PETE
RIEDESEL

Just Fishing

Finally A Trip North

Wed, June 18, 2014

Northern Wisconsin has been imprinted on my heart for many decades. When I had my family we spent summer vacations north on a regular basis. Now that the family is mostly grown and my sister has sold the cottage we stayed in, trips north are no longer a certainty. Last year was a dream in that a good friend who lives in that area hosted Cam and I each month. The fishing adventures were epic even when the fishing wasn’t. This year we arent able to connect with my buddy so Cam and I finally got the details together for a quick fishing trip starting last Monday.

We planned to get up early but I woke up before the alarm clock and we were off. Mid-morning we were casting one of our favorite haunts for muskies. The lake was practically empty but one boat was just a few hundred yards away when I heard, “Pete, is that you?” Turns out Andrew Ragas is chunkin away too. So here we are almost 400 miles from home and we run into another blogger from this site. Unfortunately the fish were not biting. Turns out there was a nasty cold front over the weekend and this was two days later. While the conditions looked fishy, they weren’t. I’ve always found the second day after a cold front to be the absolute worst time to catch fish The whole day we only caught too tiny muskies. We had fun but were disappointed and knew we were going to plan b the next day which was to bass fish.

 

 

 

Fortunately bass were much more cooperative. We caught them all day long. We didn’t get many big ones, but occasionally we did get a get a little better fish over two pounds. I sure wish we could have been up here in May when those big pre-spawn females were swimming around!

 

 

 

 

After a day of catching we were ready to start slinging plugs for muskies again. While this still didn’t go well Cam finally hooked and landed a nice little 33 incher.

 

 

There were many hours of not catching involved. One of the things that we always enjoy is nature up close. Here’s a picture of an eagle that sat and watched us fish for a good long time before taking off.

 

 

I didn’t get a good muskie on this day but did catch a nearly 5 pound bass. That was quite a surprise. I was so excited I had Cam net him with the muskie net!

 

 

Because the muskie fishing was so slow we did stop every once in a while and do a little bass fishing.

 

 

 

It seemed only the small muskies would bite.

 

 

 

 

We had lots of follows throughout the trip but they wouldn’t bite. Of more than 20 follows I think maybe 2 nipped at the baits. On the last day I got a scrawny 34 incher. That wound up being the best fish caught. Not too good.

 

 

Too soon it was time to head for home. But before we did, we still fished a couple of hours and then made a stop at the muskie shop in Minocqua. Then it was on the road for the long trip home. Cam and I had a great time dispite the not so hot fishing. Hopefully next time we’ll find some bigger skis!

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