6/5/12 Bemidji Day Trip

Those of you who know me really well know that I'm a die hard online forum guy, I staff for a few, and post on them all. One site in particular I spend the most of my time on is Http://www.lakestatefishing.com . I've been a member there for a few years and also was promoted to a staff position at the end of last winter. Between the fishing reports, general banter, classifieds and local threads I also spend a lot of nights sitting in the chat-room chatting away with fellow fisherman. Many times myself and Matt Breuer have chatted about me coming up and chasing some fish with him, well about two weeks ago another member Jamie Owens asked me if I would like to head up there with him and just split the cost. Cant beat that.  We made the plans for the 5th and left it at that.
I left my place at 4 AM and met up with him in the metro at 5 AM after that the direction of the day was north. It was supposed to take us about 3 -3 1/2 hours to get up there, lets just say we has some issues between the gps not working correctly and a wrong turn. We finally hit clear water bait at about 9.....After a quick stop to get bait we headed to meet Matt. We got the boat in the water and headed out to a shallow bar mid lake and started drifting and jigging for eyes in about 5-8ft of water. Matt put one in the boat within minutes, we had one in the box.....Well I think Matt picked up another 2, while Jamie and myself had no such luck. We did however land some sumo Perch. We also spotted a nice musky lounging on the rocks collecting some sun, and saw a few more nicer fish swim by. Pretty neat to be able to sight fish Perch and Walleye's in early June, in Blistering heat and no waves.
The rest of the morning had us running back into the river and then running to the other end of the lake. Same story- shallow, clear water, we found a few more walleyes and a few good fighting pike before running out of minnows.

We then decided to hop over to another lake and chase pan fish. We searched some shallow cabbage and Lilly pads in 5-10 ft of water. The rigging of choice was light line with floats and lindy lil nippers. Tipped with a waxy. Again I didn't have the luck the fellas had but did tangle with a few Nicer fish. Matt landed a really nice crappie that came in around 13.5" and Jamie landed a couple nice Gills that hit over 10" on the tape. 

All in all It was nice to get up there finally and fish with Matt! Thanks for taking us out bud, and we will see you when the water is frozen! If your ever in the Bemidji area and wanna get on some fish be sure to give Matt a call, His contact info can be found at http://northcountryguides.com ,

So far this spring I have fished a handful of local lakes, Gull, and Bemidji. I think next up I will hit Mille Lacs, then it sounds like we will be taking a family trip to the Detroit Lakes area end of June. So watch for reports and tight lines!

EK