Camping at Sakatah State Park

Me and Lisa took a camping trip last weekend to Sakatah State Park. I wanted to go where there were plenty of lakes for fishing. It is about an hour and a half drive north of Austin. Once I got Lisa straightened out on the navigating, we checked in at the campground at about 5 on Friday. We got the tent set up and I went fishing.

I just fished from the boat dock because I didn't feel like unloading my jonboat. I hooked into a northern pike and got it all the way to the bank. I tried to lift the line to get the fish onto the bank but the line broke. The good thing was, the fish was in shallow enough water that it didn't move. I wasn't sure what to do to get it for a picture, so I decided to try and grab it. As soon as my hands got around it, it took off with my lure in its mouth. It was about 2 ft long and I think it weighed 3-4 pounds. It put up a good fight and ended up winning. Later that night I caught a fat bullhead and threw it back.

Saturday morning we woke up at about 5, but it was already light enough to fish. We put the boat on Sakatah Lake and went to a spot that a man at the boat dock recommended the night before. There were a lot of weeds on the lake. There were also Northerns surfacing all around us. We stayed on the water for about 3 hours without a bite. Pretty disappointing.

We went geocaching that afternoon and managed to find a few. We were the only ones on the trails, except for the thousand mosquitoes following us. Lisa's directional difficulties improved a little bit with the GPS in her hands.

Saturday afternoon we went about 15 miles to Madison Lake. It's supposed to be one of the best fishing lakes in Southern Minnesota. It gets down to 60 ft deep, and my anchor wouldn't reach at that depth. We found a quiet cove where other big boats couldn't harass us and tried some more fishing. The trolling motor battery died so it was all rowing at this lake. Lisa rowed for about 1/2 mile and did pretty good. Of course, I managed to snag a whopper bluegill. Lisa caught 2 drum. At least we didn't get skunked. If you notice Lisa's shirt, you can imagine the bad sunburn she got on her back.

Saturday night we relaxed around the campsite. We ate some good hamburgers and a brat. Lisa got a lot of reading in. Sunday morning I woke up early to give Lisa a good campfire breakfast. Luckily, she's not very picky. I just cooked a couple eggs and burnt a little bacon and she was satisfied. We got a warning from the park rangers about our dog being unattended the day before. Sorry about that Rangers. She was pretty understanding when I explained that my small boat with 2 people and a dog wouldn't work very well. We tried to go out fishing again Sunday morning with the dog and us in the boat. Lisa didn't care for Belle making the boat move so much. I was used to it. A storm was coming in and we didn't want to get struck by lightning, so we headed back to the truck after 1/2 an hour.

Overall, I think the trip went good. We had nice weather until late morning of the last day there. We got to spend a lot of time on the water. We couldn't get any fish for eatin, but I was glad to have my fishing partner with me.