Wow! Did we catch them this summer!!!!!
Just seems like yesterday that I posted my last blog entry around the last week of June. Well, since that last posting I sure have had great opportunities to fish, and to fish with some of my most favorite people!
Andy and Sarah came up for a few days of fishing in early July. Both of them really enjoy fishing and we’ve had some great times on both the bass boat and the pontoon boat. This year they both learned how to use the Ned rig and caught some really nice fish. It’s always fun when Andy and Sarah are in the boat and they usually catch good fish. Here are a few pictures of their fish….
Bill and Donna Bennett came up the week of July 20 to visit. While we didn’t fish, we did enjoy some quality pontoon time. Bill and Donna especially enjoyed our weather with temps in the 70’s. Their weather at home in southern Indiana was pretty nasty with heat indices in the 100 to 105 degree range! Here’s a nice picture of Bill and Donna and one with Bill and Lesa enjoying the pontoon boat – they don’t seem to care which direction we’re going as long as we’re going!
The Leung family came to visit the week of July 30. Dwain, Andy, and Sarah were also at the cottage to join in the festivities. We had a lot of pontoon fishing time catching several panfish and bass. One evening we had a great crappie fish fry that everyone enjoyed. This trip Peter caught his first fish! We caught several fish and enjoyed many campfires and several people enjoyed card games.
Here are lots of pictures of our fun time together!
The weekend of August 12, my brother Ralph and his wife Julie came up to do a little fishing for smallies and northwoods time. We had a nice time and it was the first opportunity for Julie to see the Northwoods in the summer time – she’s always been up in the winter to snowmobile. Here’s a couple of pics from their visit….
At the end of August, Andy and I headed out to Delores, Colorado to hunt elk. More accurately, Andy was hunting with a bow, and I was planning on videotaping his successful hunt. Well, we didn’t bring home an elk, but we sure did make some memories. Given I’m on the sunset of my 63rd year, I was a little worried about all the climbing in the mountains to hunt – would I just be too winded!? But Andy was patient with me and given our hunting style was mostly stalking in nature, I did okay. We saw some beautiful terrain and made lots of memories with Scott, Kyle, and Zach Deutsch and some of their friends. But as mentioned before, we didn’t bring home an elk, but the trip was a great father/son trip – a trip that I’ll never forget. So, all in, in my mind it was a very successful trip. Here are several pictures from the elk hunt.
….and once in a while, a fellow just has to relax!
Andy and I met the guy below while we were out hunting….he was a cowboy in every sense of the word!
The week of September 15, Mark, Peter, and Jack Lawinger came up to fish a couple of days in the northwoods. The first day we caught several smallies – probably 30 or more. But the second day it was much slower and didn’t catch nearly as many fish. Here’s a picture of Mark, Peter, and Jack…
On September 21, I spent part of a day fishing the Wisconsin river with Jim Kerchefski. Jim is a great fisherman on any body of water and knows the river like the back of his hand. I’ve not fished the river much and so really appreciated the opportunity to fish it with someone that really knew it well. We caught five solid fish with the largest fish between 4 and 5 pounds – a really nice fish. Here’s the picture of that fish.
On September 22, Scott Hootman came up to spend a week or so fishing with me. We had a couple of tournaments to fish plus we were going to fish a lot of lakes just for fun. We also planned to meet up with Mike Toombs for a couple of days of fishing as well. The fish were in pretty shallow – mostly in the 8 to 15 foot depths and we caught a bunch over the time Scott was up there.
Here’s a picture of Scott and my catch at the Hodag Bassmasters Family and Friends Tournament….we didn’t do that well, but still had a lot of fun.
The next several days we fished some area lakes and did really well with the smallies catching a lot of them on Ned Rigs….
On October 1, Scott and I fished the Metonga Open. It was tough fishing – and we only brought 4 fish weighing 12 ½ pounds to the weigh in. It was still a fun time and we enjoyed the tournament.
I fished several more club tournaments during the summer. On July 9, we fished the Three Lakes Chain. I did pretty well ending up in 2nd place. I weighed in over 12 pounds of bass but missed 1st place by .08 of a pound. Here’s a picture of some of my fish caught during that tournament.
On July 23rd, I placed fourth at the Squirrel Lake tournament weighing in approximately 14 pounds, missing 3rd place .61 of a pound.
On August 20th, I weighed in only 9.92 lbs. Unfortunately I wasn’t even close to a check!
Overall, I came in third place in the Angler of the Year race. I was 2.76 pounds behind the second place winner and 9.77 pounds behind the 1st place winner. Lots of fun, great time. I can’t wait till next year!
So that’s the end of fishing soft water this year. The pontoon boat is out of the water. The dock is out of the water. And the bass boat has a winterization appointment in a couple of weeks. It’s been a great, great year!
Now it’s time for COLD weather, deer camp campfires, and the sounds of a snowmobiles warming up – can’t wait!!!
Chip's Fishing Hunting and Sleddin' 