Small fish in a big pond

I have to step back every now and then and reassess my take on bass fishing in Minnesota. First and foremost, I'm probably viewed as the equivalent of a traitor in my home state because I don't hunt walleye spring through fall each year, and then onto the icy lakes in the winter.

Nope, that's not for this guy. But I don't find anything wrong with catching a walleye here or there, and I definitely don't have a problem with eating them. Walleye are good eats.

But if I'm not casting, I get pretty bored. I suppose this comes from fishing creeks near my home town of Emmons, Minn., as a child. We fished pike in these narrow creeks, a chain that snaked around the rural country side, giving us kids a chance to hop on our bikes in the summer and pedal out to whichever creek we thought would be holding the northerns.

You learned to be a precision caster on those creeks. If you didn't, you lost your lure. We fished mainly with Dardevles or other spoons, and most summers we did all right fishing in those creeks.

Twice I pulled in eight-pound notherns, which isn't half bad considering these creeks couldn't have been more than 8 or 10 feet deep in their deepest spots.

A lot of what I learned there transferred over to bass fishing. And I still have soft spot for fishing from shore whenever I get out fishing.

But fishing from shore doesn't usually afford you the ability to catch large quantities of bass. And for the third year, I will calculate my bass total, which has grown each year as I've moved away from shore fishing.

The first year, with little boat time, I came in at 77 bass. Now, I'm aware some anglers, especially those in bass-rich lakes or reservoirs in the south and the west, catch hundreds of bass in one outing, to which I can only say, "You stink and I'm jealous."

The chances of that happening in and around the Mankato area are slim, and I can't afford myself the time to make it happen.

Last year, fishing mostly from a boat, my total climbed to 190. My best day came with my brother-in-law, Dave, on Gull Lake in Brainerd, Minn. There we pulled in 39 bass and three pike in a little under two hours.

So the potential for a big day is available. This year, I've tallied only 20 in-season bass, though I did catch 11 out of season. A reader suggested to me that I do as he does and only count those bass over 12 inches.

Well, an unofficial count of the 20 in-season bass at 12 inches or longer would probably be 15. Of the 31 I've caught in 2009, that total would probably fall between 20 and 25.

So the bite hasn't been what I'd like, but the fish have been decent considering I haven't come across any fat females. Good thing the season's just begun.