FINALLY! Trout on Open Water! 2013...

8:30 AM MONDAY:




Monday morning and I'm back in the office. I've got a headache, my back hurts, and my hands are chewed up. The Jeep is COMPLETELY trashed and still packed with a pile of wet gear. The truck smells of a lightly pungent fragrance of beer, mud and coffee. I guess that could be proof that Trout Opener 2013 might have been worth our troubles....




9 AM FRIDAY: "It begins"

Fishing buddy Todd Nibbe and I set out to find clean water in Southeast Minnesota. We knew the spring runoff was a bit of a problem in areas, but we also thought we could find some water worthy of a little trout fishing. Todd manned the map books. I drove and played DJ. The Sheepdogs were a good start...




4:15 PM FRIDAY "Still at it...":



In all, fishing buddy Todd Nibbe and I checked out 17 streams between Red Wing and the town of Houston. All 14 were completely blown. Not so much real high water, but COMPLETELY turbid. Think Cumulonimbus mud in the water. No offense to the farmers out there, but AG is just killing our trout waters.  Take the drive we did (276 miles on Friday) and it's pretty easy to see what I'm talking about. By mid-afternoon, Todd was still on the maps and we were considering throwin' in the towel on this trip-gone-to-hell...

By early Friday evening, I'd called just about every resource I had in SE Minnesota and it sounded like we might have one clear trout stream in Southern Minnesota. I called a farming buddy who lives on the creek and he said, "Well, I'm standing at the kitchen window and I can see the bottom of the creek". Todd and I smiled....
We knew we were in good shape when we stopped by to check out a local brookie haunt in the area and it was also gin-clear. 



8:30 AM SATURDAY "Fish our tails off"



Photojournalism buddy Aaron Achtenberg joined the crew and as he and I walked to our first spot on the stream, Aaron smiled, "Know what I love most about this moment?" "I've got nowhere else to be in this world but on trout water, all day long..." 

It was pretty clear we were about the first people to fish the stretch of river we tackled. We caught too many nice browns to count. If the Goat would have been around, his fishy trout counter would have been smokin'...

1:15 PM "Yep, it starts.."




Nymphs and midges were killer all morning. Without weight, you weren't catching fish. One piece of weight wasn't enough. Two and the fish just ate and ate... After lunch, I spotted a single BWO skittering around on the water. A moment later, a brown trout sucked it under. I snipped and re-tied and until dark pushed us off the water, we caught fish of all sizes on BWOs. Heck, we caught so many fish we actually got kinda "bored"... 

4 PM SATURDAY: Who'dathunkit





10:40 "Celebrating a Michigan win"




10 AM SUNDAY MORNING: "Post-rain fun"





The moral of this story, we stuck at our game plan and took the time to look around. I bet 99 percent of anglers gave up. We didn't and found our 2013 opener turned into one of the most memorable on record....