Your fish of '04

[Lake Alice]

The year is winding down. What was your "fish of the year", open water? Could be your biggest, but maybe not, could be memorable for other reasons. Mine is a tie:

18" brook trout deep, deep in the BWCA with my wife and two kids after bushwhacking to get back to the lake in June. We fished that lake hard for an hour, finally my son gave up and I was the only one left fishing while they read and slept in the canoe. It came out from under timber and smacked my jig and power grub. Ultra light ugly stik and 4 lb test.

14" crappie on Bay one morning in July that looked like one of those blue pike. Totally blue and silver, I have never seen one like it. My kids slept in and I got three hours on the water by myself (a rarity these days). This fish capped it off.

Let's hear it.

LA

[Ed Carlson]

Two fish come to mind for me. The first was a black and white channel catfish I C&R on the Canadian end of the Red. Oddest kitty I have ever seen. A wonderful fish odd for sure nevertheless butiful in its own way.

The second was another catfish. A client was after sauger and I instructed him to pitch his Zip Lure up against the dam and reel in slow. The Zip hit the water and a 28 pound channel cat wolfed it up just as fast. He was using a 5' 6" G-Loomas light action rod and a tiny spinning reel so I thought the parts, splinters, and sparks were going to fly before he got it even close enough to net. After a serious battle, I got a lucky shot at it with my big Frabill net and into the boat it came. My client was beat and he said in all the years of salt or fresh water fishing that was by far the hardest fight he ever had. I was and still am very impressed with his ability to fight that fish. He thought well that would never happen again but he was wrong. He boated a few more the same way on the Zip. They were not as big as his first though, not over 22 pounds anyway. After the third one he said he just could not take any more, lets move. LOL!! That was a hoot to participate in for sure.

[genegodawa]

Mine was an 18" LMB back in early Springtime. We were fishing on one lake and not having any luck. Met a guy on the pier who had kept a nice bass and he told us he just came off this other lake where he caught 3 other keepers. And he showed us what he was using. So we decided to give that a try. Went over there, put on a similar lure to his, and after about 20 mins - BAM - I got him! Best part was watching him swim away, worst part was the rest of the year I could never catch him again.

[Dan Thiem]

I think my "fish of the year" has to be the trout I caught.

I was vertical jigging with a 1/4 oz. jig and a fathead minnow down at the dam in Red Wing. It was in the boat during January. We caught quite a few walleyes and a few saugers and then I had something on that fought a little harder than usuall. I got it up to the boat and my buddy says what the he11 is that? Got it in the net, took pictures, measured it and released it. It was 24". What a surprise.

[M.T. Bucket]

Still working on it...

[EBass]

21" Largemouth outa my buddies cabin lake. Pic is on the fridge. The thing had a little pike in it's throat and was so fat it couldn't even jump. Released!

And bunch of fat smallies in recent weeks on the sippi. They fight so dang hard, gotta love em! All released to.

[gunflint]

Lake Alice,

Thanks for the memories! My runners up are the 21 1/2 inch smallie the first half hour into the season. And the 29 inch walleye on Sag in mid august.

My fish of 04 was caught by a client that had been fishing up here for years. They are regulars every year and had been here for a couple of weeks and were not having much luck.(A few smallies but no walleyes.) They hired me to put them on some walleyes. It had been slow all week do to weather,water temp,etc. They had boated only 2 or 3 eaters after about 3 hours of jigging with leeches and I was getting kind of bored so we started trolling crank baits. After about 5 minutes the wife got snagged. I thought that was strange because that lure only goes down about 15 feet and we were in 22 feet of water. Her husband and I reeled in and I started backing the boat when I noticed the her snag was moving her line. It turned out to be a 25 inch snag and the biggest walley either of them had ever caught. 5 minutes latter she got another snag it was 27 inches. They were both so spent after those two (which were released) that we were done for the day.

I went back latter that evening alone and could'nt get a bite.

[2dalake]

Well my first two walleyes this year went 26 and 27", but I think my favorites were the 18 and 19" largemouths my nine year old caught and released. He's still repeating those war stories and showing off the photos, can't wait for the ice right now.

[SteveWilson]

Well, each fish my kids caught on their first fishing trip (Pelican lake, Orr) was pretty special. The one that stands out was a sunny I was reeling in next to the pier. Just as I was pulling it out of the water a good size pike jumped out and grabed the sunny as well as my line. My kids and I nearly had a heart attack with that one.

[Ray Esboldt]

A 6lb. 5oz. largemouth in September, back to back 5lbers in July, some other memorable bass, they were all cool. My most memorable fish of the year was about 15 lb. Sheepshead from the Mississippi in October. I am still kicking myself in the rear for not having a camera in the boat that day.

[Bushwacker]

My fish of the year would have to be a night of wormin' with my wife for LM bass. It was our first time out together after getting married and moving into a house. We had about 2 hours to fish after work before dark and I caught 18", 19", 21", and a 22.5" large mouths, and she caught 2 19"s and a 21.5". That was action. To top it off it was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen. We took a picture of it and are going to get an 8X10" copy of it to hang in our basement to remember the night.

[abens1078]

My most memorable is also a sheepshead. We took a trip to Lake Erie this November and decided to try some late night trolling closer to shore. Nothing was happening on the cranks so I picked up a 2oz. bottom bouncer and a Hot Flash spinner tipped with a crawler. The screen was lit up with fish all over.

I felt the tap, fed out some ine and set the hook like a champ. I had one of the toughest fights ever, I couldn't even move him. My uncle saw it with the help of a flash light and swore up and down it was a dandy walleye. When he gets it in the net he starts laughing like a fool and hands me my netted a fish. A BELLY HOOKED SHEEPSHEAD....AAAARRRRGHHH!!!! He was about 10# and came in sideways the whole time. everytime he moved it felt like the headshake of a giant walleye. It was a blast anyway and my uncle asks for a sheepshead report everytime I see him now.

abens1078

[loebs93]

Looking back over the course of the past year I realized I had a successful fishing year.

I just picked up fly fishing last spring while I was going to school in Rochester and landed a 17" and a 16" brown and a 15" rainbow all on a fly and all in one afternoon.

Last winter I caught the first walleye of my life at a whopping 11". Since then I have lost count of how many I have caught...which is a good thing. I have only measured one of my three my largest walleyes and that came in at 24". The two others; one, estimated at 28" and I would guess that the other was around 24" round of my three largest walleyes of the year . I had one goal this year and that was to catch walleyes and I easily met that goal by catching what would have been my limit(C&R) of walleyes several times.

Another day I was bass fishing a small lake just west of the cities and boated a 20.5", a 19" and two at 18" all within a couple of hours before a storm. That was a crazy day.

With all these nice fish caught there is still the fish of the year.

I was up in the BWCA in May, one week after the opener, casting a #8 deep running, perch colored shad rap no leader and then it hit. We didn’t have any measuring tools but it has gone in the books as a 12+ pound northern. The fish, in the eyes of a lot of fishermen was no giant but it’s the story that goes with it that makes it my fish of '04.

There were three of us in a canoe and I was the one in the middle, the “duffer” as some would call it, just casting toward shore. The fish hit my rapala with 6 pound test on a medium light walleye rod and the fight was on.

Although the time it took to just see the fish was not measured I would guess it to be 4-5 minutes. Once we saw it on the side of the canoe all three of us guys screamed like little girls. It was then I suggested that the other two maneuver the canoe toward shore while we try to land her from something a little more stable than a canoe. After several runs from the pike we eventually made it to the shore and landed her. That fish was the start of all the other fish mentioned above...in my eyes I had a great year of fishing.

[LEECH21]

Mine would be from a trip this last August. My cousin and I went to Minneapolis for a meeting. We decided to bring the boat along to try for a musky afterwards. We knew we only had about an hour and a half to fish before we had to head home. So we tried a west metro lake that wasn't far out of the way. We knew time wasn't on our side so we made every cast count. A half hour into fishing a fish nailed my inhaler....first thought was "this is my first musky!" The fish got into the thick millfoil and I couldn't budge her. I put pressure onto the fish and she came to the top covered in weeds. Largemouth bass ....not a musky. I was disappointed. My cousin netted the fish/weeds. As I reached down to grab the fish I noticed the HUGE mouth this thing had. As I lifted her out of the net and the weeds fell off, my cousin and I about s**t ourselves. After taking some photos and measuring her, I released her.

Here is all 22 inches of her!

Oh yea, about 45 minutes after the bass I landed my first musky at 39".

[LocalGuide]

My walleye of 2004 that I will remember the most is this 23" I caught in late June. I was getting later in the afternoon about 1 hour before sunset and we only caught one other eye that day, it was a 18". So that 23" was a nice surprise to catch that day and was also a beautiful fish.

Then this fall I caught a 36" pike right as I was reeling into leave after trolling around for about 1 hour. It hit about right in the middle of my retrieve and then from there went for 5 big runs. Went back to landing for dad to bring the digital camera and take a few snap shots of it and then it went right back into the water. That was a fun way to end the day and also a big rush!

[cjac]

From noon to 1 on my Bday in June I caught 7 bass from 2-4 lbs and a bonus 6+ lb pike. 8 quality fish in 1 hour, all on a Rapala Skitter Prop. That's a fish every 7.5 minutes! Even took a few minutes to replace a trebile after the pike!

Guys in the boat with me just about threw me overboard. So what if I was in the front of the boat!?!?!?

47' muskie is a close 2nd. A good year was had, now onto the ice! Good luck to all.....

cjac

[Royce Aardahl]

My favorite would have to be the 19 inch smally I got by Monticello that landed me the smally magnet title but I can't find that picture. This year was awesome with more smallies released than ever before. I'd post a number of how many but BigMike might get jealous I turned 50 this year so I just had to fish as much as possible. Didn't get my 20 incher but 3 times at 19 1/2. Here's one of them. By golly I found the smally magnet fish.

[cjac]

Impressive!!! You couldn't stretch an extra 1/4 inch out of one of the three? Biggest "brown" bass was 18, they may be the object of my effection in '05. Are you fishing the Sauk area?

[Royce Aardahl]

I fish the Mississippi River from Blanchard dam to Monticello. What a great area!

[cjac]

I'm not too far from you, I'm on Rice in Paynesville, connected to Koronis. That said, I love river fishing, the most underfished waters in my opinion!

More and more browns in Rice every year, and actually did very well in the Crow River between the two, I guess I just proved my point about river fish!

[Royce Aardahl]

I've heard Koronis is great smally country. It's hard to leave the river and try somewhere else.

[cjac]

Koronis is really good, lots of structure, plus 3 islands to appeal to the "sight fisherperson" in regards to structure. Rice is fun too, more of a dock/swim dock approach. Also lots of points falling off to deep water. Less than 6 months until bass season!

[puffinstuff]

The best of 2004 huh?

Hmmm, 2004 only.....Let's see what I can come up with.

Walleye.......Just a shade under 14 pounds. On a jig pole

Smallmouth bass.......A couple hundred in the 4-5 pound range.

Northern Pike......44 inches. I don't know, maybe 24 or 25 pounds?? (4# test)

Rainbow......10 pounds???

Deer.....10 pointer, 2 does

etc, etc, etc...........

[Sergeant Slabber]

I would say over the 4th of July weekend gave me my most memorable fish of 2004. I was at my inlaws cabin near Cross Lake. I took my 7 year old daughter down to the dock for a little sunset panfish. Not to much was happening, we had a few small gills and crappies. I told her, "Here goes the last cast for me tonight". The bobber hit the water and kept on going. I set the hook and was able to land the 29" eye. What a blast on that ultralight. The look on my daughters face was priceless, and that's what it's all about! By the way, the fish was released so she can catch it next year.

[fishnutbob]

Good stories, My fish of the year came from Rainy Lake Oct 16th, a Walleye 11lbs 9ozs 31.5 inches long 17" girth, next day my friend caught a 12lb 8ozs walleye which is his fish of the year, Pictures on the Rainy lake forum In Monster walleyes. Good fishing