A nice smallmouth saves an otherwise fish less day on the Upper Mississippi River.

With a couple hours to fish after wrapping up most of my holiday shopping I stopped at one of my favorite winter escapes (at least until the end of February).  Temps were hovering around freezing, guides were definitely icing up by the end of my trip.  No one (except myself) was to be found fishing this popular stretch of water during the 2-445pm stretch I was there.  Not a lot of action, the pictured fish and a few other hits but the fished seemed to be fairly negative, pecking at or picking the fly up and spitting it.

Experienced something I never noticed before, a thin layer of ice forming on the line  I could feel it as I stripped the line it.  It seemed to keep my fly from being in the strike zone.  Nonetheless I look forward to my next trip to the river.  I need to hit the vise and tie a few new patterns.  Stay tuned for some vice updates.  Minnesota Winter C&R Trout Season is just around the corner too.

This is my first official post on a blog of my own.  December has rolled into town very quickly.  Lakes are locking up for the season.  The days since being on the oars have moved to counting by months.  Winter trout fishing is a month away.  For a stir crazy fishing enthusiast, it is this time of year that we have to be creative to figure  out how to get our rods bent or resort to hibernating in our fly tying caves to replenish our fly inventory.  If temps move into the mid 30s I will consider wetting a line, unfortunately the 10-day forecast shows no sign of being that warm anytime soon.  Leaving me to hunkering down and working some materials into some fishy looking flies.