Pete Ankeny returned to Rainy Lake again this year for another fly fishing/smallmouth bass trip. Pete had special guests with him this year; his grandsons and son in law. Weather was fairly decent for the trip. We did have rising water levels that provided quite a challenge. Male bass would periodically show up around spawning beds checking to see if females were coming in to spawn. Slow to the fly seemed to be the mood the first couple of days. Move the fly and let it sit, you would see the move to the fly them a pretty hard hard hit. We caught good numbers of smallmouth on poppers. We caught feeding fish, fish wanting to protect nests. The last morning may have been the best. It was fun watching young people learn to cast flies and have success doing so. Kevin Erickson, John Balaski, and I really enjoyed guiding Pete and his grand son’s. Hopefully we will get to fish with the young fellows again, what a great group!
