June 12, 2009 In pursuit of Minnesota rock bass and other species.

Misty and cold and windy the first few days, but fished Rush Lake anyway and Ken caught his required rock bass, and I caught one as well. Guides here laugh at his request because to them the rock bass is a nuisance fish. After I got four walleye in the boat, I finally showed Ken the trick and let him catch one, only one. He caught several more rock bass and blue gill and we had a good day. The next day we launched the zodiac in a small beautiful lake with bullrushes and lillypads. In 2 hours we caught over 40 crappie and some blue gill, releasing them all. It was terrific fun in our small boat and with the beautiful lake surroundings. The largest bluegill weighed 1 lb. 3 oz. It was huge for a bluegill. On Thursday we went with a different guide; Ken caught one northern pike at the first lake and the guide moved us to a different lake where we caught very large small mouth bass who fought like crazy. We finally got to fish with leeches as bait. I caught the largest small mouth at 18 1/2 inches long, about 5 lbs. I saw numerous loons and love to hear them calling in the distance.

Now we are headed for North Dakota to Devil's Lake, the next stop on our journey. We are skipping the Red River fishing. We've both had sore throats and Ken is really under the weather, thought nothing serious, so we are moving on.