jeb

What part of MN? I lived in MN for 35 years, 30 of it in SE MN. There are a bunch of great trout streams SE of Rochester. Fountain, St. Charles, Whitewater State Park, etc. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fishing/trout_streams/southeastern.html http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/whitewater/index.html

See the Beaver Lake forum below for another thread on the new store.

I was out fishing for a couple of hours this morning and heard a bunch of shooting down towards Rocky Branch. Figured maybe it was F&F. But I heard one gun several times that sounded like an automatic! Man, that thing would hammer out the shells. Could have been the Hobb's shooting range too, I guess, but it was before 8am when they open.

Awesome. Glad you had a great day shooting them up!

Sorry, I didn't say that well. It was Chris Johnson that told them to add the Walleye stuff back on the list. He's the guy that used to work at HLS, and is now managing the fishing dept at Cabelas. Super nice guy. Cabela's picked well there.

Wow, Feb 22 time frame could be darn cold on Grand!

Well, I have to say I'm favorably impressed with the new store. We got in about 10am. Was quite busy, but not horrible for opening day. It's bigger than I thought it'd be, and I think they did a good job of balancing it. Big fishing dept, with a definite black bass lean. Talked to Chris Johnson and he said they were trying to go that way with the southern stores. Actually, he had to tell them to add a lot of Walleye stuff back on the list for our area. Great variety of rods and reels, from lowend up through high end stuff like NRX rods, Daiwa Steez and Pixy Type R reels. I did not spend much time on the gun side of the store, but it looked good. BIG camping supply area. Bargain Cave was not huge, but it's there. Casual clothing seems cut back from most of their stores, which is fine with me. That's where I was hoping they'd cut back. Nice displays, and a good sized fish tank. They had what looked like a pretty good deal in the Bargain Cave. It was a Lowrance HDS-8 Generation 2 combo pack that included all the stuff for the side scan/down scan. All for just under $1500. I'm already setup, but figured I'd pass it along in case anyone was thinking of getting something like that.

Agreed. They are already overflowing with fishing stuff, so it'd be hard to put a lot of hunting stuff in there, too.

Like I said early in this thread, I'm sure the vast majority of my local fishing gear money will still be spent at HLS. The wife is actually more excited about the Cabela's than I am. She's taking the day off of work to go! I guess that's because they carry more women's clothing than bass fishing stuff. The HLS in Bella Vista has more hunting stuff, from what I understand. Not sure if they carry clothing or not, but might be worth checking out, F&F.

I was going to mention that some 1911 makers, like Kimber, make them in .40, too.

Hard to say. In a normal sized Cabela's, I'd say it's a sure bet. They are much more of a walleye store than a bass store ordinarily. But this is a small store. And the fishing dept is run by a total bass-head. So it'll be interesting to see what they stock.

That does not seem right. Since the store is not open yet, they should not be charging tax. I'd call and bitch.

Get a .40. I can reload shells for you then.

I use to live in a city that was a waterfowl game refuge because of all the big stinkys, er sky carp we had there. It was big business for guys to buy up the hunting rights on all the farm land just outside the refuge and then "guide" folks from all over shooting them. So I had lots of buddies that were always trying to show me a goose could taste good. Never even came close. Some where the goose was a very small percentage of the dish was at least edible, but that's about all I could say for it. And I'm not a picky eater at all. Well, smoked goose is okay. But I think you could smoke a tennis shoe and it'd taste good, too. No offense. Glad you like to eat them. But I'm not a fan.

Or fertilizer? Hey, whatever you do with those sky carp is fine with me, as long as the end up dead.

We had a good time, especially for a Saturday in the middle of summer! I'm not big on fishing white bass, but we ran into a real pile of them at the end, and it was fun to catch a bunch real quick like that. We were both catching them on light spinning tackle, so it put more challenge into it.

There are lot of hazards past the danger marker on the devils backbone, too. Lots of standing trees for quite a ways past there. I'm really suprised there is not a string of bouys through there.

The state trooper seemed like a nice guy. I'm sure they do love tooling around in that Donzi, since we're filling the tank for them! I asked him what the topend was. He said he gets asked that question a lot. I said I bet you do with all that HP on the back. He said it was good for about 60mph. Surprised me, figured it'd be higher than that. But it is a pretty heavy boat. We threw a little bit of everything at them yesterday. In addition to what Jeff listed, we also used shakey heads and a little topwater stuff, too. Jeff tried a crankbait for a while too, but no takers there.

Sorry to hear about it. That just sucks. Hope they catch the theives.

2 more folks drowned on Beaver last weekend. Lake is sure taking its toll this year. Sad stuff. http://5newsonline.c...rowning-victim/

Went by the store over the weekend. Sign out front says they're opening on Thursday, 8/30 at 9am.

Yep, thanks Bill. We had a fun morning. Wind picked up pretty good around 10am or so, otherwise we'd have been out of there sooner.

I have a 4 stroke, so don't use injector oil. But I did notice at Sam's in Bentonville over the weekend that they are carrying Pennzoil gallon jugs of outboard injector oil for like $12 per. Not sure if anyone uses that stuff or if that's a good deal, but I know a gallon of the oil with the manf's name on is about twice that, so figured I'd throw it out there.

Agreed. Chris and Lucy are great folks. Cabela's chose well there. I hated to see him leave HLS, but I sure wish him the best.

Thanks. Interesting story.