Was able to get a couple of fishing trips in over the weekend on the river north of Aitkin. These where kinda shake down trips for my old Jon boat to. Got on the water Saturday around 10am and it didnt take long to get the first few fish on the line trolling cranks. This trip was looking pretty good until I had to put the motor into reverse for a moment and dropped the prop to the bottom. Next we found the trolling motor was not working either. It had worked fine earlier in the week. Anyways we drifted around and anchored up on a few spots for the next three hours. Still picked up a number of pike and bass casting moxies to the shore lines. Ended up finely rowing the boat into the landing with a folding chair about 2pm to head to town for parts. Still not a bad trip for being pretty much dead in the water for most of it.
Found a new Castle nut and pin for the prop north of McGregor and foot control for the trolling motor out of my dads boat. (hope he is not reading this.) So it was off to the river again Sunday morning. Jon and i made it a good couple of miles up river from the landing this time. The morning trolling bite was a little slow. Couple of walleyes and a couple of bass. Think the water had clouded up a bit over night with the rain and the clouds where still hanging in that morning. We ended up up by the mouth of the willow river and decided to just get on some fish action by soaking crawlers on the bottom. It didnt take Jon more than a few seconds to get hooked up with the first one. Not sure what type it was but they where running in the 3 to 5# range.
Ended up listening to the Vikes game and catching sucker, bass and adding another walleye to the stringer for the next few hours. By the end of the game the clouds where starting to blow over and we decided to drop the bowmount and work out way back to the landing casting shorelines. The action here was pretty decent. Casting plastics and cranks we got into our fair share of pike and bass. Was hoping to find a few more walleyes but ended up having to settle for the three we had on the stringer.
Well the Jon boat still has a couple of issues that need to get worked out but thats to be expected for letting it sit for the last few year. It still got us through a couple of decent fishing trips this weekend. Going to pick up a few more things for the boat this week and should be ready to go again next weekend. Hoping to get in a few trips on the river up north this fall right up to deer hunting season. We’ll try to get some photos for the next few trips to add to the reports.
