Open water

[The Grebe]

Who would have ever thunk it in January...I went open water fishing from shore today with the long rods...got one walleye and missed a couple and I'm going again tomorrow! First time I have ever done this in my life.

[BDR]

Sounds fun! I went over to Turtle Lk in Shoreview today to find almost the whole north half was in white caps. Can't say I have ever seen that on Jan. 5th.

Found plenty of decent ice on the south end to fish.

[IFallsRon]

Falls newspaper Web site has a photo of a robin taken on Dec. 26.

[The Grebe]

I seen about 10 Morning Doves over in N.E. Mpls. last week and after that rain we had, my brother found some dead, but fresh nightcrawlers in his back yard!

[prov1900]

We are still looking for first ice!! Can't wait, then I will start reading the ice fishing thread.

[The Grebe]

Well, we did it again! I watched some of the Jets/Patriots game and while doing so, I thought...'Hummmmmm? Do I want to load up all the ice fishing gear and hit a local lake, or should I try the long rods again?'

Long rods it was and away we we went. We hit the river and got into some crappies right away. We ended up with about a dozen up to 3/4 pounds. We also got 3 walleyes, 2 northerns and a channel cat....nothing special, a minnow and a hook on bottom, or under a bobber.

Of course we had trouble with the guides icing up and that wind was bitter and cutting if you got out of the leeward side. Protected, it wasn't to bad....we fished for about 3 hours.

The crappies stopped for awhile, but right at dark, they started in again, but dark was as long as we were gonna stay, we'll leave the rest until next year. Open water fishing is finally done for us.