Memorial Day Weekend Recap - Beach Life - Fishing Galore, and Lots of Family Time

Finally getting robbed my summer post from the memorial Day weekend where I spent a couple of days at the cabin on the Mississippi River having as much fun in the sun as fishing as I could get in here I'll try to do a quick overview by day and go from there.

Started Saturday Afternoon -

It started Saturday afternoon after a boy scout activity visiting farm we loaded into the truck drove a couple hours and got the cabin in time to see my folks for a few hours and have dinner. Able to get some chores done, and help them out around the cabin before they left. After we left we jumped in the boat and headed off to the beach.

Lucky for me I was able to get out the fishing pole and put on the beetle spin. I will say that the beach in the shoreline hit change significantly from the major flooding we had in the prior months and the water is much deeper than it used to be. But used to be 2 ft is now around 4 to 5 ft with a huge Sand bar. I think this might actually be really beneficial for the fishing as it will keep the small bait fish in the shallows Sandbar with the deeper section of fast current for the bigger fish to sit in waiting to attack. I was pleasantly surprised to catch three striped bass that evening all on the Beatles been. I honestly think a yellow beetle spin is almost like cheating.

Saturday Evening Sunset

We're sitting on a the deck and enjoy the beautiful sunset with perfect weather. Wasn't hot, and the bugs weren't bad yet and we had a great view of the surrounding bluffs. I think the panoramic shot that was taken the same time as the second shot captured the colors much better. It was really something majestic about this view.

Sunday Morning

Like every time we go somewhere, if you're not up for the sunrise then there's no point in going somewhere. The sun came up and we started to pack up the boat. Unfortunately we did not get to the beach until about 8:00 a.m. since I had forgotten we needed to refuel and pack other stuff up.

We did go to the beach and got there quite early. Luckily for us it was not hot, the sand was cool and it was just starting to get Sunny with a little bit overcast. I decided to try some fishing while the kids went off to explore and I quickly found out that the fish were biting and this was going to be one of the most epic fishing days I've ever had there.

Small Mouth Bass
I decided to group the photos of the fish together for each species that I caught. Here's a couple of smallmouth bass that I caught in the same area but the night before I thought the stripers. I can't three different fish I believe in one got away. These were also caught on my beetle spin

Walleye
I also managed to catch two different walleyes on the yellow beetle spin. Completely shocking since I almost never catch walleye while casting from shore because they tend to prefer the deeper water but due to the early morning and overcast conditions they were up a little more narrow and I was able to stay two of them. The first one was a little small well the second one measured right at 15 in and would just barely have been legal to keep if I wanted to.

Striped Bass
Managed to catch another small striper although I was hoping they were a bit bigger and more frequently tonight before, it appeared that they had moved out a little bit.

Northern
I also managed to catch a small Northern that was too small to keep it clean but that just shows the area has a lot of diverse fish.

Sunday Evening - Dock Fishing

After we get back from the beach in the middle afternoon, and took the kids to me for an hour I went down to clean up the boat and decided to do a little fishing from the dock. My great fishing luck continued where I caught another dozen fish.
Endless Sunfish
I caught five or six sunfish or more. The father just kept going down. I also managed to catch four or five eight to nine inch perch. I didn't have my phone for those and couldn't take any photos but they were not that impressive. The 9-inch ones were very borderline for keepers if one wanted to make me a lot of them but it was way too much work for the meat and I would rather just keep fishing and catching.

Big Northern 22-23 Inches
My wife came down so I gave her the barber and she started to catch fish at the same rate I was and it was a blast. She was having a hoot reeling and fish after fish and even got a really nice smallmouth bass that could have been a keeper. I only managed to catch one fish on the other pole using my Beatles pin. The Beatles pin is too big and swims too high for the sunfish and The Purge what I did happen to find this big old Northern lurking around that came after my Beatles pin three times before it finally got a hold of it. It measured probably 22 and a half to 23 plus inches and would have been a really nice keeper and a meal and I wanted to but I just had to let it go.

Lots of 8-9 Inch Perch - no Photos

Monday Morning Sunrise

Another morning, another sunrise. This day was a bit more overcast and it stayed behind the clouds for most of the day.

Monday Morning

Luckily for us it was much more overcast and cool this day which was needed after we all got way too much sun today before. If we had another hot sunny day it probably would have been too much. It did bake off and start to get hot around noon or 1:00 and we quit to go in towards the cabin. I only managed to catch two fish this day one was a small small mouth and I did manage to catch it 14 and a half inch striped bass. This is clearly the biggest striped bass that I caught this weekend and put up a doozy of a fight. I guess if I'm only going to catch a couple of fish they better be big to make it fun and exciting.
Only 2 fish all day - but my biggest Striped Bass at 14.5 Inches

That's it for the holiday weekend for us. We spent or more hours cleaning the cabin and putting everything away from our use and packing up the truck. And then drove home a couple hours and showered up and just tried to relax before the week started. No one wanted to go to work or school but we all had to wake up for reality on tuesday.