Brett Erickson July 22

On Thursday (July 22), the daytime pattern became very evident—find weeds—throw a red #9 Llungen-tail and go fast! From 10am until 2pm I boated 4. 3 between 38” to 42” and one little guy. Sharp hooks really pay off as the first fish I caught ate the bait and shook its head and then did a roll. Then all of a sudden it is tearing off drag like you wouldn’t believe. 4 or 5 hard, drag screaming runs and it pops up. Evidently when it rolled, the hook popped out and then speared it directly into the hard cartilage at the beginning of the dorsal fin. I thought I had a lot bigger fish on until it popped up beside the boat. I didn’t feel as bad hooking the fish in the fin as I did looking at what it did to the weedbed. If you’ve ever fished Crow, there aren’t a lot of weeds—and once you find them you guard them with secrecy! To have the fish tear up a beautiful weedbed like it did kind of makes you a little bumbed out. On the bright side, the fish released very strong and the weeds are better in Crow Lake right now than I have seen them in many years. It wasn’t too long after 2pm (2:20pm if I remember right) the sky started looking pretty ominous to the south. I started winding my way through the islands back to camp. Once I got through the islands and into open water, I shut the boat down and put the rain gear on as a black wall stood between myself and camp. I made it to within a mile of camp and then it all let loose. Thunder, lightning, wind and sheet upon sheet of rain came down hard. Even with raingear, I still got wet. Got back to the dock and that was it for the day as the rain kept coming down until well after dark.