Rainy MN River Flatheads. 9/2/06… Video’s incl

My fishing partner Darren, also known on IDA as Dtro, and I knew we wanted to hit the river this holiday weekend. Only issue was that we were wrestling with trying to pick the better night out of the two. Forecast was for rain just about all weekend and we wanted to try to dodge the heavy stuff. We got a good feeling about Saturday and decided not to hold off. We rounded up some bait, and headed out around 6.

We got lucky for the first part of the night and the rain held off. We were riding the edge of a front that was flowing strait up from the south, but that would eventually change and Mother Nature decided to let loose with more rain than I’ve seen in some time.

We were fishing with live and cut bait in 10′ – 18′ FOW. We were using the standard slip rig, 3oz no roll with a 10/0 Gami, with a couple minor variations. Dtro was giving large kahle hooks a shot, while I was using my tried and true system: floats in between my hook and swivel. (check the MN river forum later this week for a tackle tip on my favorite set up.)

The night started off with a few good runs. After getting our swing down minus the hook-set a couple times apiece, the rains started. We had some mixed thoughts on how this would affect the bite. Our thoughts were confirmed on a positive note when I finally hit Flathead Gold! With a nice 29lb Flatty. It was a feeling of redemption given some of the misses earlier in the evening.

With the rains increasing, we were relieved that there were no thunderstorms mixed in with the showers. After a few more runs with no hook-sets, Dtro and I started modifying the time we would let the fish run with the bait from really short to really long. You know your missing your fair share when you can sit there and coach each other during a run following the game plan that you had just set.

Then it was Dtro’s turn to hit the jackpot with a chunk of cut bait. It was a curveball for sure but we were doing as much mixing up as we could. Our first thought was a monster channel for a brief moment….. But alas there is no mistaking the steady hard pull and the massive thumping that a 35lb Flathead makes when he runs and does those head shakes.

We were a couple of very happy Flat Catchers at this point. One of the main reasons that we wanted to get out this weekend is we both are participating in a nation-wide catfish tourney on separate teams. We were pumped to be able to put a couple nice fish on the board.

I managed to hook into a monster carp that got off right at the boat and a couple channels were boated also.

Both fish were CPRed immediately. I’ve attached video clips in the report for your enjoyment, feel free to check the release clips after linking to the video segment.

The following are video segments our our fish for the night.