Waist Deep to Beat the Heat

When Northern Minnesota guide Billy Rosner floats the Vermilion River,  he likes to get out and wade gravel bars and rapids to work those areas more thoroughly. Wading is also a nice way to cool down a bit on a hot summer afternoon.

Only a week ago I reported that summer had found its way to Georgia, mentioning that an outlook for days in the upper 80s represented pretty hot weather around here. Well, the temps have gone up another notch or two since then. We're supposed to hit the mid 90s today and then climb into triple digits for the weekend! And looking at the national weather map, it doesn't look like we're alone. Big numbers thoughout the South and the Midwest.

What that says to me is that it's time to abandon boats and step in a creek or a river somewhere. Little is more refreshing on mid-summer day than to stand waist deep in cool stream and fish. Adding even greater virtue, stream fish don't seem to be as bothered by the heat as lake fish, and often  you can find excellent action from smalmouth bass, trout, channel catfish or some other kind of fish by wading up a stream this time of year.

My favroite type of area for really hot days is the head of a big hole, where current from an upstream shoal meets notably deeper water. The fish hold behind boulders in the deeper water and watch the current for dinner. A Rebel Wee-Crawfish will poduce everything that swims in these types of areas and a Zell Pop worked overhead will bring fish crashing to the surface. A good alternative to the artificial approach is to dead drift night crawlers or freshly caught hellgrammites, creek minnows or crawfish into the same types of holes wiht a simple split shot rig.

Vermilion River Bounties

My first two casts of this morning and three of the first four produced topwater fish and within five minutes of launching Billy Rosner's canoe on the Vermilion River, we had caught and released three different kinds of fish (largemouth, smallmouth, northern pike). We caught a dozen fish before we drifted out of sight of the launch area.

I won't claim that the action stayed quite that frantic. We caught fish throughout the day, though, with the bulk of mine attacking an XCalibur Zell Pop and most of Billy's nabbing a BOOYAH Blade spinnerbait. We floated about six miles, making a couple of modest portages along the way.

The river, which flows from Lake Vermilion to Crane Lake, near the Canadian border, is mostly placid, but several stretches of crashing rapids break the river's run. The water is dark but quite clear. Boulders, sand, gravel, current, downed trees and many different kinds of vegetation provide great habitat for smallmouth bass, which are the most prevalent game fish, and the smallies obviously stay very well fed.

Along the way we saw a few mature bald eagles. Occasionally Billy sees black bears or moose. We did not see any other fishermen -- and that on a beautiful June Sunday. That's the norm, according to Billy, who spends a lot of days floating the Vermilion River every summer.

Almost River Time

Canoe is atop Billy Rosner's truck and we're ready to roll. Yesterday evening Billy showed me a bit of the river, including Vermilion Falls. Spectacular. Coffee drank. Time to catch smallmouths! More later.

Northern Minnesota by Late Afternoon

Today's travel began with a drive in my new truck, which Nathaniel, Asher and I picked up late yesterday afternoon. It was sad saying farewell to my pickup, which has served me well and taken us so many places, but practicality won, and I know there is much about the new truck that we'll like much better when we travel.
Next travel legs are by plane, first to Detroit and then to Duluth, Minnesota. Then I hop into a rental car and travel even farther north to the Vermilion River.
Tomorrow begins two days of floating a beautiful river and casting for mean and chunky smallmouth bass with Billy Rosner of Wild Country Guide Service. Fish stories to follow!

Pack Bags, Shop Trucks, Write Fish Stories

Chunky smallmouth bass are the main attraction in the Vermilion River in Northern Minnesota. Photo courtesy of Bill Rosner, Wild Country Guide Service.

Today's to-do list seems pretty packed, with trip preparation and an appointment to go look at a truck in South Carolina both complicating the need to make headway on some writing projects.

The day before a trip is usually somewhat broken. Beyond the obvious need to pack, I typically must take care of a host of things like banking, paying bills, making sure stuff is in order at home and making reservations or gathering phone numbers for the trip. Today's list includes a bit of all of the above, plus plans to go look at a Ford Expedition that I had transferred from one Carmax store to another and that arrived yesterday.

The trip that begins tomorrow, which will be my last work trip until late summer, promises to be fun and productive. In fact, I've been anticipating a float down Minnesota's Vermilion River ever since Billy Rosner of Wild Country Guide Service began telling me about his favorite stretch of river a couple of years ago. It's a super scenic stretch of river through the Minnesota Northwoods that is loaded with fat and angry smallmouth bass and northern pike and includes a couple of portages around river-wide waterfalls. We'll also spend on a day fishing Lake Vermilion, which the river feeds and which is also highly scenic, and then I'll travel to Mille Lacs lake for a day of walleye fishing.

Before I can go anywhere, though, I really need to make headway on some fish stories, so I supposed I'd better focus on writing for a while.