An Outdoorsman's Journal: Return to Green Bay PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 01 September 2010 12:21
    Hello friends,

     Sometimes in life, we try really hard to accomplish a goal and things just do not work out the way that we planned. A month ago, I fished on Green Bay for walleye and musky and had some of the best fishing I have ever witnessed in Wisconsin.

    After seeing my pictures and hearing the stories, my 16-year-old stepson, Joey Dushek wanted to spend a weekend on this piece of water that covers 520-square miles and has become one of the premier fisheries in the Midwest.

    Saturday, August 21st
    High, 83, low 55

    Here is the plan!  Joey and I are going to launch my 16-foot boat at a public landing near Little Suamico early on a Saturday evening, fish until we cannot handle it anymore and then sleep in my truck. On Sunday, we will fish 15 or more hours and on Monday, we can fish in the morning.

    I figured when an unseen bird from above dropped and made a direct hit on Joey as we were launching our boat today that it was a bad sign. Joey on the other hand, cleaned up the mess and declared that a direct hit, from an obviously well, fed bird was a good sign.

    When we began setting lines for a night of trolling with crawler harnesses, crankbaits and musky lures another bad sign floated into view.

    The seasonal die off of water vegetation was taking place and as this happens, the milfoil floats to the surface and creates a nearly impossible situation for trolling as both planer boards and our lures were almost constantly, becoming covered by vegetation. 

    As day became night, we started working an area on the upwind end of a massive weed bed and our problem came to an end, until the wind direction switched!

    About midnight, we said to heck with this as the next sunrise was not far away and retreated to the "Chevy Hotel"!   Generally, I sleep quite well in my truck, not on this night!

    Sunday, August 22nd
    High 77, low 54

   This winter I will camp on this body of water and catch big fish through the ice!

This morning, Joey and I had the boat launched by 5:30 and soon after that had our lines set for what we figured could be 16-hour-day of fishing.   After we had six lines set, I was ready to make a pot of coffee and hope that a good, sized caffeine boost would wake me up. It did not take long to realize that we had left the propane tank for my stove in the truck.

   Fish catching was kind of slow as we trolled this morning, but we did have two, "bite-offs" over a period of seven hours and figured giant musky were raising heck with the 14-pound line on our crawler harnesses.  It was after this happened a third time that Joey and I decided to make musky proof, crawler harnesses out of 50-pound Power Pro! 

     We had two experiences over the next three hours, a period of time in which, low winds would have allowed us to troll across the bay to Dykesville.

   On the first experience, I caught a sheephead that would be our only fish of this adventure. What happened next was that a "Super Musky" had cut Joey's 50-pound Power Pro.  At this point we were very confused as to why we were not fighting the fish that were cutting our lines!

    We were into the twelfth hour of our fishing day when we realized that the steel clevises that attached the spinner blade to the line on our homemade harnesses were actually wearing through our lines and cutting them.

    We did end up going back to shore and getting a tank of propane and while fishing, Joey cooked a very tasty meal of homegrown pork chops and fried potatoes.

    Joey and I fished by the light of the full moon until 11:00 and tried top water baits for musky, still, no hungry fish.

    Later that night, large flocks of mosquitoes made for difficult sleeping in the "Chevy Hotel" and the next morning the fish still were not hungry!

   We always kept our sense of humor on this expedition and learned that if a bird poops on you while launching your boat, "Go Home"!   Sunset

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