July 14, 2007

Overdue

It's been way to long since the last blog entry. But to be honest, I have hardly been able to get out fishing this year. That and unseasonal flood waters in the Red River drainage lasting through mid-June.


With the Otter Tail river finally near normal flows for this time of year, I hit the river, downstream of the Orwell dam, this morning. I first started fishing the slack water areas with my fly rod seeking to hook up with the ever elusive buffalo. I fished a brown buggy woolly bugger on a floating line and had a few hits, but to hookups. I switched over to a hare's ear nymph, a small mayfly nymph imitation. I landed crappie after crappie, usually nothing to complain about, but I wanted to hook up with a roughie. Eventually I got bored with catching crappies, and the occasional sunnie, so I was about to move to a different spot when I finally hooked a buffalo. I played it for a while and got near shore, when my line went limp. Dang. I kept at it for a while longer and proceeded to catch more crappies and then, a monster bull bluegill. The thing was huge. While I was releasing the gill, my fly was in the water, and I managed to catch another nice big sunnie, slightly smaller. Nice.

I moved upstream from where I was and was trying to catch a few more fish for my lifelist. I heard reports of mooneyes and goldeyes being caught upstream. I was hoping to catch one so I could get a picture for the lifelist; last time down here, I caught several goldeyes, but didn't take any pictures. I ended up not catching any goldeyes, but caught a small channel cat, and snapped a photo. I also managed to hookup with a nice smallie. It was one of the biggest bass I caught so far this year, either number one or number two.

The bite began to die off, and of course, by now I wanted to head back down to the crappie spot, but a father and son were there. Not to spoil their good time I fished a little more, unsuccessfully, downstream and then packed up and headed out.
It was kind of disappointing not being able to catch a few more different species of fish for my lifelist, but I was able to land two nice fish. And as they say, any day on the water is a good day. Tight Lines!