Trout!

 

Monday night I set the coffee pot to brew at 5:45 am, then packed a couple of rods into the truck, then  crawled into bed and drifted away............

My alarm chirped, I showered and walked downstairs to find the coffee pot had overflowed and run a dark puddle of coffee all over the counter top and right down the side of the cupboard. Oh well. Picked up buddy Jim Shulin (TFO fame) at the Crowne Plaza downtown about 7:45 and we happily drove against traffic south and outta town.

90 minutes later found ourselves standing over my "opening day favorite". She was still fully blown and unfishable. Good... That means the poacher with the steel shank book had not been in there early this year. Jim and I jumped back in the Jeep and kept heading south. By 10 am, we rolled up to Cold Spring Brook near Zumbro Falls where the water ran gin-clear, as always. We pulled on the waders, shook our fists at the cold wind, and wandered slowly upstream, nymphing several small browns and a few brookies out of a bunch of completely average-lookin' holes. Wow, the high water over the last couple of years has absolutely messed up that piece of water. I stepped in several sand pockets where I sank down over the knees. After two hours there we packed back up, picked up two five-pound bags of ice at the BP, proceeded to chill our beer and headed further south, to check out the whitewater system.

I don't normally fish around WW near opener, but time was tickin' and we needed to find some good water. The stream looked pretty clean so we hopped out, sucked down two ham and salted butter sandwhiches (partially soaked in cooler water), jumped the fence and made our way down to the stream.  I had easily two dozen fish swing-and-miss or half-heartedly whack my black wooley bugger fly. I've never had such strange luck on buggers. I literally brought a single, eight inch brookie to hand.

I walked upstream towards Jim and noticed a few small flies coming off the water. Of course, Jim was three pools and two steps ahead of me. He'd already tied on a small dry and was picking fish off in the wind. We decided the bugs were 16ish mayflies. I reached into my fanny pack and grabbed my dry box. Exactly one-small BWO left over from last season. Really? Had I just completely ignored my dry stash all winter? I found some size 18 gray dry fly (couldn't even tell you what it was), tied it on and proceeded to catch a fish on my second or third cast.  For the next three hours, we brought a countless number of average-sized browns to hand, all on dries.  At times, we had as many as five or six fish in a single pool rising at the same time. Jim looked at me and pondered wandering back up to the truck to grab his camera and take a few catalog shots. His response was right on...."Screw that." "I'm fishing..."

Wintergreen Northernwear

Well, more snow in the forecast.  First off, the precip is going to mess up my plans for opening day of Minnesota's trout season.  Guess I'll find a backup plan.  Also, I'm sensing most folks are getting darn tired of having to pull back out their winter gear.  At least that's the tone I'm hearing from all my near-foul friends.  Actually,  I kinda get excited (still) digging into the closet to pull out my winter gear. Heck, just a week ago, we got bombed with that last spring snow and B-man and I happily threw on our coats and headed out for an after-dark trek in the pulk sled.

That bright, red coat of mine comes from a place called Wintergreen Northerwear.  If you've never heard of them, you're missing out.   They're the folks with the  telltale trim on all their parkas.  We're lucky enough to have Wintergreen as a sponsor of Due North Outdoors and a few weeks back, we were able  to tour Wintergreen's shop on a quick stop through Ely, Minnesota. 
Rows of Wintergreen Northernwear Trim!
I've been a fan of their gear since I was a kid.   Maybe it's because the world's most extreme explorers use their gear.   I'm not talking casual weekend warriors.  I'm talking about the polar and arctic explorers.  Folks like Paul Schurke, Will Steger and Ann Bancroft wear.  Yea, they're the kind of Minnesotans I've always looked up to.  The really put Wintergreen Northernwear on the map.  Now the small Ely company is churning out some of the coolest winter gear around.  In fact, a few weeks back we had a chance to tour their world headquarters up in Ely.

Curt and Becky Stacey Showing "Photojournalist Aaron" Around...

 Those new parkas on the rack there aren't going out for sale.  If you look closely, you can see they've got patches on them.  Check it out!

 

Yep, Wintergreen still makes a good chunk of the gear used for expeditions.  Stuff like that blows me away.  Maybe it's because I've spent 30 years taking in the joys and pains of winter camping, and still I just can't imagine what an expedition to the pole might be like.  I'm not sure I want to know, frankly. 
A Due North Outdoors BWCA Expedition
Hey, I've got a lot of nights well below zero under my belt, even a -40 below that made newspaper headlines years ago, but trekking to the North Pole.  Tough stuff.   Maybe that's why Brady and I have so much fun on our nights out in the snow. 
Gearing Up For Another Adventure...Brady likes us to wear headlamps and look around in the darkness.  I strap on the Otter Sled and pull him through the fields and woods near the house.  I'm guessing he feels a lot like a North Pole explorer when we head out.  I know I do.....

You Get One Guess....

Okay,  so check out the picture of my front seat and guess where my mind is these days... You get ONE guess.....  C'mon.  You got it yet? 

Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!...............

Last night, son Brady and I got to work on our second real season of turkey scouting. Actually, it's our third, but the first year he was only five months old.  Don't know that that actually counts.  Anyway,  as usual, we checked out the usual spots.  Our evening routine goes something like this.  Right after dinner, I hop up from the table, race through the dishes and then Brady and I both beg Katie to let us sneak away for a half hour.  She normally rolls her eyes and tells us to be back early.   I run to the garage and load a bit of gear into the Jeep, click Brady into his seat in back and then we zip over to three or four of our usual turkey haunts.  Last week, we were out on my hunting ground and found plenty of birds, no sweat.  Four hens, two gobblers and a jake.   In fact, Brady even got to see both gobblers flop up into the roost.  He yells out from the back seat, "Turkeys go to bed Daddy?"  What a cool kid....

Last night, we found turkeys out at EVERY one of our stops.  Right now, the birds are bunched up and I'm just starting to see the Gobblers get a little attitude. In fact, last night was first evening I've seen strutting this year.  They're getting birdy!
 

 Holy Smokes!!!

 

 Over at spot number three, the birds we quite a distance from the road.  With my binocs, I could see a couple of nice gobblers.  In fact, if you look real hard at the shot below, you can just make out a GIANT gobbler on the right.  I wonder if he'll rumble into my calls on opening morning...

 'Tis the season! Three weeks and counting to my Minnesota hunt.  Can't wait!

Gobble, Gobble..........

Cool Photo!

So,  one of my best fishing buddies also happens to be a pseudo professional outdoor photographer. In fact, a few of the photos you periodically see on the Due North and Minnesota Bound sites are Jacob's.  A very talented guy (better photographer than fisherman! Ha! ) with some success in the photography business.  In fact, he has a very cool cover photo on Eastern Fly Fishing this month. 

 

  Not a big deal, just a big kudo to Jacob for his hard work.  It's a shot we took a couple years back during a big spring storm on opening morning of the trout season. We had like ten inches of snow in camp that night and it was gone that next day by the afternoon.  A magic moment captured by Jacob's lens.  You can check out a few more of his photos on the Due North Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Due-North-Outdoors/199634593397885 or on Jacob's website:  www.jacobgibb.com

SPF 30! Thank Goodness!

Ah, Sun and no wind on the river...

Nothing like waking up before sunrise on the 13th of February and having to goo on a bunch of sunscreen.    The weather lady had forecast 45 degrees and sun on Sunday.  I knew our snow would be melting pretty quickly and I might only have a day or two to get out to a favorite "not so secret" fishing hole of mine on the Mississippi River.   See, this time of year, I get the itch to fish open water and the river is the place.  Two power plants upstream of Monticello, Minnesota use river water to cool plant turbines.   The end result?  The water stays open (and warm) 365 days a year. 

  That means wading for walleyes and bass all winter long.   My favorite rig is a simple 1/16th oz. Northland Fireball jig under a weighted slip bobber. 

Any good-sized minnow seems to work, but I'm a fan of bigger sucker minnows. Buddies Wayne Smith and Jay Hall came along on this morning adventure.  We were first to wade into water just before 9 am.   Jay threw a fly rod while Wayne and I slip-bobbered.   Pretty soon, we found the fish piled up on a slight drop in the river.  Bang! Bang! Bang!  Wayne was first to hook up!

First fish!

Once we found the pod of active fish, we got hit on just about every cast.  How fun is that on a cold winter day? Biggest fish?  We had two in that 18 inch range.

Nice fish Wayne!

The only downer of the day?  Wayne reached into his bait bucket and realized we were down to our last minnow.  Crap.   Funny, but I couldn't get a single fish to bite on plastics.  I talked to a couple of other guys fishing downstream who had trouble on plastics too.  Oh well....That's why the call it fishing and not.......blah, blah, blah.  I hate that cliche.  I'm there to catch.  Ha!

Another nice fish!

Anyway, I had also brought along a  5 weight fly rod to try and nab a couple of fish had they been feeding on the surface.  I didn't see a lot of bug popping yesterday and the fish weren't up, so instead, I threw on a cool rabbit tail zonker-kinda-fly and threw a few casts.   In a roughly half hour stretch, I was able to hook three fish and land one.  
A Bassy Zonker...
With the current, the 5 weight was a bit too whippy to wrestle the fish too much.  Kinda cool to get out, at least for a couple of hours in the dead of wint.  The best part? I went home to Katie and she didn't yip once about me getting sunburned while on the water.  Thank goodness for SPF 30!  Guys, learn from that....