lord of the redhorse

did some fishing with cyndie today. fairly slow bite for most of the day. a few small brown trout were caught with one decent 18" what really made the day for us and made my year for me was fishing redhorse with the last few minutes of daytime at a spot that i have been skunked at the last few years. cyndie got the first fish a very fat silver.

i remained skunked as the weather started to take a turn for the worse. we began to talk about packing up and leaving. i decided to stay a few more minutes even though there was obviously a large storm on the horizon aproaching quickly. i set up my rod and waited for the bite. i got one good tap but lost the fish on a bad knot. my line must be going bad because this happened a few times today. i tossed out what was the final cast of the night and watched the rod tip close. a few minutes later the line snaked forward a bit and went tight, a tiny twitch at the end of the rod tip sealed the deal there was a fish. i set the hook and instantly felt weight on the end. it was barely fighting but it was enormous. i could not see what was on the end of the line. i could see massive boils and ripples across the top of the water every time the fish came close to the surface. i was starting to think i had hooked a large chunk of driftwood till i saw the fish rise to the top of the water. at first i couldn't tell what it was. at first i thought carp. big carp, but as the fish came closer i noticed it was no carp. as soon as i saw what it was cyndie bolted down the bank to land the fish. it had given up on coming in peacefully and was thrashing madly on the surface. as cyndie reached for the fish i heard a loud *SNAP* and saw my 1oz weight shoot into the air like a missile. my initial response to this was to throw my rod on the ground and let out a flurry of swear words... but the fish had not been lost. cyndie had made one last grab at the fish as it turned to swim off and at the cost of sinking her new boots into some nasty river mud she landed the fish for me. i ran down to the shore to take a look at my catch. it was a silver redhorse. unlike any silver i had ever seen in my life. this fish was massive. i really regret not having a tape measure on me. cyndie went a little overboard with the photo session and we got a tone of photos with the fish before it was returned to the water to maybe someday give another angler the same joy it brought me. its only march but this is fish of the year for me.

photos are a bit goofy. i was excited...

nice trout

got out for a bit before work. only had time to hit one spot but i knew exactly where i was going. first cast produced this beautiful 22" brown. got one more skinny 20" and a handful of pike nothing picture worthy.

the new spot

with the weather as warm as it is i decided to look around for somewhere close to home to go fishing for the day. me and cyndie have been staying at her brothers in west st. paul lately and the mississippi river is only 5 minutes from the house. so i looked around a bit on google maps and found a few parks in the area. we decided to head over to one for a few hours before cyndie had to head out for work. i fished crawlers at first and managed a few small channel catfish. i could see some carp jumping close to shore and many of them looked big so i changed over to corn. it did not take long before i got a bite. i set the hook and my drag screamed for about 10 seconds and then *SNAP* my line busted off. next bite i had was similar but the fish didn't feel as big i got it just to where i could see it and saw that it was a smallmouth buffalo a species i've been chasing for years. sadly the quick glance at it was all that i got. the fish rolled sideways on the surface and tossed the hook. i recast and again the bite came quick. this time i managed to get a solid hookset in the fish and was able to land it. not the buffalo i was hoping for but still a good sized carp. i managed two more carp as the day went on and cyndie got skunked. we had several fish that we hooked that seemed just too big for our tackle. three more times during the day we would hook up only to watch line peel off the reel only to end abruptly when the line snapped. i was only running 8lb braid on both reels and we learned quickly that won't be enough with the size of some of the carp we hooked into. i will return next week with a heavier setup.

summer weather in march

the weather has been unseasonably warm most of the winter and this trend is still continuing. it has been in the 70s all week. with the warm weather i will be doing quite a bit of fishing.

weather forecast for the next week

on wednesday me and cyndie decided to go try one of our favorite spring spots on the mississippi river. the fishing was better than expected. the redhorse were biting like crazy! we caught dozens of them. mainly shortheads but there were a few goldens and a beefy silver thrown in the mix.

cyndie caught what was definitely the fish of the day. she got a bite that felt a little different then a redhorse. the rod was doubled over and it was obvious she had a much larger fish on. after a good fight the fish broke the surface and i was amazed at the size of the thing. on the end of her line was a gigantic walleye. i hopped down onto the rocks and netted the fish. we measured it at 27" inches long a new personal best for cyndie.

the redhorse bite continued. another group of fishermen caught a decent sized sturgeon and i got my first whitebass of '12 we fished for a few hours after dark and didn't get much. we caught a couple of sauger and i caught a decent channel cat. with the fishing as good as it was all day i am certain i will be back at this spot again very soon.

first catfish of the year

not a big one but im glad the weather is warm enough that they are biting