What We Do

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We are chasers of trophy fish (Leviathans if you will). We devote as much time as we can to the thrill of the hunt, the success, and the failure of fishing the waters of Northern Minnesota. We are stewards of the land and water. Conservation is a top priority to us because the future of tomorrow is what we decide today. Catch-Photo-Release is practiced along with selective harvest.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Extreme Backwoods Panfish!

   It's mid-winter to late winter, I don't know, around Feb/Mar of 2012, and my cell rings up. It happens to be my very good friend Andy! Andy and I met in 7th grade and have been fishing buddies ever since. Andy must be calling about your 2nd annual Bull Bluegill Bust. I was completely correct. As the re-telling of stories gets my blood pumping, June can't come soon enough. Well, that day came.
   I headed to Side Lake, MN on the evening of June 7th to meet up with Andy at my parents place. Good ol' Mom and Dad's as and probably will always be base camp for this trip. It just works perfect. Andy beat me to the "base camp" cause I had to stop in Blackduck at the Shell station and get some bait and gawk at tackle. It's now 8pm and it's time for some grub and shut eye, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
   7am...we are up and out the door by 8. Andy's truck finally comes to rest at our drop site and gear is unloaded. This year we are going to debut a new boat, motor and a new way into this lake. The boat is a 12ft Pelican jonboat and clamped on the transom is a 3.3 hp Mercury "camp" outboard. This a much better set up for the remote access to this lake. The boat and motor is clamped, strapped and secured to a custom rack built for his ATV. This quite the rig! all the fishing gear was loaded in a Otter Wild Side trailer. This was a much easier rig to get to the lake with!



                                                              Let the journey begin! 

2 hours to go 1-1.5 miles...so worth it! It didn't take long and were hooking up with some good fish!








   The technique used was a small jig, tipped with plastic or Northland Tackle's Impluse Waterbug. Absolutely deadly! Hair jigs such as Jim Gronaw's River Critters and Lindy Tackle's Little Nippers were also killer on these fish! Slipfloats were also employed to keep baits from snagging in timber.




   What a fantastic trip this was! We didn't find any super freaks but all the fish were in the 8.5"-10" class! We spent a total of 9 hours back there and loved every second of it. Day two of the trip was spent casting for largemouth bass and pike, as well as keeping a keen eye out for sumo gills, on a different body of water. I will have more on that day tomorrow! 

Thanks for reading and have a good day fishing, Patrick

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