Brute’s Bleat by Harold Brutlag- September 5, 2018

Fishing in a cold front may not be the thing to do, but sometimes it’s a necessity because of time committents. Such was the case last Tuesday morning for me and Mike and Mary Miller, who were looking for an opportunity to fish before school year gets underway. Anyway we planned on a 9:00 a..m. kickoff, but the morning drizzle prompted me to hold off for a half hour, with hopes the predicted scattered showers would scatter out of Wright County. We were on Indian Lake by 10 a.m. on that cool morning with only a few drops of rain still falling. We anchored in about 17-18 feet of water and Mary dropped her jig to the bottom and immediately had a bite. She reeled in what I thought was a scrappy sunfish until it broke water and the large mouthed bass spit out the hook. The sunfish were down there, biting light, and we all caught fish, but not as fast as Mary who outfished both me and her brother Mike. After about two hours of shivering in the northeast wind we counted noses and came up with 12 sunfish keepers and two bass. We had to move around a little and we threw back a lot of sunnies I would have kept, had it been the middle of January. Those we did keep filled a plastic quart sized bag when Mike and I filleted them out. Mary declined when Mike asked her if she wanted to try filleting. We gave her the job of rinsing them. Our bait was angle worms, one night crawler and minnow power bait. The sunnies had a field day sucking off the worms and we did much better with the power bait. Indian Lake has been good to me in August and like the DNR fish counters said a year ago, “we’re seeing lots of large sunfish”. My next lake was Rock, if for no other reason than to irritate Rock lake resident Jim McCan who figures I give Rock too much ink! That was on Friday when I fished in a wind for the most part. I was alone and holding the boat was nearly impossible, but my reason for being out there was to find out if the panfish were active. I anchored in 16 feet of water and immediately caught a 10 inch crappie which I released. My next fish was another smaller crappie which I also released. I kept the next two figuring crappies might be the only fish I might be catching. After a few sunfish I headed for the south shore because the wind was bouncing me around too much. I found some nice sized sunnies in about 17 feet of water, but it took some moving around. I also fished the west side, but didn’t find any keepers. After several hours of fishing I counted noses and had 10 in the livewell. I headed back to the access stopping to fish off the point on the south side of the access where I picked up two 8 1/2 inchers. . . Lake Henry is another lake I should try yet this fall, mainly because Brian Hedman commented about the fish survey done there by the DNR. They found good numbers of larger sunfish and the walleye count was excellent. It could be a sleeper! * * * Hutchinson set a new record for the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Tournament Saturday night when their pitcher, Matt Timm, threw a perfect game against the Sleepy Eye winning 6-0. The Hawks supported their pitcher with an error free sparkling defense. Our group, Daryl Hennen, Brian and Mitch Hedman and myself were there for four innings of the record setting game. Unfortunately Hutch lost their next game 6-1 to Plato who faced Sobieski in title game Monday. Sobieski pitcher, Tyler Jendro, who apparently has a rubber arm, threw both of their games on Sunday with wins over Sartell (5-1) and Young America (2-1) with a squeeze bunt in the 8th inning. Plato defeated Hutchinson 6-1 was a 12- 5 winner over 2017 Champion Kimball and then went on to score 8 runs in the first inning of final game with Sobieski. The game ended 8-5. Maple Lake’s Hunter Malachek pitched well in their game with New Market Saturday and gave up one earned run, but the Lakers had three errors which spelled a 9-0 defeat. The New Market pitcher, Nate Rost, held the Lakers to 9 hits while the Muskies scored one in the third, five in the fourth and one in the seventh inning finishing the game with 13 hits. He was also 4-4 at the plate which is a good indication of their hitting strength. Besides their big bats they squeezed in two runs early in the game. Riley Decker and Hunter Malachek were 2-4 and Nate Mass 2-3 for the Lakers. Next year all the State Tournament excitement happens in Maple Lake and Delano, the 2019 host towns. Baseball fans can expect some changes in the Maple Lake ball park with the removal of a couple of dead or dying trees, raising the roof on the concession stand to accommodate the PA system and the radio booths. Minor repairs to the outfield fence and Daryl Hennen, tournament chair, is thinking about another set of bleachers as well as installation of hand rails in the grandstand. He hopes to have seating for approximately 600 spectators. It’s amazing to see what other host towns have spent on their ballparks for the tournament. New Prague, one of this year’s host towns, laid out over $1 million dollars to bring their park up to snuff. That included building a new grandstand complete with a first class park entrance that contained new restrooms as well as maintaining the ball field itself which got an assist from the groundskeeper of the golf course which was just across the street. They had over 600 people present for their first game with Ortonville according to one of the state tournament board members. * * * Apparently not all motorist know what a roundabout is or how to drive in it. One morning on my way to CENEX for an eye opener cup of coffee I was east bound on Division St. coming up to the roundabout when a pickup came off of County Road 8 and drove right over the top, or center, of the roundabout and down Division St. West. * * * Those hunters participating in the early goose season, which got underway Sept. 1, apparently didn’t get a whole lot of shooting as things were pretty quiet that morning. What I heard wasn’t the sporadic sounds of shotguns being fired, more like just a feeble burst of three shells. I did hear of a pair of geese being harvested on the opener, but there just haven’t been many geese flying. That’s because of the cold spring which decimated the spring hatch. The dove season is open and it won’t be long before the ruffed and spruce grouse starts (Sept. 15th). Woodcock is a week later and the fall turkey season opens Sept. 29. They’re all coming fast now and it will be a matter of choosing when and where!

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