Books, Breads and Bikes: Hiking and Fishing along Minnehaha Creek

Sometime last year, while standing in hip deep water and trying to untangle a fishing lure of some kind from a tree branch, it might have occurred to me how tedious fishing is. All of the hiking and walking makes it seem like golf, and between snagging rocks on the bottom of the stream or lake and snagging branches overhanging the stream or lake, the frustration levels can get a bit extreme sometimes.

That being said, it takes me a whole day to hike from the Mississippi River to Lake Calhoun along Minnehaha Creek, stopping to catch and release fish along the way.

After breaking two bones in my foot early last year, I have been reticent to run on pavement or trails. Besides feeling like a hypochondriac every time my foot gets tired or I step on a rock, riding a bicycle has been okay and my soccer cleats still fit so playing field sports has also been good. What I have not gotten back to is running. In place of trail running, I have taken to making the ten mile all day hike from Minnehaha Falls Park to Lake Calhoun, or portions thereof, once or twice a week.

I do some fishing along the way, and function as a Volunteer Water Monitor for the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, collecting turbidity samples and sending them yearly to the MCWD for addition to their water quality database. Sometimes I use a Minnesota Nice Ride bicycle to get there and back, or to make a long walking section a little faster. It is not always Abe Winkleman trawling Shad Raps over the weed beds for lunkers, but it also not limping in a cast.

"Why not just ride your bike all the time?" is a frequent question people ask, because they don't catch many fish I guess, and sure I could be out riding my bicycle instead.

"What do you catch in there?" is another frequent question people ask me as I am standing hip deep in Minnehaha Creek, and I try to answer cordially, because they must not catch many fish either.

I did manage to cultivate a decent sourdough starter in the past couple of months, and had a nice couple loaves of sourdough bread turn out after following the same recipe I have been working on since 2009, the Thom Leonard sourdough recipe from Artisan Baking Across America.

Here are some pics of my hiking and fishing miles. A really good guidebook for fishing warm water fisheries is Fishing For Buffalo, Buffler; ( Fishing for Buffalo: A Guide to the Pursuit and Cuisine of Carp, Suckers, Eelpout, Gar, and Other Rough Fish) and if cold water fisheries are more your thing I strongly recommend Wisconsin and Minnesota Trout Streams, Humphrey and Shogren; (Trout Streams of Wisconsin and Minnesota: An Angler's Guide to More Than 120 Trout Rivers and Streams (Second Edition)).