find so I go back and the cell phone.  Good.  I get half way there and realize, oh crap I skipped breakfast with all the other oh-crap distractions.  Oh well.

 

I find our meeting place and from there we launch the boat and we are fishing.  In general the fishing was slow bu we both had several takes.  Enough to keep us engaged, but nothing to write home about.  A couple were even landed.

 

We saw probably the biggest beaver that I have ever seen!  And then it must not have liked that we disturbed his nap on the bank, and slid in the water ahead of us for long time, screwing up our fishing.  We hit the other bank after getting tired of his shenanigans. 

 

ok, fast forward and we see a guy who launched his boat at a landing....along with his truck.  No matter what happened today, our day was far better than his was.  the truck actually floated around the dock from the high side where the landing was to the low side of the dock.  As we drifted down, eventually all the truck sunk far enough down that the water was over the hood of it.  Here are some pictures and keep this in mind next time you think you are having a bad day.

 

www.critters-corner.com

Open Tying Night

Last night was open tying night at The Fly Angler.  Several people showed up to tie with Mike, mostly members of the St. Paul Fly Tiers Club.  It was a good time!  Just before the tying began upstairs, one of my buddies working at the shop put together a nice set up that made me drool.  Seriously...  I only held it for like eight seconds and immediately handed it back.  It felt soo good and the cost of the set up....well let's just say I had to put it back or Jen may have started looking for a burial plot for me.  What was this set you ask?  It was a 8'6" Winston Boron IIIx 4wt, with the Abel Super 3N reel.  Simply AMAZING. 

Once I got upstairs and situated, I tied up a dozen of these Zebra midge variants.  It was the standard pattern but with a red butt that I saw in one of the shops fly bins.  Then I tied a few with a caddis green butt using a gun metal beadhead instead of the copper.  Made for what looked an like an upside down caddis.  Hopefully it will work for me. 

For those interested the next:

• The Rush River Clean Up on April 21st,
• MN Bass Expo 4/20 - 4/22 in Blaine,
• Open tying night at the Fly Angler is May 7th, 6-8pm,
• Club fishing outing on May 20th, 
• and as always, every Thursday night is the Fly Tier's club meetings.  I think there will be some trying their hand at tying tube flies on April 19th.

www.critters-corner.com

A Good fall so far

So the weekend before last Jen and I got our first steelhead fishing weekend under our belt.  That weekend was the annual St Paul Fly Tier's steelhead outing and to keep things manageable for our group we broke up into smaller groups.  Jen and I fished with Louise over the weekend and had a lot of fun.  The best thing about the weekend is that we get to see so many people that we haven't seen in awhile and is a lot like a fun family reunion.  Jen caught a steelhead on Saturday and was in the minority of successful fisherman we found out as everyone shared their stories of the day over an awesome feast that Tony prepared for the club.

On Sunday, the weather was the same as the day before, which was sunny and windy, with a windchill in the low 30's.  Louise had to leave by a certain time to get back home in her final hour before she had to leave the river she landed a 26" chrome steelhead.  She was very excited!  Congrat's Louise!!!

On Monday, I had the day off and had planned to go fishing with Mike and dad for smallmouth.  Dad and I met up with Mike as he was doing final prep work on the boat at the landing.  Everything went pretty well except someone turned the wind machine on HIGH.  We struggled through some pretty heavy wind and it made for a challenging situation.  But the three of us had a great time joking around and we did have a few bites.  Mike landed a few smallie's and I managed to land one, but dad lost a very nice one.  NO, I didn't cut the line on him.  We did get a glimpse of it, and it would have made for a good picture.  Instead, I have put in a nice photo of dad and I with a bass and the lure we caught it on.  The funny thing was he was convinced the white lures were not on the menu for the bass that day and that chartreuse was the ticket...oops!

www.critters-corner.com

Jen does it again!

Last weekend Jen and I headed up to Peter's cabin to meet up with boys.  The boys being the same ones I went fly fishing in Mexico with a couple years back (Peter, Mike, and David).  With some planning and working around everyone's schedule we were able to get everyone together for a mid summer bass weekend.

 Everyone arrived Friday evening and we were all energized and had some catching up to do.  It was great to see everyone together.  Some beverages and stories were exchanged and few hours later we had a "game plan" formulated for the next day and then we headed off to bed.

 Saturday we loaded up the canoe and removed the motor from the john boat after breakfast, then headed over to our launch on the Chippewa river.  Jen, Mike and David started down river in the John boat, while Peter and I got our lines wet just up river for a few minutes before drifting down.  We floated for a couple of hours, had a break for lunch and then resumed fishing.  The flavor of the day seemed to be poppers of whatever color, except for Jen.  She caught, landed and released her first smallie on a rabbit strip lead eyed streamer.  The smile in her picture says it all!  This was her first time fishing for them and her first time floating down a river.  So it was a pretty fun day for her.  

At the end of the float we had a few sprinkles and just as we got every thing packed up, the rain started up for the rest of the evening.  Great timing on our part!  

We headed on back to the cabin.  When the rain subsided, we grabbed the fly rods and fished the lake for a couple of hours.  After sunset, we had a great spaghetti dinner and shared some fun stories.

Sunday, the boys headed out after some great blueberry pancakes to the lake to fish for some pike and bass, while Jen and I stayed in.  I ended up injuring my back the day before while rushing to get the canoe on top of the Yukon and was dealing with the consequences.  They had some luck, and after a good power nap was ready for the drive home.

www.critters-corner.com

Sunday with Bob and Josh

So we (Bob, Josh, and myself) decided to float the St. Croix river and fish for smallies. It was a nice sunny day, mid 80's, and 7 miles of river we floated. Josh caught the only fish, a 21-incher only 10 minutes into a 6- hour float. Action was slow, and no one we ran into was having any luck either so it wasn't that we forgot how to fish or had too many beers. It was nice day to be out with friends regardless. This was Josh's biggest smallie he has caught so he was pretty pumped about that. Congrats Josh! The highlight for me was to see a five foot sturgeon in a foot of water as I stripped my fly in front of it, it turned away and bolt off as I'm pretty sure it wasn't happy with us about to float over it with the drift boat.