Memorial Weekend 2011 at Beaver Creek Valley

Jenn, Matt, and I stayed at the camper cabin within Beaver Creek Valley State Park. This is in Houston County, far southeast corner of Minnesota near the Iowa boarder. A part of the Driftless Area untouched by glaciers, the valleys carved out by limestone spring creeks. Highlights of the trip included hiking the Hole-In-Rock Trail (small cave) near the top of a bluff overloking Beaver Creek Valley. Matt also enjoyed the playground and hiking around East Beaver Creek within the park. We searched for frogs however came up empty handed.  Lots of other fun stuff to look at during our hike though. Big Springs where East Beaver begins was actually right next to the camper cabin. In Caledonia Friday night we had excellent dinner at Good Times. I think it is likely the best restaurant in the entire area. Matt actually reeled in a couple of rainbow trout Saturday evening caught on a worm and a split. I did the casting and let Matt reel them in. We fished for an hour beside the bridge. At times the bite slowed down and he wanted to leave, then closer to 7pm the fish got really active and he kept getting bites and wanted to stay! Matt hooked many more however only two were landed.

Winnebago Creek

 Saturday mornng I fished Winnnebago Creek and Burg Creek from 6-9. I had a gold Panther Martin #9 on and never had to take it off. Majority of time there was a fish almost every single cast where the water looked promising. Many pools I could hook on to six or more fish before moving on. I'm not sure what is in the water but the trout in Winnebago Creek have some serious TEETH. Has anybody seen this before? Braided line can be a mess. Casting across the creek a bird flew into my line and got wrapped around it's wing. I "reeled" the bird in as gently as I could, cut the line and unraveled it from the bird and let him fly away. Somebody who knows birds, please let me know what this one is. Quite beautiful with the red, white and blue head. A nice overcast morning for the most part. I did not care for the farmer planting all the way to the edge of the trout stream. There is supposed to be a 50 foot setback. Well, I'm just glad the landowners let me on to fish. It is not my job to police this. I'm just saying it is obvious why the lower end of this creek suffers from erosion. As for Burg Creek last year I swore I saw a bunch of brookies in here. This year it was dominated by browns. I only got one decent brookie. All other fish caught were browns, some of them large in this small ice cold water.

Crooked Creek

Today I fished Crooked Creek, east of Caledonia. This river is much like Winnebago in that it is dominated by browns and has good numbers. In the hard hit areas it is stocked with rainbow which was my first catch of the day casting from the road. The fishing was not as red hot as Winnebago was yesterday however pretty close. It was cloudy and started a light drizzle at 9am when I left to hike back to my truck. I fished with worms and spinners, trading back and forth fishing through mainly pasture sections. This made for an easy hike. Water clarity was good. Perhaps just a light stain remaining from 2.0" of rain received last Wednesday. I am told brookies can also be found from above where South Branch joins all the way up to the quarry, however I did not catch any. For the most part average sized trout.

I was wondering, was I going to catch any quality sized trout this weekend? Thus far a handful of fish at 15" or approaching, I did not bother measuring. Because I had the idea of catching brookies I continued to worm fish more than spin. As for my recent blog, I will tell you again that big trout love worms. I found a really carved out narrow and deep run with undercut banks that looked worthy of a fish. The minute I cast my worm in the side of the cut bank and it came to the bottom I saw a giant trout swim out and peck at it. Instantly I set the hook and the fish was on. Honestly I don't think the fish knew what hit him because he made only a couple of darts, then turned around to bolt downstream only to get swooped up with my big ass Frabil net. It was almost to easy, the fish was landed in under a minute. What a beautiful big old brown, measuring in at an impressive 22." I kept the fish in my net while I set up my tripod and took a few quick photos. The first think I noticed is the fish spit the hook in the net. The only thing holding was braided line wrapped around his jaw bone. After the big catch I counted my blessings and called it a day.

We actually had plans to spend tonight at the cabin but after a hearty breakfast of Jimmy Dean sausages, pancakes, hashbrowns (along with good coffee from Kwik Trip) it started to rain. Jenn and I both felt greasy and gross and had our fill of roughing it. With the camper cabin you still have to do your cooking outside. No running water in the cabin or refrigerator so wrestling with ice. The gnats were somewhat fierce at times too. All in all we had a great time, including a vist with Alice the owl at the Houston Nature Center and gateway to the Root River bicycle trail. We found out the lady takes Alice home each night and Alice has her own room who apparently barfs up gopher heads and pellet drops at will. Probably the funniest story of the weekend.