D&R Visit the Lake

Dick and Rina visited us this past week. We rented a pontoon boat one day and spent nearly all of our time exploring the west side of the flowage, which is a part of the lake we don't often frequent. Along with the usual stimulating conversation and light-heartedness, we fished and picnicked.

Daisy went along with us, and Mom, the official dog lady, spent a fair amount of her time entertaining Daisy.

One morning, Dick and I hired a local guide to teach us a thing or two about muskie fishing. For those of you who may not know, a muskie can be quite large—most of the ones caught here range from 35" to 55", and the world record is something like 68" and 69 pounds. People around here believe there is a muskie in the flowage that could still break this record.

Both Dick and I have had equipment for muskie fishing for some time and have spent hours trying for one of these big fish, but there was a lot we didn't know about choosing areas in which to fish, choice of baits, presentation methods of baits, landing procedures, and lots more. Although we didn't catch one, the outing was well worth the time and cost. The muskie is often referred to as "the fish of a 1000 casts", so one has to be resigned to spending lots of time and casting lots of baits in order to experience the thrill of those 15 minutes when one actually strikes. Our guide told us that there are estimated to be about 7,000 muskies in our lake, so I'm hopeful that one day I'll actually experience one first hand. It can be tiring casting over and over again, because the baits are quite heavy (most are about 10" long and weigh quite a lot).

I must confess that I did become enthused about having a longer rod, so for fun one day, we drove to Park Falls, the home of the St. Croix Fishing Rod Company, and shopped their company store for bargains. I got a slightly blemished rod for about two-thirds the suggested retail price. Seeing some of the manufacturing process was also fun.

Other things we did included visiting some other good friends of Dick and Rina who happen to live on another lake not far from us. We had a lovely dinner and evening with them. However, most of our time was spent fishing. Dick loves to fish—just ask him. He really loves to go fishing. Here we are parked near an island where we picnicked on one of our outings.

Below are some of the success stories. Everyone caught fish at one time or another, but we had the greatest success on the river northeast of our cabin. The smallmouth bass were hungry and plentiful.

Dick loves most of all to present artificial baits and to have a fish blast at it on the surface. He prefers this to "fishing with meat", as he puts it, which involves using worms or minnows or leeches. On this trip, he was more than satisfied with the outcomes, which included this 17" beauty.