Monday, February 25, 2008

Christmas in Febuary



Date: Feb 24, 2008
Location: Beer Azzed Hunt Clubr
Air temp: 30s
Water temp: ???
Hatches: Hot Lead
Fish landed: 19 Pheasents 1 chucker

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

QuickDraw
Lance
Eric (non F.A.G.)
Coach Mcguirk
(non F.A.G.)
Mark
(non F.A.G.)
Nate
(non F.A.G.)

it was a great day lotsa shooting we put out 20 pheasants and killed 19 of them, also picked up a spare chucker. the dogs did a great job. we drank a lot.


Monday, February 18, 2008

Cutty$hack Returns to Square



Date: Feb 17, 2008
Location: Square Peg Round Hole
Air temp: 30s, Really Fuckin' Windy
Water temp: ???
Hatches: Crappie Minnows
Fish landed: 3

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

QuickDraw
Naaz (non F.A.G.)

It's the Return of the Cutty$hack!

We got started about the azz crack of noon, but we were in it to win it, determined to stay till dark. We set up in a completely new spot hoping to cast the skunk off our backs. We got everything setup fairly quickly and were fishing with tip-ups in no time. It was soon after we started fishing that I realized that we did not have nearly enough Booze for an Ice fishing outing. oh well. After about an hour of fishing RobFine who had setup his shack a stone's throw away form us came over with a 13" 'bow. That was the first trout I had seen come out of that lake all winter.

About an Hour and a half into fishing I saw a nice 'bow aproach my waxie! Wow! the first keeper I had seen through my hole all winter, but he quickly took off, and a few minutes later we had a strike on one of the tip-ups, it was nothing other than a hammer handle pike.
The rest of the day we caught 3 more Hammer handles between us and had one larger pike strike. we saw a total of 3 trout all day and a few panfish, but the bite was extremely slow, a shadow of the lake it was just a year ago. I wonder what happened to make the fishing so bad on that lake. I doubt that I'll return any time soon.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Ice Breakers


Date: January 27, 2008
Location: Theodore Cleaver Memorial Creek
Air temp: high 30s
Water temp: ???
Hatches: Little black stone flies
Fish landed: 0

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

Slim Shady (non member)
Booter
Xan
TP

Like most Minnesota winters, this one has sucked my balls. So far, we have been on a roller coaster ride of bitter wind chills, broken up by 2 to 6 day stretches of tolerable temps (20s+). The worst part is that as the presidential election season hits high gear, there is not a single candidate that favors wholesale nuclear destruction of Canada for sending us this cold air.

During one of our recent reprieves from sub zero temps (where it almost got up to a balmy 40 degrees), we decided to take advantage of the MN winter season.


We headed to the southeastern region to fish a creek I had never been to. The snow made walking tough, and wide swaths of one of the river's branches were still frozen over. But, it was a glorious day to not catch any fish.

TP stalking his prey

The Cleaver is a fairly narrow stream that twists and turns across the valley. It demands highly technical casts to the fish piled up in nearly still water. Needless to say, it was a quadruple skunking. The highlights of the day were Booter's massive dump at a Rochester McD's, and finding a shard of glass in my beer during our post trip meal.

Booter assuming position #3-C

Still, it is a creek I would definitely revisit later in the year, and it sure was nice to wet a line for the first time in '08.