SPF 30! Thank Goodness!
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 10:47AM 
Ah, Sun and no wind on the river...
Nothing like waking up before sunrise on the 13th of February and having to goo on a bunch of sunscreen. The weather lady had forecast 45 degrees and sun on Sunday. I knew our snow would be melting pretty quickly and I might only have a day or two to get out to a favorite "not so secret" fishing hole of mine on the Mississippi River. See, this time of year, I get the itch to fish open water and the river is the place. Two power plants upstream of Monticello, Minnesota use river water to cool plant turbines. The end result? The water stays open (and warm) 365 days a year. 
That means wading for walleyes and bass all winter long. My favorite rig is a simple 1/16th oz. Northland Fireball jig under a weighted slip bobber.
Any good-sized minnow seems to work, but I'm a fan of bigger sucker minnows. Buddies Wayne Smith and Jay Hall came along on this morning adventure. We were first to wade into water just before 9 am. Jay threw a fly rod while Wayne and I slip-bobbered. Pretty soon, we found the fish piled up on a slight drop in the river. Bang! Bang! Bang! Wayne was first to hook up!
First fish!
Once we found the pod of active fish, we got hit on just about every cast. How fun is that on a cold winter day? Biggest fish? We had two in that 18 inch range.
Nice fish Wayne!
The only downer of the day? Wayne reached into his bait bucket and realized we were down to our last minnow. Crap. Funny, but I couldn't get a single fish to bite on plastics. I talked to a couple of other guys fishing downstream who had trouble on plastics too. Oh well....That's why the call it fishing and not.......blah, blah, blah. I hate that cliche. I'm there to catch. Ha!
Another nice fish!
Anyway, I had also brought along a 5 weight fly rod to try and nab a couple of fish had they been feeding on the surface. I didn't see a lot of bug popping yesterday and the fish weren't up, so instead, I threw on a cool rabbit tail zonker-kinda-fly and threw a few casts. In a roughly half hour stretch, I was able to hook three fish and land one. 
A Bassy Zonker...
With the current, the 5 weight was a bit too whippy to wrestle the fish too much. Kinda cool to get out, at least for a couple of hours in the dead of wint. The best part? I went home to Katie and she didn't yip once about me getting sunburned while on the water. Thank goodness for SPF 30! Guys, learn from that....
Reader Comments (6)
Bill,
Stop by the shop next time your up. I've got a wintering hole right in front of it. Good to see you enjoying the weather and the world's greatest smallmouth river.
Kip
Wildwood Float Trips
Kip,
Shop? What Shop? Where? Surprised we didn't see any wallies. A bit unusual to not hook a couple!
Wildwood is now located right on the bank of the Upper Mississippi River. Were a mile up river from Kadler. Have a small destination fly shop, and lodge for our guests. Just getting the whole thing going in baby steps. Stop by when your in the next time I'll give you the nickle tour.
Kip
Deal!
Bill,
If only you had hands like that when you were a world class goaltender at St Norberts! I remeber running into you last year and you were sharing this great secret fishing hole. Still waiting for the invite. Great to see you enjoying what you do!
Tim Berg
That guy in the last picture's really cool. After appearing at the river illinformed, without live bait, he let me have some suckers and right away my luck turned and I caught some nice smallies and now I've got a new favorite winter spot. Thanks for the suckers dude! I really appreciate it!
Vinny