First Open Water Fish of the Year

BAM- Due to a late day trip to Brainerd (see "Bummer"), I did not go fishing at the GOMH until slightly after 8PM. The sun had set by then, and it was getting dark when I arrived. The current was running into Sullivan at a good clip. There was open water as far as the eye could see on the Platte lakeside. At first, I ran the Pink Panther and got nothing. I then switched to a glow Cubby Mini-Mite under a small Wing-It Bobber. The bobber is small and hard to see. I may consider upgrading the bobber size at some point. On the second or third cast, I was giving it the old "Thompson Shake," and I thought I saw the bobber go under, so I set the hook, but nothing was there. I fished the glow Cubby for probably another 15 minutes without any action. Then, when I was bringing it through the bullhead sweet spot, the bobber went down, and I hooked into a hawg. It started pulling drag, and I knew it was no silver bullhead. It didn't take long before it showed itself to be a famous GOMH "Jumpin' Bullhead." It put up a solid fight and swam under the bridge for a while. Once it got back on the Sullivan side, I was able to keep it out of the shoreline cattails and land it. It was between 18.5 and 19.25 inches and fat; I'll call it a 19". I unhooked the Cubby, which was firmly stuck in the upper lip, and released her ASAP. Unfortunately, no camera for pic's again tonight. I tried the Cubby again for a while, then I tried a new bait which I will call The Pink Panzer; it is a close relative of the Pink Panther. After a few casts, I thought I had a fish on for a moment, but then the lure came free. I don't know if it was a fish or if I just snagged the bottom, but I guess it was a fish. I tried the Panzer for about 15 minutes and then returned to the Cubby. It was getting quite dark by now, and I had a tough time spotting that little Wing-It. I didn't get any more action.

"GET ME TO THE LAKE" Local Edition: Long Lake is ice-free!!! I could not tell if Erskine was open or not. Bulldog didn't look like it had opened up much from yesterday. Rock had a fair amount of open water on the North end, and it looked like the main ice sheet had developed a fair-sized chasm of open water.

Platte: In our cabin bay, it was 30% open water, and a chasm had opened up toward the North Shore. The center bay had quite a bit of open water. As mentioned above, the GOMH looked like open water as far as the eye could see. The Public Access Bay still looked pretty locked up with the ice being out from shore from 10 to 30 feet. I suppose there is a shot that tomorrow will be the day I call Platte open, but I guess it will be Friday.

Sullivan: The Platte River Outlet open water is slowly eating away into the lake.

Bummer: This week, I wanted to hit the Brainerd Mills Fleet Farm because the weekly advertisement showed Cubby Rods were "On Sale." This rod is made for fishing Cubby Mini-Mite Jigs. I was delighted to see that I would have another opportunity to purchase one of these spectacular panfish rods. I bought one at Mills a few years back but had yet to see them since. The one I bought got broken at the tip, but I was able to fix it well, and the action of the rod wasn't affected much. The Cubby rod is great because it has an extremely light tip that is fast, but the rod is stiff, not whippy. Long Story short, I looked at every rod in the place, and there were none. I found out that the advertisement was a mistake because they could not get any rods from the manufacturer, so no store had them, and they were not going to get any; bummer!!! At least, that was not the only thing I wanted to pick up from Fleet Farm.

"GET ME TO THE LAKE" MN State edition: Tonka and Whitebear, two of the big metro lakes, are considered ice-free as of today.

Note: In 2006, Platte went out before Tonka; in 2005, they both went on the same day; in 2004, Platte was 3 days later, and in 2007, Platte was 16 days later.