Mark and Sandy Lawinger arrived Friday night about 9:00 pm. Mark had two items on his bucket list…would we be able to mark those items off his list?

Yep, Mark had two items on his bucket list. He wanted to catch a 3 lb smallmouth….and he wanted to see and photograph a pileated woodpecker. We had our work cut out for us!

Saturday morning we hooked up the boat/trailer and headed to a local lake. It was pretty windy but we kept at it.   We had several nice fish come to the net…including a 3.3 lb’er!

Here are pics of a couple of other nice smallies.

We headed back to the cottage, loaded up the pontoon boat and cruised Madeline and Carrol with Sandy and Lesa.   We caught a few largemouth but overall it was pretty slow.

Sunday morning arrived with rain so we decided to burn up some time at a local antique shop. Lesa and I bought a couple of hickory bar stools and an old area map – lots of fun.

The sun popped out so the four of us jumped on the pontoon boat and enjoyed another ride. The largemouth were a little more active and we caught a few nice ones.   Mark got a small northern pike as well.

We cruised back to the cottage. While we were relaxing for dinner, Mark slipped out to look for a pileated woodpecker that we could hear working in the trees.   Mark got a chance to see the bird and even got a slightly obscured picture of it – so while we didn’t obliterate that item on his trip bucket list, he at least got close!

It was a great weekend with great friends…..