FWD: An Open Letter To Bass Pro Shops.

Follow the link to a blog called Journal of a Minnesota Angler to an open letter to Bass Pro Shops.

Here in MN, we have Gander Mountain, which for me, is normally a fairly disappointing trip.  We also have Cabela's, which I love going to.  But often times I still can't find what I'm looking for, but the fact that I can get a buffalo burger instead makes up for it.

What we don't have, however, is a Bass Pro Shop.  We need one.  And MNAngler's letter conveys that pretty well.  Find it here.

FWD: Regarding Killswitches and Life vests.

I always wear my killswitch when the big motor is running.  Always.  I can't think of a reason not to.  But, even though I know I'm not alone on this - I'm still some what ashamed to admit, I've always been lackadaisical regarding my life vest, wearing it based on the situation.

After seeing some pictures from a Facebook friends tournament experience this past Sunday, I've found reason to also always wear the life vest.  In the past, I've looked at it as more of a trivial kind of thing, being that I've got myself a little runabout with a 90 horse, but as Rich's latest blog entry can tell you, you never know what is under the water that you may hit.  Water conditions change all the time, not only daily, but sometimes several times during the day.

When I look at the pictures, I can't help but think "that could have been me..."

It's definitely time to make a trip to Cabelas and get one of those fancy-shmancy inflatables and ditch that crappy old ski vest.

It's a compelling read.  So, if you haven't seen it yet, check it out.  Otherwise, be safe.

Local Tackle Manufacturers

I've moved this post into its own page.  Click the tab at the top of this page or you can also find it here:

Local Tackle Manufacturers.

All Terrain Tackle VS. Northstar Custom Baits - Swim Jig Edition

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated anything here and due to some, well, issues, I haven't had much opportunity to get out on the water at all since my last post.  So, I decided to post a product review about a couple of local (MN-based) tackle makers.

As I indicated in my last post, my bait for making it work this year has, by and large, been the swim jig.

I didn't really start using them until late last year so my experience with them is still, I admit, fairly limited.  But I have honed in on a couple of different baits, one from All Terrain Tackle and the other from Northstar Custom Baits.

Both have their positive sides and a negative or two.  Let me break it down a little.

All Terrain Tackle:

I first found them at Fleet Farm while I was camping in the St. Cloud area.  I was disappointed this year when I went back and found that they were no longer there, but that was nothing a trip to Gander Mountain didn't cure (surprise!  No, really, surprise!).

I've tried the black/blue with no results.  Green pumpkin, which the pike in the Sauk River Chain absolutely love when you jerk the bait hard.  And this spring I picked up some of the bluegill colored baits, which, not surprisingly, has been my best color overall to date. 

I've thrown this bait into some of the worst looking stuff I could find and, for the most part, it came back sparkling clean.  I'm no expert, but I'm sure this is because the line tie is positioned horizontal to the bait rather than vertically.  It isn't recessed, but it's close enough that snags, well, just don't happen.  At least not as much as they do with other jig head designs.  And if they do, it's usually because I cast past the shoreline and into that old willow sitting on the bank...

The only thing I'm not real keen on are the colors.  There really wasn't anything that stood out on the shelf as lifelike - especially in regards to the bluegill color, but, of course, it's not about what I think.  It's what the fish think, and they think it's supper time!

Northstar Custom Jigs:

This is the New Gill color.

I have to admit, I was completely hooked on the colors of these things.  I feel that the bullgill and new gill colors are a pretty close match to what I've seen in the waters I fish.

The baits work well enough, but the only real feedback I can give is that the line tie, which is in front, seems to hang on every little fleck of veggie and more often than not, I end up with a ball of weeds on the end of my line rather than the bait I threw out.  My opinion: This makes it more of an open water kind of bait which really doesn't suit my style.

Conclusion:

While I love the colors on the Northstar swim jig, I have to stick with the All Terrain version.  At least for now, as it fits my style the best.

But for now, it's freakishly hot outside and I'm sure that it'll be punchin' time.  A concept that is still very new to me so it should be a good time getting out and figuring it out.

Until next time..

Bass Season- From The Opener Until Now. 6/17/11

Originally, this post was going to be my obligatory bass opener post, but it is long past so I will turn it into a general report instead.

On the opener, I decided to hit this little lake by where we camp (sorry- I'm not tellin' : ) ).  It is stocked with trout and has good numbers of pumpkin seeds.  Truth be known, I had very little luck.  When I put in, the water was still a little chilly at 59F or so.  I was sharing the lake with a couple other boats so I decided to start down the opposite bank and work my way around so I didn't crowd anyone.  Power fishing a buzzbait.  Nothing.  Not even a boil.

I kept cruising and switched up to a chatter bait and moved off the bank a little bit and started fishing the inside weedline.  The lake has eurasion mifoil and it was starting to get tall, say three feet beneath the surface in anywhere from five to nine feet.  Nothing, although I did catch one of those Rainbow Trout that are stocked and can almost see why people like to fish for them.

After that the sun was up more and moved a little closer to the bank with a 1/4oz Beetle Spin (Quit laughing.  This is my goto bait for bad fish days.)  No bass.  But lots of pumpkin seeds.  Those little suckers can be vicious too!  And that pretty much tells the tale of how my opener went.  At the end of the day, I boated 1 small bass and probably 40-50 pumpkin seeds.

My next bassin' trip wasn't until the following Saturday and I decided to head out to Rice Lake near Paynesville.  I drove around and nearly ended up taking ownership of a nice rocky point.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  Boat and driver are very happy about that.  Anyway, I looked at my phone (Navionics is very handy, must use it more often in unfamiliar waters - feel free to whack yourself in the head, Jeremy) and decided to head to a section of the south end of the lake because there is a fairly fast drop into 20 or so feet. The water temp was mid 60's so I figured they'd be on beds.

I started out with a 1/4oz Bluegill Swim Jig (All Terrain Tackle) and tossed it passed the front of a dock.  Slow rolled it back and a smallie crushed it hard enough I thought I was going to lose my rod at first.  First fish boated was a nice one, measured out at 17".  No belly so I'm guessing it was a he.  I kept rolling that swim jig and caught a nice mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth all around 16-18".  See pics below.

My last trip was last Friday and knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I went down to the Rum River about five minutes away from home.  Once again, slow rolling that same swim jig.  The result was a personal best, I know that much for sure.  No idea how much it weighed or how long it was because I was backpacking it.

So far, I may not have had a very productive year, but I've had a lot of fun anyway.  And I bought a different scale that will be going in my backpack for the next time I hook into a tank like that.

As for now, I'm getting ready to head out and try some of the new swim jigs I picked up by Northstar Custom Baits.  They are a little different than the All Terrain Tackle swim jigs I'm used to and I'm excited to use them because I think the colors are better.  We'll see if the fish agree!

Eat Bass...?

I am truly working on an entry for bass opener, but truth be known, at this point it seems moot.  Being the fact that it is almost two weeks past.  Instead, I thought I'd share a link to a blog that I don't really read a whole lot but I saw a title that caught my eye:  "Eat Bass, Improve Your Fishery?"

There are some good points made, and, at risk of being excommunicated by the bassin' community, I too practice selective harvest.  Here, though, are my rules:

I don't do it on a lake I don't know very well.  If it's my first time there, I have no way of knowing if a 15" fish is average size or not.  However, if I'm on my "home water", I know that 12-14" fish are incredibly common where a 16-17" fish is not and anything bigger than that is a tourny winner (no kidding), so I have no problem keeping one or two fish so the other 20,000 from that year class may have a better chance at getting to that 16-17" slot and even bigger.

Another rule I follow is anything over 15" goes back.  I don't know why, that is simply where I drew the line.  It is arbitrary and completely unscientific.  It kills me when I hear of or see a picture of some 5lber that ended up in a frying pan.

Another:  No killing of a fish that has eggs.  I would hope that this would be obvious.

I think the bottom line is that there is a fine balance between what is appropriate for each unique body of water.  Over harvesting has been and certainly can be a problem that can devastate a fishery, but blindly practicing catch and release can have negative consequences as well.

Just my opinion.

The River Isn't All That's Flooded.

A lot of eyes have been on our rivers this year, and they are high.  In fact, I've lived in Cambridge for six years and I've never seen the Rum River as high as it is this year.  So much that the DNR has closed access to the launches both in Cambridge and between here and Princeton.

As the winter finally loosens its icy grip on our lakes, I usually do a little driving around to the launch.  Just because I can.  Although this year, I was surprised by what I found.  I also took a few snap shots.  First is the launch, or what used to be the launch at Skogman Lake.

 As you can see, the launch itself is completely under water.  I'm not sure if anyone has tried to use it yet, but I know I'm not going to.

 Here's another showing how far up the water has come.  Typically, the water line is on the other side of the bushes and trees.

Another shot of the "parking lot" at Skogman.  The water has also pooled on the other side of parking lot.

I also made a stop at Lake Fannie, which is connected to Skogman via a culvert underneath HWY 95.

 Here again, the launch is completely flooded. 

The next weekend, I visited Green Lake between Cambridge and Princeton.

 At least here the launch is exposed and usable.  But the water is still high, so high that some of the "guest cabins" at the rich folks houses would get wet if the wind blew strong enough.  (No exaggerating here either.)

Another shot of Green.

Concerning the Rum River.  As I said before, access to the launches are blocked off.  But you can still get to the river by cutting across a small field at the launch in between Cambridge and Princeton.  I took a few shots and was astounded.

 These shots reminded me, vaguely, of Louisiana.

At normal levels, this embankment is a steep drop of about five feet.  Now the water is fairly level with the bank.

Ice Out 2011.

One of my favorite (close to home) lakes is nearly open.  Just a thin layer of slushy looking stuff.  Skogman and Fannie still have substantial ice cover yet, but they are larger than Florence and go out a week or so later than Florence.  So, we'll see how things go.

In the meanwhile, some folks started a group on Facebook called Minnesotans for an Early Bass Season.  If you're a Minnesota bass addict, and many of us are, you also know that the period of time between the end of February and Memorial Day weekend can be the longest stretch on the calendar.  The purpose of this group seems to be to explore ways to encourage shortening (or maybe do away with) the closed season on bass.  I think it's worth checking out if you have the time.

From Harris to St. John's.

This is my first season doing fantasy fishing.  So far, I haven't much to complain about.  My Classic picks were ho-hum, but four of my guys made the final cut at the Harris Chain.  I'm pretty psyched about that.  I haven't really talked about my picks much because I don't really have a lot of time to really come up with any sort of strategy other than making picks based on consistency.  So, I'll break down my Harris picks and talk a little about St. Johns.

Harris:

A)  KVD - Picked because he whooped my be-hind at the classic and really, there are few as consistent as this guy.
B)  Bobby Lane- Local stick.  I was disappointed with how it turned out, but that's why it's called fishing and it happens.
C)  Rick Clunn- Honestly, I had no clue who to pick.  Clunn just stood out in that bucket.
D)  Chris Lane- Same as Bobby, except performed way better.
E)  JVD- I was on the fence between Palaniuk and JVD.  Swapped them Wednesday night before I went to bed.  It was a pure gamble that paid off nicely.

St. Johns preliminary picks:

A)  KVD - Cookies.  I've got nothing else to say.
B)  Scroggins - I'm not sure where he's actually from, BASS says Palatka and Bassfan says San Mateo which is supposed to be farther downstream near Jacksonville (depending on which website you choose for maps because Yahoo puts it 10 minutes out of Palatka).  But I do know one thing, the last Bass open there, he placed 7th in.  He's got very local knowledge, a positive record, and will have his own bed to sleep in.  Now.  Here is where the bait-monkey shows up with a nice shiny wrench to throw into the works.  Shaw.  This will mostly likely be a bed fishing show - supermoon style.  After Harris, do you really want to bet against him in favor of someone who finished nine places behind?
C)  I'm still not sure who so I'm going to say Clunn again
D)  I'm between Lane and Thliveros but I'm leaning toward P-T.  They're both locals but P-T won here a while back so that gives me some confidence.  But here's the catch:  He won that in mid-January.  No spawn then and it's been fairly widely acknowledged that this will also be a bed tourny.  How well does he do with site fishing?  Well, let's just say that the Harris event has made me a little leery of jumping in the 'gator infested canals with P-T.
E)  JVD  I'm fairly set on this one.  He placed third in the same open event on the St. Johns that P-T won, and given his performance at Harris, I'm willing to take another swing here.

So there you have it.  I have two picks that I'm solid on (and I don't care how hard you roll your eyes.  They both have cookies.) and three that I'm really soft on.  I'll likely spend the remainder of tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday second guessing myself going over stats and trying to find out more about the river itself  but the biggest theme seems to be this:  bed fishing.  As a side note, interestingly, Shaw only has 5.2% ownership as of this writing.  If he promises to bring more pork chop sandwiches....

Odd Finds In Odd Places

It's rare when a posting on a fishing blog starts with "This morning, while grocery shopping", but this is one of them.  You see, I live way out here.  I like it, one of the cool things is that we have a super Walmart -quit rolling your eyes...-.  I usually cruise by the sporting goods section just because I can and noticed that they had changed the layout of the fishing section.

I grunted a little, that indifferent, lackadaisical response that says "Dang.  I'm going to have to go through it all again" in one cohesive sound.  I started moving on and a yellow box caught my eye.  It said Strike King.  Square bill.  1.5.  KVD  "I thought these were sold out everywhere".  So, I decided for $5.5something that I'd pick a few up.  I wasn't planning on picking up any cranks until the Northwest Sportshow in March/April so it was completely spur of the moment, but it goes to show you that when everyone else is sold out that you can find things where you least expect them.

Winter Bassin' - Minnesota Style

Most of Minnesota's water is ice locked. On the local lakes we had 20" of ice and probably a little more after the cold this past week. So, obviously, there aren't many places to scratch that open water itch.

Well, I wasn't ready to put down the long rod in favor of my ice sticks so I decided to do some searching. You see videos of guys hitting open water spots in the dead of winter and figure "there are only so many places that can happen at".  So I did some research and read a few forums and for a while the only thing I could find was pool 2  (edit- I meant to say pool 4) on the Mississippi.  That's a long way to go from my town so I kept looking.  I finally found a spot that's only a little over an hour away.

My first trip out was 1/3/11.  I forgot my waders at home so I was hoping the water would be drawn down a little bit so there would be a bit of shoreline to walk.  When I arrived, no luck, water was high and the surface current looked pretty quick.  So I fished from the launch and managed to land a couple decent smallies.  The first smallies I've caught that are worth mentioning, in fact, seeing as how I've only typically fished waters containing only largemouth, or very minimal amounts of smallmouth.

My second trip was 2/11/11.  I remembered to grab my waders and grabbed my muck boots, just in case.  It's a good thing I did because when I tried to put my waders on, I found that my socks and thermals were too thick and I couldn't get my feet into them.  On with the muck boots and so with the fishing.  I had far better luck this time.

I walked upstream a little ways from the launch and threw upstream toward the main channel.  I started popping it slow, crawling along the bottom.  Rock.  Snaaaag!  Crap.  Walked back toward the launch site and manage to shake it free.  I bet that photographer that was camped out in the Dodge was having fun watching that.  Heh.

Back at it I go.  Except I'm noticing different texture than my first trip.  Mud bottom with a transition to a rocky-sandy-rubblish-whateveritwas.  That's where I was getting my hits.  Not in the eddies, but on that transition.  Pull it up, stop it, shake it and crawl it.  Bite.  Nice.

I had ten smallies in three hours, a mixed bag of runts and a few pretty nice ones. We won't talk about the missed fish or the ones that got off.  We'll chalk that up to "operator error", learn, and get better.

But all things come to a close and this was also my last open water -and bass- trip of the season.  You see, our season closes at the end of the month, but I'm fresh out of days off during the week and from what I've heard this spot can be a zoo during the weekend, and that just doesn't turn my crank.  So I'm solely on the ice now and looking forward to some new friends coming up from Missouri for some ice fishing over the seasons closing weekend.  That's always a good time.

Here are a couple photos from my recent open water winter excursions.

1/3/11

2/11/11

It's Pitchin'.

The one technique that probably gave me the most trouble when I start using it was pitching.  You know how it's supposed to go.  Raise the end of the rod tip from down to up and the bait flies a mile and barely makes a ripple when it enters the water.

How it actually went:  Whip the end of the rod too high, too fast and watch the practice plug get tangled in the tree limbs overhead, or maybe circle around completely and whap you in the back of the head!

I'm  a visual kind of guy, you can tell me how to do it until the Earth runs out of oxygen, but unless I can see it and combine the two, forget about it.  Fortunately, there have been a few videos that have helped me...  refine... my technique, and I wanted to share those with you.

This is the first video that really helped me put it together.



These last two were put out after I was more comfortable with the technique, and after the welts on the back of my head had healed.  They still have some helpful information.

Guitars and Fishing Rods...?

I'll bet you never thought that guitars and fishing rods ever had anything in common.  Well, that would be true when you look at it on paper.

Guitars:
Made of wood

Rods:
Made of graphite or fiberglass.

Guitars:
Heavy and unbalanced.

Rods:
Generally are light and I'd be willing to bet that you could probably balance some of them on a pin head.

Though they are not so different when it comes to picking one out.  When a musician goes to their local music shop with the intent to purchase a new axe, it can be an hours long - yet incredibly fun experience.  First, you walk up and down the rows, taking in the scent of wood and polish, and finally pick something based on how it looks.  Then you play it for a while.  It either feels right or it doesn't, and God help you if you buy a guitar that doesn't...

Maybe I'm over complicating things and I'm dragging my music experience, kicking and screaming, into my fishing.  But let's look at the other side of the coin.

I mean, have you ever gone to Cabelas or Bass Pro Shop, grabbed the first casting stick you see and go line up at the check out?  No way!  You stand there and play with it a little bit first.  Maybe push the end against the floor, check the balance, maybe even shake the tip in the air, make the motion of a cast, etc...  Same thing as with the guitar, if the feel isn't there, you'll put it back. 

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that with all the different rod makers out there, how do you choose?  Do you let price dictate you decision?  Sometimes, but you can also get some pretty decent rods for under $100.  I picked up an Abu Garcia Vendetta last season for fishing in heavy cover, but I wouldn't use the rod for cranking because it doesn't feel right, the weight is funny for long casts. 

That said, should you make your decision based only on feel (like one might with a guitar)?  That depends on your wallet and whether you can get permission from your significant other!  Some of the rods that feel perfect to me usually make me turn white with sticker shock when I look at the price tag!  But my favorite rod is still the first baitcasting rod I got when I got into bassin, a stout yet sensitive stick that cost $70 off the rack.

So you see, the Casual Basser has to pull a little from each criteria.  I'd love to put the blinders on and go based on feel alone, but my wallet (and wife) says "I don't think so".

That's my process of picking out a new rod, how about you?