MN State Park #66: Minneopa

Last weekend, the boys and I hit Minneopa State Park in Mankato. We're in Mankato a lot, but it just never worked to stop at Minneopa before this.

We saw the bison on the "bison drive," but they were far away...


... and the famous waterfall was BARELY a trickle because of the drought!




Heading down to the pool at the base of the waterfall.






The tiny waterfall behind us.


The boys loved all the sandstone "caves."


Lounging.


Charlie and the waterfall.


We heard more than one person talking about how this is usually all underwater.


Heading back out.

We drove to where the creek hits the Minnesota River, and we hoped to do some fishing. We had stopped to get some nightcrawlers before entering the park. The creek was (obviously) super low, but there were a few deeper "pools" here-and-there as we neared the river (it was a half mile hike). We saw 3 big carp in one of the pools, and here's Henry trying to hook one:

No luck with the carp. They would have been fun to fight.

But we made it to the Minnesota River, and after about 20 minutes, we were catching fish! Here's what I posted later that day on Facebook:

We all caught our first catfish this afternoon! We caught 8 total: Henry caught the biggest (it was a beaut!), and Charlie caught the most.

Henry's 14" beauty!


Charlie's first or second one.


One of my tiny ones.


The boys fishing right were Minneopa Creek meets the (murky and low) Minnesota River.

We have plans to wrap up the rest of the Minnesota State Parks in the next few weeks! We'll have hit all 72 by then! (I think we need to hit 71 to make it official, but we'll have hit 73 after our next scheduled trip including a few that are just listed as "State Recreation Areas.")