Park Rapids Preps For Fishing Opener Onslaught

PARK RAPIDS, Minn. (WCCO) -- Park Rapids will be jumping in mere hours with the arrival of the governor.

Tim Young is a great ambassador for the ice-cold 2013 fishing opener. He's been here before.

Young guided former Gov. Al Quie in Park Rapids only two days after ice out back in 1979. And they hammered it with a jig and a minnow fishing in the shallows.

That's advice another Park Rapids area fisherman and ambassador agrees with. Mayor Robert Tufts of Dorset goes by Bobbie. He's 4, but he knows there are fish here, and he knows how to catch them.

In his four years, Bobbie's never seen the challenge of ice this late. But veteran Young hasn't either.

"In my lifetime, I'm 65 years old, and I've never seen it," Young said.

Still, even with the ice, he thinks there are fish to be caught just like in 1979.

"They were active and we caught a bunch," Young said.

And even if you don't get on some fish because of the conditions, the ambassadors of the Park Rapids area promise a good time.