A few weekends ago, My Dad, Sean and I took a day trip up to Mille Lacs.  We left Waconia around 3:30 a.m.  On our way up we kept on seeing the lightning to the north and once it got light the dark clouds to the west of Mille Lacs didn't look to promising!  Well we went out anyways and started the morning tossing the big baits for the giant Mille Lacs muskies.  After about an hour of tossing and barely missing the storms, we produced one follow on Seans bait.  Next we were heading out to the flats in search of some eyes!

The day started pretty slow, fishing a few flats without any bites!  Finally on a new spot, I connected and pulled in a nice 19 incher.  Shortly after I battled another about the same size.  We finally found a few fish and even a few that were under the 18 inch slot that we could keep!!  Soon the wind started to pick up and boy did it ever!!  We had huge rollers that were crashing in the boat!  We had to wear our rainsuits to keep dry and it was sunny as possible!  We even had one come crashing over the front and put about 50 gallons of water flying down between the consoles!!  Good times!!

We managed some decently consistant fishing throughout the day!  It wasn't phenomenal, but we were catching fish.  Our biggest was a 24 and a half and we managed 4 that were between 15 and 17 that we could keep, with several others that were too big.  We even managed 4 bonus jumbo perch!  Mmmmm Good Eatin!!! 

Our plans were to fish walleyes until just before the sun was going to set and then try out our skills at a muskie at dusk.  Unfortunately when we arrived to another spot, the trolling motor did not work at all!  No power was getting to it!  So we ended the trip early.  It sure is hard to long line walleyes or cast for muskies without a trolling motor.  It ended up being a circuit board in the pedal that went out.  Bummer!!  But all in all, it was an excellent trip with my father and a great friend!!  Heck it was worth it just to see my dad in that amazing hat all day!!  Awesome!!  Thanks!  Fall muskie season is coming fast!  Can't wait!!  Until Then, Keep Living Your Dream!!

Hey there everybody!  Sorry about not posting lately, I have been super busy and lost internet access at my house, so now I have to go somewhere to update.  But a few weeks ago my father called me up and asked if I wanted to head out some time and do some trolling for some pike.  Well there is nothing that brings more memorys of fishing with my dad as a child than trolling for the ol' snot rockets!!  So I gladly confirmed that I would be joining him! Especially with the hot water temps, I have quit muskie fishing for a few weeks until they cool down a bit. 

A few days later he was sitting in front of my house with the crestliner hooked up and ready to go!  It was a hot, humid, calm day.  But the pike usually don't care!  After launching the boat and throwing our cranks behind it, it sure didn't take long for the first one to tear the rod of my dads hands.  After a nice battle, there was about an 8 pound pike in the net!  We hi-fived and were immediately back at it!! The next hour or so was really slow with nothing to show except for a few short hits.  Then we were back in the game again when I caught about a 4 pounder.   Not too long later, my lovely girlfriend Jenn called.  Well only about a minute in the conversation I said "Got one, gotta go!"  I landed the nice fish and took a few photos of the 30+ incher and released it.  I called her back to continue our conversation and immediately my dad was hooked up!  "She should call more often when we are fishing if it means we are going to catch fish the whole time!"  yelled my dad.  Haha! 

We landed a few more solid pike and called it an evening!  It was a splendid evening with my father and hope to do it again soon!!  Thanks Dad!!  Until next time, Keep Livin' that Dream!!

I finally got my boat back on the water and running again!!  I picked it up on Friday evening and had it on the water at 4:15 am on Saturday morning!!  If any of you were up on Saturday morning did you have the same fog I had??  Holy Cow Batman!!  I couldn't hardly see 50 feet in front of me driving across the lake!!  Lets just say that I needed the GPS to find where I wanted to go!  I headed out from the launch straight to where I thought I needed to go and good thing I looked at the GPS.  I was heading straight toward the shore I left from, I headed out in the lake and did a big loop and was heading right back to shore!!  Well when I finally decided to trust the satellites and not my instincts, I was back in the right direction! 

First spot produced nothing but a bunch of floating milfoil!  Second spot scored me a nice largemouth bass.  Third spot I finally had a huge explosion on a topwater over some weeds!!  Just when I thought I was battling a muskie, I learned it was just a huge Bass on steroids!  But at a half inch over 20 inches, one can't complain!  To add to the excitement, on the very next cast, there was a nice 40 inch class muskie screaming at the boat in hot pursuit of my presentation.  But at the last second decided the sight of the 20 foot white fiberglass thing floating in the water was a bad sign and left. 

I was absolutely determined to catch a muskie on this trip!  I was alone in the boat and casted, casted and casted more!!  I headed deep, shallow, mid range, everywhere!!  I was thinking that all the thunder and lightening shut them down for a few days.  At about 11:30, yep, over 7 hours on the lake, i was just about falling asleep and fishing in daydream mode when i was rudely interrupted by a nice nudge on my rod.  The little nudge was followed by some heavy weight.  I got my senses together and pulled back as hard as I could!  The rod wagged like a happy dogs tail as the muskie reacted with massive headshakes!!  FINALLY!!  Persistence paid off!!  I fought this fish for longer than normal as it stayed down and didn't give me the jumps that usually come from a muskie.  I pulled hard as it moved from side to side and shook its head from time to time!!  My 8 footer was bent to the max when the line started to rise, my excitement doubled when she showed herself!  I couldn't believe when I saw the thickness of this sea monster that definetly needs lay off the weight lifting for a bit!!  It wasn't so fat as it was just really thick acoss the back and extremely deep along the whole length of the fish!!  As I was trying to manage to open up the net and get her in, I looked up to see Travis driving across the lake with his dad.  He saw me battling the fish and came over and jumped in to net it for me!  "Is it a nice one?" He said as he jumped in the opposite side of the boat from where the fish was.  "Yeah, its a giant!" I answered!  "Oh my gosh, that's a pig!!"  He reacted upon seeing the whale on the surface.  High fives all around is what followed when the giant admitted defeat and slid in the net.  We both guessed at about 52 to 53, but the board proved us wrong at exactly 50.  The depth and width of this fish is what made it look ridiculous!!  There WILL be more BIG fish in the near future!!  From the shark filled waters of Minnesota, Keep Living Your Dream!!