Belle Creek Fishing

Fished it this morning.

My goal today was to fish seven potential access points that I thought might be good. I used Google Earth to select the locations in the stream that were closest to the road, and used my GPS to get there by car.

Belle Creek Potential Acess Point #1GPS: 44o 30' 18.32"N, 92o 45' 0.88WThe first location was where the river crosses Hwy 19. I saw signs posted with "No Tresspassing". Moved on.Belle Creek Access Point #2GPS: 44°32'2.57"N, 92°44'10.30"WThen I went into the Town of Vasa and drove north on 7 and, stopped at the my second potential access point. The where the stream crosses 7 (bridge just south of Belle Creek Way). I fished the east side of the bridge. It was about 9 am.

Nothing was surface feeding so I practiced nymph fishing. Caught a one pound Brown using a #12 Bead Head Prince Nymph. The fish was caught in one of the darker holes. (Hey, I'm not going to tell you which hole - you'll have to find it yourself!) It seemed that a TU and/or DNR had spent some time and money on this stream. It seemed like the rocks and holes were created by humans. I spent 3 hours fishing this area. Good Casting, good Terrain and some wadeable areas for crossing even with hip waders (or even knee boots).

Belle Creek Access Point #3 & #4GPS: 44°32'19.49"N, 92°44'8.12"W and 44°32'36.17"N, 92°43'39.13"WThe next two areas I must have just drove by. I guess my GPS was just poweriung up as I drove by them. The third access point was suppose to be where the stream come close to 7 just south of Sunset Trail and the fouth access point where 7 goes north. This is like only 2000 feet north of 7 from Access Point #2.

Belle Creek Access Point #5 - Old BridgeGPS: 44°32'49.62"N, 92°43'31.21"WThe 5th Potential Access point I am now calling the Old Wooden Walk Bridge. There is good off road parking that my PT Cruiser was able to navagate. There was another car parked there but no sign of anyone fishing. I fished under the bridge and then moved downstream. I saw a school of fingerlings. It seemed that my line kept scaring them but they wouldn't leave the area. I finaly caught one and it was a Carp fingerling. Probably a Carp came up from the Cannon River and spawned near by.

Belle Creek Access Point #6GPS: 44°33'11.23"N, 92°42'42.06"WTwo spots I selected were on the Cannon Valley Trail bike path. One spot was where the path crossed the river and the other was the Belle Creek Mouth at the Cannon River. I was too tired, hungry and it was getting hot to hike down the Path to cover this location.

Belle Creek Mouth at Cannon River44°33'13.71"N, 92°42'2.07"WThis too required a hike and I decided to attempt this some other day. I figued if I wasn't going to hike down the trail to #6 I wasn't going to continue hiking the 1/2+ mile all the way to the mouth.

There is some good spots in the stream with access.Good for fly casting. I'm sure as the folage greens up and the bank grass grows for the summer the casting might be more difficult. If I'm in the area again, I would try Belle Creek again.

It is about an hour drive from where I live in Rosemount MN. I really don't know when I'll be back since there are some closer trout streams to where I live. Hey, I rather spend my time fishing then driving. So I try to stay close to home.

Note to self: Next time I fish in this area, bring sunscreen, lunch, more water and coffee.

April Fly Fishing Notes...

This morning I was planning on doing a little Fly Fishing at the Vermilion River in Farmington. Last night the weather reports stated that It was going to be around 30 degrees F and north winds 15 to 20 mph with a chance of precipitation 50 percent.

I decided to sit out fishing for today It's a little to windy and cold for the first time out.

Thursday may be a good opportunity. It is for casted to get up to 60 degrees. Dan from work may join me and I called Suzie S. (one of Zena's friends who fly fishes) and she is available Thursday morning. I'll be meeting her at 7:30 on Thursday at the Rambling River Park in Farmington.

Looks like the 2008 Minnesota fishing regulations are out already.

Looks like the 2008 Minnesota fishing regulations are out already. They are listed at: http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing2008.pdf

Fly Fishing Questions

Question: What is the relationship between the Leader, Tippet and the Fly Sizes? Is there some sort of equation to match them?
Answer: See http://www.landbigfish.com/flyfishing/leaderformulas.cfm - Looking at the chart of Tippett sizes having spools of Tippet naterial in 0X, 2X, 4X, and 6X gives the most flexability in the range of flys to use.

Question: What are the prime spawning locations for trout?

Question: When is the prime spawning time i.e Spring, Summer, fall or what months?
Answer: For Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), I believe that the answer to both of these questions can be answered at: http://denniskalma.com/brooktrout.html

Still looking for information on other types of trout i.e. Rainbows and Browns.

Off on Tuesday

For some reason I got scheduled to be off tomorrow. I plan on going fishing in Farmington with A guy at work that has off as well. The weather should be nice.

Three Rainbows on one day in Farmington Vermillion River.

Today I went trout fishing in Farmington. I mainly used one type of fly. The Woolly Bugger fly. I started just before 8 am.

I had caught the first one in a part of the stream that there were bubbles in the water. I would have liked to keep it but I didn't have anything to put it in. I put it back into the water. After I lost my leader I decided to go back to the car and change reels. I grabbed some bags in case I caught another one. I went to the same spot and an about 15 minutes later I caught my second trout. This was about 9 am. I bagged the trout and put it into the ice cooler in my car.

I went down by the trestle bridge in the park. I fished up stream from someone or a while. He had asked me if I had caught any. I told him that I had caught two so far and that I had never caught any under this bridge. I figure I try it like always I give it a try. It's a nice location except for the low power lines.

I said that I had caught the two deeper in the park. He left by the way that I had come in to the park.

I went to the spot under the power lines where he had no luck and then I caught my third rainbow.

I think that my success was better earlier in the morning. As it got closer to noon I had less success. I have heard that trout feed more actively in the early morning and the lat evening. I have to try it again either earlier in the morning or later in the evening.

My first Fly Fishing Experience

Some years ago before I met Z, Dave and Ronnie and I were fishing the the mouth at the north end of channel between the Lake of the Isles, and Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.

We were using hook and bobber rigs with night crawler or minnow on the hooks. The channel was lined with people fishing. Many of the people that were fishing were taking every fish the caught. Even the ones we would consider too small for fillets.

At that time the center of Lake of Isles had weeds in the center. A young man walked up to the edge of the lake with a fly rod and a wicker creel. He started to haul his line and cast it further that we could into the weeds. I watched him as he twitched the fly on his first cast without success.

After his second cast landed further in a hole in the weeds and sat there a few seconds, a fish rippled the surface of the water and he set the hook. He stripped the sunfish in took the hook out of the sunfish's mouth and put it into his creel.

Nothing was happening with my bobber so I watched him make his next cast. As he dropped the fly into the same spot with what seemed like grace the fly attracted another sunfish. I knew at that moment there was something to this fly fishing that caught fish.

Fly Fishing and other things...

This morning I went fly fishing at Crystal Lake in Burnsville MN. Only caught a few small bream.

Just before I went down to the fishing dock a client called me, and said that she would be presenting the quote for the 1000 custom printed pens to her boss on Monday. That's good. The potential for a sale with this college isn't dead yet.

The guys that were going to meet me at the lake didn't show up so after a half hour I moved down the shore toward the boat landing. I could see from where I was fishing that they hadn't shown up late.

Z called me from work. She told me that we sold 12 Lapel Pin Cases on eBay to someone on Jacksonville Beach FL. That is a $210 sale.

At about 11:30 am, it was getting HOT! 95 degrees hot. I left for home and the air conditioning.

By the time I got cooled off, I thought it would be good to see if the eBay Pin Case order had been paid for. Not yet, though looking at our sold items, I saw there was another eBay Lapel Pin Case that was sold to someone in Erie, PA. That's a $22 sale.

In case anyone is interested in these Lapel Pin Cases, our eBay store is at: http://stores.ebay.com/AdXPress-Mercantile?ref-store.

They say that sales is like fishing...

More success so far today away from the lake than on the lake.

Boyne River

I took this picture of the Boyne River. This is a location of behind the Bait and Party Store. I don't know why they call it a party store it was just a bait shop. This is on a island in the river. The guy told me to go across the foot bridge behind the bait shop and stay right along the path he cut. I ended up looking at this view. I took this photo with my iPaq.

Boyne Falls is a beautiful area.

Trout I caught in Michigan

This one I caught on the Boyne River.

This trout I caught on the Jordan River.