Paul's First Day

My brother Paul arrived in Rochester at around 2pm on Monday and we immediately headed out for a meal and I began informing him of his fishing options. Of course, in order to be sanctioned by the keepers of the family budgets, this was officially a family visit and that was the number one priority, but fishing needed to be discussed early on in the trip.

Fresh off the plane and discussing fishing plans

Tuesday morning we were driving south into Iowa (Minnesota trout season was over) and looking for likely spots. On the way I showed his some of my usual fishing haunts just to give him a picture in his mind when I'm telling him about the multitudes of fish I plan to catch there in the coming years. We didn't really know where we were going (short of Iowa) and planned on taking highway 52 until we hit a decent trout stream. We did end up deviating slightly before we found a little stream that looked pretty good. We'd taken a leisurely pace and fished a few streams with only a little brown trout to our names so it was early afternoon when we got our first casts into the water. First cast about five fish came out and attacked Paul's spinner. A couple of casts later he had a nice stocked rainbow in his hand. It was time for me to put on my waders, grab the flyrod and join him.

A stream on the way

We got into a heap of fish, mostly cookie-cutter rainbows probably stocked in the last stocking but the stream was pretty and every bend looked as inviting as the last. We caught rainbows at will and a number of brook trout. Paul caught a very nice one and yes, it was larger than any of the ones our father caught (I wrote that just for you Paul - not that he's competing at all).

A nice Brook Trout

A typical example of the rainbows on offer

It was almost a shame when it got dark and we had to leave but Paul was proud to leave a piece of himself in Iowa, even if it was up the bank and covered in leaves. Hopefully I'll get back to that stream at some point. There was a nice park running along it with picnic tables and a walking and biking path. It was a good way to start the trip.