2014 NW MN fishing league

[child23]

Canopy,

I made a poster at work that I have been posting around there. I was thinking about putting the other events on it with times and dates and post them around town. Are u still alright to run the event in July? My brother and I have a good friends wedding that day so we won't be in town that weekend. What time should I put for the event? Also where would u want everyone to meet?

[child23]

I'm hoping the weather doesn't start until late saturday night or gets done before the tourney starts. I think it will be a fun event hopefully we get a decent turnout for it. If the weather looks really bad I will make a call by noon on Saturday on here. Hopefully that is early enough for everyone.

Also July 26th event is planned from 8am until noon on the river here in thief from below the dam to the st hilare park. I found out if I do a morning event I will still be able to make it to the wedding that afternoon and run the event.

[CANOPY SAM]

Hey Travis,

I don't know where I got my wires crossed, but I was thinking the Union Lake event was going to happen in July. Somehow I was thinking the June event was going to happen at the end of June? Either way, I'm not going to make this weekend's event either. My wife and I leave for New York City tomorrow morning (Friday), so I'll be on the east coast while this Union Lake event is going on. My bad. Wish I could be there, but my son will only sing at Lincoln Center one more time and I don't want to miss it.

Glad you switched the July event to our river. As far as I know I should be around for this event. Just a suggestion, but you might want to consider narrowing up that overall fishing area a little bit.

If one puts in a canoe or kayak at the dam, or even the Armory Park, it'll take you a good 8 hours to make St.Hilaire. It's only 7 miles as the crow flies, but the river winds back and forth, and it can take all day, without fishing, to make that distance. If one stops occasionally to fish the good holes it's going to take you all day to make St.Hilaire.

There are a couple pretty good places to "take out" along the route. First one would be my place. We are only about a mile south of town, but by river, in a small watercraft, it's about 2 hours, while fishing quickly, from the Armory Park to our place. Another spot is about 2 miles south of our place, along Hwy 32, but it's a steep, high bank, so one has to be prepared to carry a small boat or canoe up that! Your next stop is the cemetery alongside Hwy 32, but again a steep high bank, but a really good fishing spot. It's about 4-5 hours from town to the cemetery, maybe a little more.

Again, travel time from town to any "take out" location will entirely depend upon water levels at the time, and those will likely be high considering our nearly constant rainfall of late. You could make a terrific event out of simply calling the event borders the dam in town to our place. There are numerous areas to fish between those borders, and folks could spend all day at the dam, or they could have the luxury of floating the river, and leisurely stopping to pick thru the good holes and areas, ending in our back yard.

You'll have to consider what species we'll target for this event as well. The river is FULL of catfish right now. By late July they'll be tons of smallmouth bass that will be post-spawn, and aggressively chasing baits. We should also have a real good population of walleye available as well.

You could keep all those in the bag, but you're going to have people almost constantly measuring and photographing fish, so you'll have a lot of info and data to compile for the standings. I think I would set the target on one species of fish, or perhaps only two, just to make the playing field level for everyone, and make score management more efficient.

I'd be happy to have the weigh-in, or stopping point at our place, and I'd even be prepared to do a fish fry at our river spot, and let everybody just kick back and enjoy the evening by the campfire at our place.

Just throwing it our there.....

Good luck this weekend!

[child23]

Well I think we are going to try have the event. It might be a little wet but we will try have it.

[CANOPY SAM]

So how did the Union Lake event go? I saw where BBB backed out at the last minute.

Sorry I missed this event but NYC was so cool, and Omaha was a great trip as well!

So.....in regard to the TRF below the dam event, recent posts from Upper Red Lake are indicating very high water in the tamarack bogs east of the lake, very high water flowing into both Upper and Lower Red Lakes, and if you haven't already noticed by now our river here in town is clipping along at a pretty good pace.

With the flow we'll realize from the Red Lakes over the next few weeks I doubt we'll see our river levels drop very much at all for quite a while. I'm not saying this is all doom and gloom, call off the event right now stuff. I'm simply saying we're going to have to be pretty careful about how we approach this event. If it stays like it currently is while they gradually draw down the lake levels we're going to see sustained high water below the dam here in town, and probably pretty swift current as well.

It's going to make fishing tricky at best, and even a little bit dangerous with very strong current and submerged boulders and mid-river structure. We may have to re-think this event a little bit as the time draws nearer. We'll certainly know more in a couple of weeks. Hope and pray the rain stops soon, or at least slows down considerably.

On a side note, on Friday night in Omaha we had 7 inches of rain in only a few hours! 7 inches!!! They are forecasting fairly serious flooding on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers south of Omaha in the next few weeks.

I don't recall a spring this wet in a very long time.

[larson311]

Caught this dandy below the dam on Saturday. Seems like the catfish are getting bigger and bigger in the river.

[img:left]http://s34.photobucket.com/user/larson311/media/photo7_zpsfdedb219.jpg.html]

[larson311]

Shore fishing ain't bad, might be a little wicked in a kayak though.

[child23]

Well for the union event it was interesting to say the least. My brother and I and two other guys from work came to the event. It started raining as soon as we pulled up to the access and rained until about 8 I think it was. We decided to call it off a little early being the 4 of us were pretty soaked by the end. The fish were biting pretty decent when it was raining but shut off as soon as it quit. We ended up catching quite a few smaller bass and a couple of northerns right around the 30" mark. I also managed to sink a treble hook between my fingers when I was unhooking one of the northerns. As far as the river event goes i think we will watch the river and see what it does in the next couple of weeks. Maybe we would have to do a shore fishing only event which could be interesting. Hopefully more people will be interested in the next event.

[CANOPY SAM]

Travis,

So what are your thoughts about the Red Lake River event?

Recently I read where the city hopes to draw down the river level above the dam in an effort to do some work on the spillways. Not sure who needs to connect the dots on this idea, but with Thief lake at flood level, and the both the Red Lakes still hovering dangerously near flood stage, it's going to take a LONG time to draw down the river level above the dam! Leave it to the TRF city fathers to suggest this idea in a year when we receive ridiculous amounts of spring rain!

Anyway, just curious what you have in mind, or if you'd rather switch gears and take the July event to another location? There are fish in the river right now for sure, but I'll admit the walleyes and bass have been hard to connect with. The higher, fast moving water, coupled with really poor water clarity below the dam has made fishing tough. The catfish are thick, and easy to catch, but walleyes and bass have been quite a bit more difficult.

Maybe this would make for an interesting platform for a little fishing contest? I just want to make sure everyone stays safe. I'd be perfectly comfortable navigating the faster moving current in a canoe right now, but I'm not so sure that less experienced small watercraft operators would be completely safe on the water right now?

Just an FYI, Balm Lake bass are going strong right now. Walleyes are up shallow in the weeds, and getting them to bite is an interesting challenge. Maybe we outta move the July event to a reasonably close lake, and save the Red Lake River event for later this fall? Do Union Lake again? Maple? Balm Lake?

What would you like to do, and when?

Oh, and BTW, I can't make anything this Saturday. Our eldest son has baseball tourneys in Detroit Lakes this Saturday, and we plan to be there. Could probably do a Sunday afternoon thing tough. It's your call Travis.

[child23]

Hey canopy. I think we will leave the event as planned on the river. Me and my brother have a pretty tight schedule next Saturday with a wedding that afternoon so we are thinking the river would work best. I think I will also leave the boundaries open to st hilare but emphasize that they need to check in on time. I hope to see a good turnout next Saturday the 26th. See you all there

[CANOPY SAM]

Okay Travis. Just a quick update on current river conditions.

Just shortly after I made my last post the river level dropped about 6-8 inches, and the current speed came down a little bit as well. I'd say it's actually just about perfect now for navigating the river via a canoe or small watercraft.

Anyone choosing to do this, and hasn't done it before on our river, please be cautioned that there is still fairly swift current, and quite a lot of barely submerged rock and underwater debris. Should be able make it thru all the rapids areas with no trouble as long as you stick to the main chutes and don't get twisted around in the current.

Fishing conditions are actually quite good now, but water clarity is still fairly poor. I've recently had some luck with large blade baits, or anything with a pretty big profile that moves a lot of water and sends out a significant thump in the water.

The catfish are thick. I'd wager there are good numbers of smallmouth bass, and walleye in there, but they might be kinda tough to find with the poor water clarity.

With only four hours to fish (8 am. to 12 pm.) we'll have to move pretty quickly and fish fast. I'll absolutely guarantee anyone in a canoe or kayak will not make TRF to St.Hilaire while fishing.

So Travis, where do you want to have the morning check in, and final weigh in at? The parking lot on the east side of the dam might be a good spot, or perhaps at the Armory Park?

[CANOPY SAM]

Well....you know the old saying, What a difference a day can make!

Evidently we ended up with 4+ inches of rain here in TRF last night. I heard Holt, just north of us, got almost 7 inches! Needless to say, the river below the dam here in TRF is now running nearly out of it's banks. The odds of our league being able to fish this on Saturday are very slim to none in my opinion.

My family and I actually hit the basement last night with candles lit, flashlights ready, and a spot prepared against the below ground basement wall in case the house lifted off it's footings. It was pretty dicey there for a little while. Doggone wind and pounding rain laid our corn over flat, but I can't see any other significant damage, other then staying up till midnight wet vacuuming gallons and gallons of water out of our basement bedrooms.

Anyway, Travis, do you have any back up plans? I don't think the river is an option anymore.

[child23]

Actually this time I don't have a backup plan. It was looking pretty decent until last night and holy smokes can it change. With the limited amount of time I have on Saturday it's awfully tough to have a tournament on a lake unless it started early morning. Is anyone interested in that or should we just cancel this event?

[CANOPY SAM]

Hi Travis. Yup, the river was just about perfect for fishing. Now it's shot for a while again. Walked down there just a bit ago and that river is super high and really moving!

I'd still really like to see us have a Red Lake River event, so maybe we could just re-schedule the river event for Sept or October? A four hour event on a local lake would be okay, but that's a pretty short time period for a lake event. Suppose it could be done though.

I've always got a list of things I can do, so I could easily go without fishing this Saturday. Thinking the blueberries are ready for picking, so may head up north to collect a couple gallons on Saturday with the wifey.

It's your call Travis. Maybe a real early event on Union or Maple. Like 6 or 7 am., till 12:00 noon?

[child23]

Well I just talked with my brother and we decided to cancel the event this weekend. We are thinking of doing the same area in September or October.