roughfisher.com

I met up with a member of FishingMinnesota this evening and went sight fishing for carp. This guy had caught a brute 40 lb carp here before, and pulled in a nice mirror carp the other day. Suffice to say, I had my hopes up. We fished a gin clear South Central MN lake. We saw plenty of nice carp and a few buffalo in the shallows. Seeing that there were midges everywhere, I tied on a soft hackle chironomid pattern. No dice. I tried next a size 10 rust colored clouser swimming nymph, but nary a look. These fish were spooky and very guarded, much like fishing bones on the flat. We broke out the bait and artificials, no luck either. Wanting to avoid the skunk, we went to a different spot in the lake where a feeder stream entered the lake.

We saw a ton of crappies and built nests. Knowing that there were white crappies present in the lake, I had hoped to catch one for my life list. I cast my clouser swimming nymph into a pod of fish and let the fly settle. I pulled my line back and had a fish on. As I brought the fish to the boat, I realized I had just caught my first white crappie! We targeted a few trees near the water and caught a few crappies and sunfish before calling it a day. At least the day was not a complete bust, and the weather was near perfect. Next time I'm in South Central MN, I'm definitely gonna come back. This lake definitely has potential...