Headed up early Saturday morning and need crappie minnows...who's open the earliest? We don't want to burn daylight waiting for a shop to open and just wondering if we should pick some up in the cities Friday or if we'll be ok waiting until morning. Thanks!

I can't answer your question but if The Great Outdoors is open early I'd stop in and get acquainted ... very nice fella who knows his stuff.

quote gqualls: "I can't answer your question but if The Great Outdoors is open early I'd stop in and get acquainted ... very nice fella who knows his stuff."

TGO! Just don't bring up Rapalas or smallmouth bass.

I should be there abut 7-7:15 am, this Saturday, since it's the opening of trout outside of the BWCA.

Until this time, the bait business has been pretty dead, so it was hard to keep regular hours.

TGO should be option one. If you are talking very early and driving up I-35 north of the cities, Fish Lake Bait off of the Harris exit has serve yourself on-your-honor minnows outside the building 24 hours. Pretty sweet.

quote lundojam: "TGO should be option one. If you are talking very early and driving up I-35 north of the cities, Fish Lake Bait off of the Harris exit has serve yourself on-your-honor minnows outside the building 24 hours. Pretty sweet."

Funny you mention that...I worked there four years, in fact our family farm once encompassed the land it sits on. Great place, good memories!

Anyhow, thanks everybody, I've been in touch with TGO and we'll be stopping in there to get baited up. Thanks again!

Serve yourself minnows on the honor system. What time and land are you from. :)

quote yogi59weedr: "Serve yourself minnows on the honor system. What time and land are you from. :) "

I know it's hard to believe, but before we got the self-serve minnow station with honor box we always just left the bag of minnows hiding under a boat or something for guys to pickup on their way through...we very rarely ever got ripped off. Although fisherman bend the truth the bulk of them aren't thieves and were honorable enough to leave the money or swing through and pay us on their way back home. Life's better when you can give your fellow man the benefit of the doubt and trust 'em!

So how was the fishin' on Saturday?

Slow action, but mostly big fish. We caught about a dozen crappies all over 12", several pike between 4-12#, and two dink 10" walleyes. The highlight of the day was a 40" pike on a ciscoe. All in all a beautiful weekend with mild temps and snow falling making it look like a winter wonderland. We stopped at Bearhead on the way home for a couple quick hours of fishing but only managed one walleye which went back. Stopped for bait and gotta say TGO looked just as young as he did 25 years ago when I attended VCC...and we made sure to razz him some about smallies which he took very graciously in stride!

Miners Lake had close to 50 people Sunday when we drove by and Shagawa had 1...funny how things change over the years.

A 40 inch pike would make my trip for sure. Sounds like you had a good trip!

quote yogi59weedr: "Serve yourself minnows on the honor system. What time and land are you from. :) "

I will add this to my list of reasons why I love MN. People still have a level of trust for one another.

That pike is still there waiting for you; we let him go!

quote 2old4U: "Slow action, but mostly big fish. We caught about a dozen crappies all over 12", several pike between 4-12#, and two dink 10" walleyes. The highlight of the day was a 40" pike on a ciscoe. All in all a beautiful weekend with mild temps and snow falling making it look like a winter wonderland. We stopped at Bearhead on the way home for a couple quick hours of fishing but only managed one walleye which went back. Stopped for bait and gotta say TGO looked just as young as he did 25 years ago when I attended VCC...and we made sure to razz him some about smallies which he took very graciously in stride!


Miners Lake had close to 50 people Sunday when we drove by and Shagawa had 1...funny how things change over the years."

Statewide the first few weeks people really hit the Stream trout lakes like miner. Wonder how many people fished Tofte the first weekend?