Fishing Opener

I got back from Fishing opener a little early due to the weather. Here's a little recap of the trip.

Thursday
Jason picked me up at 4:15 am to meet up with his father-in-law Vern in Prior Lake so we can follow each other up to Lake Winnibigoshish (lake Winnie). Vern has beening going up for fishing opener at lake Winnie for 30+ years. It is a long tradition in their family, this would be my first year. After meeting up with Vern we headed north and met up with another 6 guys in Princeton, MN. The weather was pretty wet and cold in the cities. We arrived around 11am at lake Winnie where we will need to boat to the primitive camp sites that are located on the shore of lake in the Chippewa National Forest. From the boat launch to the camp site it was only a 5 minute boat ride. We had three boats that day and filled them all on the first trip with gear and 6 people, leaving Jason and I behind to wait for a boat to come back. That's coo', we just cracked open a Coors Light for the time being. After a short wait Vern came back for us and we loaded our gear and headed out to camp, by this time the temperture was around 55 degrees and sunny. After setting up camp for an hour we headed into the woods to look for some fire wood. It seemed to be picked through pretty good. All the trees that were down were due to beavers which means the trees were pretty fresh and too wet. We collected as much fire wood as we could but next year we will need to bring in some bundles of wood. We cracked open some beers and started dinner which was chicken breasts and hashbrowns. I hit the hay pretty early because I was tired as all hell from getting up at 3:30am.

Friday
We all woke up to 35 degree weather and rain. Oh the joy! All of the weather websites and even the local radio station said that there was a 30% chance of rain. That 30% chance turned into a 100% change and it rained all day long. I couldn't stand the 40 degree weather so I stayed in my tent with the heater running for 5 hours napping and praying for sun. My stomach was starting to hurt and I realized I needed to go number 2. One problem, it was still raining. At these primitive camp sites there is no bathrooms, just a wooden box toilet in the woods. I gave in and had to work fast as it was raining when I had to go. I decided then that I was going to go back early with Jason on Saturday afternoon. It was dinner time again, we had some pork chops and hashbrowns again and then everyone went to bed to rest up before heading out at midnight for opener.

Saturday
12:00 midnight we headed out onto the lake. The rain stopped but now there is a light snow mist but atleast the wind died down to just about nothing which made it almost comfortable. Jason & I went with Jerry in his boat and we just went 50 yards from camp. I caught 3 walleye, Jason caught 2 rock bass and Jerry caught 2 walleye. We were only able to keep 1 walleye because 2 were in the slot limit and 2 were too small. Still not that bad for only being out for 2 hours. Now it's back to bed we go. Once again we wake up to rain but not as bad as Friday, it was a little bit warmer. I looked out at the lake and there were 40+ boats on the lake. We had some scrambled eggs and hashbrowns (think those guys could live on hashbrowns) and then went out for some last minute fishing before we leave. Jerry and I both caught small northerns as we trolled for walleye. Jason and I headed out at noon to head down to the Holiday Inn in Otsego for Laynie's first birthday (I'll post more about that).

Wrap up
All in all it was a fun time. Yeah the weather sucked but we managed to make the best of it all. I plan on going again next year and I think we will go Thursday thru Sunday. I did learn to be prepared for anything! (all of the pictures were taken on Thursday. I did not want to get the camera wet)

-MikeyB