Okay – if you want to see and taste small town Minnesota, Floyd's is the place.

It's right on the main street of Victoria, Highway 5, between the Twin Cities and Waconia. And there's plenty of parking all around, so that makes it easy to stop. But inside, the place is just plain comfortable. It's small, with the obligatory pool table and a long bar to your right as you come in the door, and a juke box that somehow or other never seems to play "Rap" or any of that.

But basically you can tell as soon as you walk in that this is a "down home" kind of place. There's always a crowd of locals at the bar, and without exception they turn to look at you as you walk in the door.

I've never seen a bar where that classic rule is obeyed as faithfully as it is here. Now, if you're a stranger, you get a nod or two, so it's obvious you're not being treated as an outcast or anything like that. But the usual crowd gets all kind of greetings and offer for beer, and it's clear that the place is friendly. Speaking of beer, they've got that sign above the bar that I mentioned earlier – "Free Beer Tomorrow at Floyd's." And if that isn't enough to make you come back, what is?

Maybe it's Kelly, who seems to be working the bar whenever we stop by on our way back from another fruitless outing of pounding the murky waters of Waconia for Muskies.

She always has a smile on her face, (and unlike Chuck up the street at the Waconia Boathouse, she even cuts her hair more than twice a year!). And if you've ever wanted to see a bartender move at close to the speed of light, just sit back and watch her dance behind the bar to take care of her customers.

Peanuts. They've got free peanuts here at Floyd's, after 4 pm. But on any number of occasions, and even without getting down on our knees, Kelly has given us a bowl of their peanuts even at 2 pm, with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye in response to our pleading.

I do have to confess that the last time we tried that, she threatened to make me go out on their deck and sweep it off as a payment for the early bowl of peanuts. Then, when I grabbed the broom and obeyed her instructions, she threatened to whack me over the head if I didn't sit back down at the bar and attend to the more serious business of beer. When was the last time that you got that kind of attention at Champ's or some other big city sports bar?

Speaking of bars, here's a tidbit for the photographer crowd among you. If you sit at the far end of the bar, facing the window, and look down the bar at the row of bottles and glasses on it, well, I think there's a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph to be taken. There's something about the way the gold and green bottles line up, the way the back light from the window shines through the glasses of beer, the silhouettes of the people hunching over the bar, that I'm just convinced has the ingredients for a classic photograph.

I've never seen anything like that at any other bar, but I've also never managed to have a camera handy at the right moment. But you might think about it when you go there.

Here's one final thing – Floyd's Breakfast Bloody Mary. This is something else we've never seen anywhere else, either.

What Kelly does is make a Bloody Mary, with all the appropriate liquid components in all the standard measures, to be sure. But then she also puts in:

• Olives
• Hot Brussels Sprouts
• Pickled Corn
• Regular Pickles
• Pickled Mushrooms
• A Shrimp
• Jalapeno Stuffed Olives
• Dilly Bean
• Asparagus
• Beef Jerky from Mackenthun's, St Boni
• And a straw

Man! If you've ever seen a Bloody Mary to match up with that, please let me know!! I want to sample it!

But for now, we're going back to Floyd's in Victoria, Minnesota, another one of our favorite Fishing Bars....