So.....

Hey No1, nice catch, good to see your fishing...

I made it up to the cabin for a few days and fished Lake Superior each morning and each afternoon. I was looking for Lake Trout and Salmon and managed a few fish for the smoker. We've seen a nice cold front come into the area bringing some much needed rain so maybe later in the week I'll hit the big river for a morning.

While up north we stumbled upon a mother lode of wild blueberries but were hardly dressed for spending much time in the brush with bugs, but we did pick enough to freeze some and make a batch of fresh muffins or two. Its hard to find a better wild berry. The locals all said its been to dry for any decent blueberry picking but we could have picked for two days in the one spot and filled ice cream pails. The 90 miles one way sort of cancelled the return to the berries but we're fine with what we found.

Sorry i didn't read this sooner . We were up to Fish trap Aug 26 to the 29 and the fishing was tough then also lots of small fish of all kinds . The only thing worth noting were the two 17" walleyes i caught in 27' of water.

This is the first year we have hit so many small crappies on Fish Trap. Some past years haven't produced any under 11" or 12". A few years ago the local lake association got DNR permission to herbicide the weeds, which were heavy in Eurasian milfoil. The crappie fishing has gone steadily down hill since then. What looks like eel grass was all over this year, the first time I can remember seeing that plant in that water. The weed mixture has both changed and declined since the herbiciding started. At least in my estimation. There are also now muskies for sure that have invaded from Alexander. So there is both a larger harvest and less cover; so live expectancy for the crappies is automatically declining, meaning smaller mature crappies.

Hey CT, I sorta been missing in action this summer. We got out a couple of times here in the Cities over the past week or two. Some decent crappies for in the City, with a couple of lakes producing a few running 9-12 inches. Picked up about a 3 pound walleye, too, this past week. Very interestingly the biggest crappies for us are coming right about the last half hour before full dark. The other evening in about 2 hours my buddy and I took a good dozen or so that ran 11" and 12" during that witching hour. Nothing doing for anything until the light went away far enough. A couple of evenings before that we picked up about the same number on another lake. 1s and 2s from particular spots, generally one inside arm of an indentation in the weedbed, and then we would have to rest it and change out plastics, before the same spot produced another one or two. Once again low light to almost full dark. But we are seeing 11 and 12" fish in the metro then and usually on lakes with consumption advisories. Nokomis, which has no advisory, can produce dozens of dinkos, but few to no fish that even make 8"+. Those other lakes with the advisories get less harvest and have larger crappies, even the average pushing 8-10", and the occasional couple to over 12". Not bad for core Metro waters.

My fishing has been off the mark this summer too Dutch. Around home anyways. I've done well on Superior and we just got back from a trip into Wisconsin in the Rice Lake area where we saw great crappie action. The local and river fishing can be iffy yet. We need to get some heat out of the water and with this wind and colder temps that's likely to start soon. I'm hitting the river tomorrow morning, but the water in Lake Pepin is still at 60 degrees so who knows what will be found. And then there's this cold front to deal with. Guy's gotta try though, eh?

I am thinking of going out again this afternoon. It is just about time for the milfoil to go down and the lakes to turn over. That will open up some shoreline pools and I expect to see some big eaters cruising the shallows to fatten up for winter on the newly exposed sunfish and maybe the crappies too. A lot of times the bigger crappies show up now as well as in the spring. We have been seeing a bit bigger than normal recently in a couple of lakes.

First though I am going to have to plant the last of my garlic. The last seed bulbs came in the mail just this last week for a couple of new varieties for me to test out. My own bulbs that I saved from last summer's harvest were planted out last week. This autumn planting of garlic is working out just fine. Pretty much just like planting tulips but not so deep.

My garlic didn't pan out this year. I think it was the variety.

The river was pretty meager today with only two of the dozen fish we caught being marginally large enough to keep so they all went back. Water is still too warm in both areas we stopped at. Next week will be the time to start according to the forecast at 5 tonight.