The Minnesota trout fishing season opener was last weekend. I
know that “fishing opener” in Minnesota means “walleye fishing opener” but there
are more fishes in this state than walleye, just ask the rough fish fanatics. I
chose to avoid the crowds on Saturday and Sunday and meet up with the retired
guys on Wednesday after work. I got to the hotel just in time to visit the
supper club for fried cod and salad bar with the boys.
The cast included my father-in-law, his brother-in-law and a
couple of their old high school (probably) buddies. All of whom are retired and
have been attending this annual outing for years. My father-in-law is the old
trout bum of lore, haunting the creeks and valleys with a box full of night
crawlers and a creel full of fish. I had a great time hanging out with them, after all they spent most of their days without internet, when movies had
real people with real dialog, and the art of BSing was in full form. All great
men.
I played the role of “the kid,” up with the sun, climbing up
and down the river banks, and running down stream with my fly rod in hand to
see if the fish were biting. I’m happy to report that the fish were indeed
biting, and my rusty fly fishing skills came back fairly quickly. I managed
to catch fish on nymphs (tiny bugs fished below the surface), streamers (a walleye jig without the lead head), and dry flies, a hat-trick. All the
fish were big too. (no really, they were good sized.)
I fished a spot that I’ve visited year after year for the
past ten years or so. The river is always changing and I’ve seen the fish sizes
get bigger an smaller as year-classes have good and bad winter/spring runoff
seasons. The last few springs have been easy on the fish and I think that was
reflected in the size of the trout. I feel that these places are reasonably resilient
in the long term, as long as we don’t do anything too foolish to destroy them.
(Some of the biggest issues include increased storm runoff from drained
uplands, heat from industrial cooling water and stormwater, and eroding river banks from the lack of any
protective buffer.)
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| All the little silver things in this photo are fog soaked spider webs. |
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| Uncle Dick |
The photo opportunities were outstanding on this particular morning.
Carpe di Salmo!
- Ride North
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