The wife and I had the day off today and decided to head out and enjoy it. We were to drop off our daughter at grandmas house in west central Minnesota and head out from there. We armed ourselves with flyrods, bottom rigs, spinners and the mandatory nightcrawlers.
Our first stop was to try our hands at Greater Redhorse in a small river known to harbor monsters. Unbenonced to us this stream is a popular tubing river and was filled with drunk bikini clad women; there to party. Every access point was blocked by people who didn't seem to know there was awesome fish to be had there. We decided to move on.
This was farmland, pure and true. Rotted out threshing machines, caved in barns wrapped in tangled vines and cows everywhere; bathing, shitting and pissing in these rivers. Still we pressed on and scouted many road crossings and ditches. We came upon the enchanted valley with a very dirty river flowing through its heart. Cows lined the banks and tractors seemed to be the only traffic on this desolate road. After our encounters with all the tubers, this place seemed magical and called out fish.
Within minutes of setting up Anne drew first blood with a nice Largemouth Bass and then I caught a very nice Yellow Perch of about 10 inches. Enjoying the sun and watching the cows it just seemed perfect. It seemed we would have a good day exploring the unexplored. All of the sudden Anne's rod doubled over......could it be? Could it be the immigrant from Asia? Could it be the beast we came for, the beast we wanted to experience so badly today? It was; Anne's first Carp and a dandy of a specimen as well.
After a lengthy battle she rebaited and proceeded to catch a heafty Perch of her own in the same year class as mine (very fascinating seeing Perch like that in this dirty, hot farm river).
Fishing the opposite end of the bridge, I now needed to experience Cyprinus Carpio. It wasn't long until it happened; we had a double. It seemed almost simultaniously we got hit, and hit hard. Line peeled and reels screamed as these freshwater bonefish charged downstream. If given the oppertunity Carp will often "Bush" themselves in an attempt to escape, and thats exactly what these brutes tried to do. I somehow managed to stear mine clear, but Anne's was bushed and in a very bad way. We landed mine which was a decent fish, but Anne's had to have been a real monster. There was no way she was going to seduce him out. Her fish bushed about 100 yards downstream and wasn't budging.
Anne lost another to the bushes and I lost 1 to the bush and 1 snapped my line. There were some real big bruisers in this stretch.
I caught another surprize fish for such a hot, cow polluted farm stream; a Walleye. We all know that Walleye are pretty easy and common in MN, but not in these circumstances. Walleyes like to hang in deep, cool, clean, hard bottomed environs, not muddy cow toilets. It was a dandy as well.
It just goes to show you that good fishing often has a few surprizes and often times is right under your nose near the cowpies.
