I missed the opener....

ya well, I worked and as it turned out, I didn't miss much. The Croix is amazingly high with a current moving over 3mph in the channel and sparse reports from the bro's on success. I'm guessing the walleyes are up shallow somewhere and out of the heavy current, we tried that a little last night (Ingy and I) and got 1 17"er dragging crawlers in between the islands in the channel area. the good thing was, my impeller repair worked flawlessly! Thanks be to Fred for helping make that happen. I'm amazed at the equipment I own, yamaha makes some fine machines, start first time every time, despite the use and abuse....I'm going to miss the MN opener as well, but no surprise there I usually don't go anyway. As of now, doing a bit of prep work for the next couple days of guiding, ie rounding up gear, making delicious lunches and thinking of stories in case the fishing is lousy...

Speaking of lousy. Until the past few days the weather kept the fishing spotty on the local rivers. Monday I was down in El Paso about 3 or so, got a nice 16" brown on my third drift, skating a caddis about, there were a few bugs here and there but too early for much activity. However, the woods were a carpet of trillium's and other woodland flowers so I kinda got caught up in that instead. made a poor decision and ran for the willow @ last call only to be foiled by high water and nearly impossible fishing. Elsie's getting over her bout with Lymes, so she finally made it out with me and will be along the next couple of days as well.

have not been to the Brule yet, although a report from B-rad says the fishing is terrific. Not sure when I'll be off there, maybe end of next week. Ben and I are also getting an early start on T'river's salmon fishing this year, with early reports of numbers and size, in early may! we're meeting the weekend after memorial, damn that's a fun trip and we have all new gear! Tekota's and new rods thanks to Ben as well as his ever changing scheme of gear and technique, we kick some serious behind at the cleaning station...

tomorrow on the Kinni and saturday it'll be the Rush, oh ya, sunday back on the kinni for a group casti9ng session... more to come...