MN Gathering Re-Cap

[Papa Grump]

Thanks to Rushing, Icehouse Bob, Aqua Joe, and anybody else whom I missed for the great grub last night. Man was I full! Great to see some old friends from FM again too! The fishing wasn't as good as the food, but still a good night. We ended up with 2 small flatties in the boat and had several "swing and a miss". I definatly need to head back out to where we were , the spot where we were at looked just too dang good, right Dennis? Tom got his first flat ever which made the trip worth it's while. He's definately got the fever now.Can't wait to see some of the pics and of course Dark got some excellant video of our favorite "guide" showing the proper way to release a cat

[MachineHead]

I'm assuming that "2 small flatties" only applied to your crew? I'd like to see pics (from anyone) that were taken. I didn't get to go out lastnight by Granite Falls, weather was very unfriendly there, so a consolation would be seeing how someone else did.

[DTro]

Ditto to what Grump said. Always a good time with the FM crew.

I've got some pretty good pix that I will post, just recovering a little right now

I do have one question though, and wondering if anyone has a good answer?

Every calendar I've looked at, shows that we were in the New Moon phase last night, and for some reason, right before dark, the moon came out and it was as full and bright white as I've ever seen it

[harvey lee]

Papa Grump,thanks for the ride .DTRO,thanks for the company and thank you both for the cat fishing instructions.

I would also say thanks to every one who worked on putting this on. I do know that I will be doing more cat fishing and just maybe I can hook up with a nice one.

I will say this,that after going to the sturgeon event and hooking into those monsters and now fishing these cats,one could get caught up in the river game and almost forget about lake fishing.It has been a great year and many new friends made.

Thanks all FM members for the help and boat rides.

Jon,you need to shave.

had clicker,missed most.

[Random guy]

Nice spot Papa Grump... A guy leaves for a few minutes and it all goes to heck...it was so bad it caused a riff in the balance of things that caused the moon to come out.

Dennis, Kurt and myself actually thought we would take it up a notch and go multi species. We did manage to put a gar in the boat,Dennis and his wiggly channel cat plus a carp all using normal cat gear just to make it challenging.

[stam34]

Thanks to all for the great food and bsing before we went out fishing. Wambat and I managed to catch a 38# and a 30# and about 6 flattys in the 10 to 15# range so it was a pretty good night for us til the rain came then the bite quit. PS once again thanks for everything FMers.

[hanson]

21 pounder from Friday night

22 pounder from Friday night

Saturday night didn't treat us as well. I had 4 solid runs that I couldn't connect with and AQUAJOE had another good one as well that he missed.

I think it was just going to be one of those nights. We werent' even on the water yet and discovered the recirculating pump in my bullhead cooler was fried so our bait wasn't going to be super lively. Darn! Later in the night, I had a couple runs that turned out to be large chunks of treebark that got hooked on my line. Darn! Started to rain after that. Darn! And then we got the anchor snagged up real bad and had to leave it on the bottom of the river. Darn! Darn! Darn!

Interesting stretch of river and hope to fish it again soon.

Land of Memories Campground isn't too bad either and a pretty good spot for the Flathead angler to spend a weekend.

[hanson]

You can't have a gathering without the Flathead Pimps.

Icehousebob & Papa Grump

[DTro]

Here's our pics:

Papa Grump's Flatty

Harvey Lee's First Flathead.......Congrats!

The "cameraman" Dark30

And last but not least.....Grand Master Steele

[Fish'n guy]

Hey guys I had a great time last night and this morning!! Rob you did a good job of setting this one up!! It was really nice to put some faces with the names and talk about cattin! I probably didn't get to meet everyone (late appearance), but I did get to meet a Riverpro !! Man what a sweet looking riverboat!!

Hanson & Aquajoe, it was really nice meeting you two!! Sorry to hear about the tech-difficulties, but there is always one of those nights where you have to get that stuff out of the way!! Sounds like the luck was with you on Friday night:D

Wambat and Stam43, I really enjoyed talking to you! I am glad to hear that you had a good night and got some nice ones!! Hopefully I will run into you at the next gathering. Oh and by the way, thanks for the bug spray to:D! It came in real handy!!

Our night of cattin was spent on shore just downstream a couple of miles from Land of Memories Park. We were in a back eddy on the inside bend of a long hole. We had some small runs until my buddy joe hooked up with a nice 1# flatty. He thought he missed the fish and thought his bullhead grew when he got it in . Travis got a 3# flatty a little later on a bully. At about 2:15am I hooked up with a nice fish and had it on for about 10 seconds when it popped off...Son of a... I had another hookup with a fish that went striaght into a tree and snagged me up.. Not quit as big of a fish though.

Travis's truck got severely stuck when we were leaving in the morning, so that was a rude awakening at 5:15 in the morning. We finally got it out at around 6:30am so we were pretty swamped ! It sure was fun though.

[DARK30]

Heres some footage.....

Reel Men Of Genius.

Proper Channel Release...

KyleB At Home ....

[Kyle B]

Hey great footage! After you left we stayed for about an hour and only had short runs. Had a great time fishing with you Dark!

[rushing]

Grandmaster Steele

I am just waking up and reviewing the weekend, I have to say even though I pulled two all nighters and didnt catch a fish I had a very good time! Thanks to everyone who shown up, we had a pretty good turn out around 20 I think. Always a good time meeting fellow FMers. Besides the scary lookin storm that blew through Sat. afternoon the weather wasnt too bad, but then again we had a nice fire Sat night while shore fishing. We fished all night and not one single run. The lack of runs allowed us to catch up on a few missed ZZZs from friday though.

Hanson and myself were out friday night shore fishing. I had felt to be a very nice fish on for like a 2secs, then gone. Aquajoe had his first run, set the hook like a pro, and as soon as it was on it was gone. Hanson managed to hook a couple of his runs for a 21&22lbers. My buddy chris came out pretty late and fished down shore from us and he got a 26lber.

Aquajoe with the assist on Hanson's 21lber

Hanson's 21lber

Then Chris caught this 26lber.

After I walked back from taking Chris pic Hanson was landing this 22lber.

Papa "big pimpin" Grump

Getting the BBQing set up.

Plenty of good food with Icehousebob gettin his grub on.

Thanks to Aquajoe,Icehousebob,and Stam for the great grub!!!

Good times! When's the next one?

Dark for some reason I never see the links to your videos.

Well hittin the river again tonight!!

[Dan Thiem]

Nice videos!!! Very cool!!!

[AQUAJOE]

I want to gve a special thanks to Hanson and Rushing for the great teachings. I felt like a youngling learning from the Jedi masters. (I have a glowstick)

I learned a whole lot and have a much greater respect for the people and catfishing.

Now I have the fever and can't wait to go again.

I am now setting up a new bait tank with a 75 gallon aquarium I wasn't using at the moment.

IceHouseBob, stam and rushing thanks for the great grub. Bob a special thanks for breakfast. (it was awesome)

To bad more couldn't have stayed for that.

Lessons learned for me was:

1. Know the water levels and bring the right boat.

2. Get a river anchor like Dennis's new one. (Lost my 30lber)

3. Invest in Deet for shore fishing. (for skeeters)

4. Be patient!! I messed with my rod way to much. (drink less dew it makes you to jumpy)

5. "Got Bullies" Bullheads a must have!!

6. "I LIKE TATER-TOTS"

Thanks everyone.

[hanson]

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I felt like a youngling learning from the Jedi masters.

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I still feel that way!

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2. Get a river anchor like Dennis's new one. (Lost my 30lber)

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I think we would have lost any kind of anchor in that situation. I'm really confident the anchor fell into some wood and it wasn't coming out. When I dropped it in, it grabbed pretty good when we were drifting down. Most of the time, you can tie the anchor off to a cleat and power ahead of it with the motor to get it to pop out. In this case, I think we would have been dragging the snag pile with us if we motored up from it.

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4. Be patient!! I messed with my rod way to much. (drink less dew it makes you to jumpy)

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Patience is hard to teach, you have to learn that on your own. Learning to have confidence in your bait NOT being snagged up is part of it. The more you move your bait around, the more chance you'll have to snag something. The more you are snagged and retying, the less time your bait is fishing for you.

I was pretty happy with the outcome on Saturday night even though we didn't boat a fish. I learned a new stretch of river and was able to locate a very good fishing spot as well. We had some really good runs and even a couple in the daytime as well. The fish were there and cooperating but not hooking up with them is a part of the game sometimes as well. We motored by a lot of decent looking areas but none of them felt right until I found that one.

[Dennis Steele]

Always a good time when catmen get together!

I wish I could have spent more time BSing with everyone, but we had to scout the river for a great spot. Too bad our scouting was in vain and that dang shuttle ended up on our hot spot for the night!!

Did I ask..... weren't you guys heading down river??

Next time I know not to believe anything anyone says!

Even though we didn't catch a flatty, it was a good time on the water. Nice fishing with you Kurt, and I hope we get out again. I would love to learn more about the other species you have a great knowledge of. The key to the big flats is knowing every species in the river because every species are just snacks for a big flatty!

[hanson]

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Did I ask..... weren't you guys heading down river??

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Hmmm... I heard they were heading up the Blue Earth.

[MachineHead]

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The key to the big flats is knowing every species in the river because every species are just snacks for a big flatty!

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I have to comment here, yes, the new guy speaks his mind..again.

Two years ago a friend and I were down on our favorite hole around Granite Falls and had an explosion, of sorts, occur right at my feet. "Something" large had forced a mooneye to escape from the water by launching itself from the river onto shore. Right next to my foot. Being the opportunistic angler that I am, I grabbed said refugee. And impaled him on a fairly new Gamakatsu 8/0. The bully seemed more than greatful to be relieved of his duties. Anyway, with hook placed just so, I cast the refugee out. He landed at my feet. Hrmmm. Need better hook placement. They are very thin skin I found out.

With hook placed just so, again, I cast refugee out. Within five minutes something with a severe case of bad temper completely smashed my newly caught bait. And left with it. No hook-up. Dang. However, I did discover that a mooneye was "Somethings" meal of choice.

[harvey lee]

Dennis--We had to go up river because you stated so firml y that there wasnt anything there.Good reason to go check it out.

[Papa Grump]

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Did I ask..... weren't you guys heading down river??

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Ya well I was in new territory and forgot which way I was going

[Fish'n guy]

That poor Mooneye was sure having a bad day !!