Up North With the Wise Ones (Part 1)

As I mentioned in my last post, E-Kol was planning to participate in Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN. Tony and I made plans to go up there and fish/hang out with him before and after the marathon, seeing as there are several species up there that cannot be caught (or are extremely difficult to catch) …

Mosquitoes and the Bowfin Rematch

It's Thursday of my first week back, and I'm sitting at 10 species. I have planned a trip up to Northern Minnesota with Tony and the wonderful E-Kol, but I want to knock off some easy species before I head up with them on Friday afternoon. I opt to drive 30 minutes South and target …

Disgust with Humanity, and at Long Last a Good Picture

There's a neat spot on the St Croix river that holds all sorts of fish. At any point in time, there are probably 8-12 Standard-Size species swimming around there. Unfortunately, everyone knows about this, and it is overfished and quite trashy. It is usually pretty cramped, but it's too good to pass up, especially for …

The Case of the Disappearing Bowfin

As soon as I got back from Washington, it was time to begin fishing in earnest. There is a lake near me that has an abundance of non-Bluegill panfish, golden shiners, crappie, and supposedly Bowfin. I scouted it before the contest and caught black crappie, pumpkinseed, and green sunfish, but didn't see any Shiners. I …

Fishing with Sister and Mother

As I mentioned in my last post, I flew back to Washington State to spend some time with my family and watch my sister graduate from High School. She and I have always been close because of what we went through growing up, and I'm very proud of her and know she will go on …

June Species Contest Kickoff and First Outing

As I've written before, I belong to the roughfish.com community. Every year, we have a contest in June to see how many species each person can catch. Some people try really hard to win (there's a custom rod in it for the winner), but the vast majority of us use it as an opportunity to …

Easter and a Cure for Mental Distress

This is a thread that I posted on Roughfish on Tuesday. It details some of the early-season fishing I have done in 2017, and concludes with one of my favorite fishing stories to date. I hope you enjoy it. Thread: http://roughfish.com/content/easter-and-cure-mental-distress Because I had just moved here (and started a job), I was really stressed …

An Exploration of Western Wisconsin

This is a direct copy-and-paste of the original report I wrote about the summer of 2015 - the summer that truly started it all. You can find the report here:  http://roughfish.com/content/exploration-western-wisconsin On June 5th, 2015, a young man walked up to an angler and asked him "Sir, what makes me different from all the kids?" …

Introduction

A brief history of my fishing life