The Switch

The guy you see in the corner is the 22 incher from last year. It would be nice to meet him again.

Anyway, since Summer arrived in its official form--hot, muggy, unbearably buggy weather--I smoothly made my transition to smallmouth bass today with my dad. He took all the pictures so I will get them and put them up shortly. But, the first day of smallmouth was a success. We fished a stretch of river about an hour north of Saint Paul and saw one canoe with two people. Had I gone to the Rush or Kinni today there would have been a substantial number of folks--certainly at the Rush. I don't know what it is about smallmouthing and fly fishers around here, but the resource is unreal, the fish are often huge, they take a fly well, they fight really hard, and next to no one fishes for them save for the special regs area of the upper Miss. That's turned into a circus on par with the Big Horn during the PMD hatch. But, there are many rivers out there that don't see any (and I do mean zero) anglers and 16-18 inch bass are the norm.

But that is not to say that I am done with trout. Now, for me at least it becomes an evening to after dark matter on weekdays. There are whispers that the Hex has begun out on the sands with its slow-moving and boggy rivers. I will check that out this week.

I see for the forecast that we are expected to get some heavy thunder-boomers across the middle of the state--likely to miss Saint Paul. We need the rain badly here. Though I do have to admit sitting out on the sunken patio at W.A. Frost or at the Muddy Pig and slurping a Surly Bender or a Rush River Unforgiven has been quite fun and dry.

But, the score: the third fish of the day was a fat 17 incher--classic bronze smallmouth. There were also a few others in that neighborhood.

This river is one of those amazing, white pine studded, bog-stained masterpieces flowing around granite boulders. Bald Eagles and all...