Friday morning, on January 16th, Jean and I headed to Green Bay Wisconsin in hopes of catching some monster walleye.
We past Chicago, and then plenty of Wisconsin farms.
On the way, we made at pit stop at Gander Mountain for hats (someone forgot theirs), and walleye jigs. :)
Somehow we managed to find Green Bay, even though we were too busy gabbing and missed a few exits. Then almost got arrested for turning into a power plant without authorization. Sheesh-- I was just following my gps and the sign with the arrows!
We were so excited to see the Bay!
And then we weren't. For there was NO shanties, or folk's out fishing, and there was open water. :(
We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a place call Julie's Cafe and then put a few extra layers on to go fish. We weren't going to let a few minor details stop us.
We stopped at the local bait shop, Smokeys on the Bay, to gather info. Mr. Tilky was helpful and sent us over to Voyager Park in the village of De Pere.
First, we scoped the place out.
We noticed a few shanties, but what was really weird is that they were all like fifty feet from open water!!! The open water looked to be discharge coming from a factory.
Jean and I were afraid to go out on the ice.
Plus, it was slippery.
We took a self-guided tour of the park.
As we walked around, we observed several spots of open water.
There wasn't anyone fishing, from what we felt, was a safe distance from open water.
We decided to go to the farthest point from the open water and test the ice; it was good and solid.
Shortly after we begin fishing, I caught my first walleye; a slippery little fish, that I was afraid of. The baby walleye flopped right out of my grasp!
EEEeeee! I got one, we can go home now! Eh, not much of a monster, but I was happy he rode the hook. :)
We checked in at the Microtel, in Green Bay.
The next morning, we became girls on a mission!
To catch some MONSTER walleye!
We headed out before sunrise.
We had the place to ourselves, that is, except for the fishes! :) Yes, a beauty of a walleye!
The bite was HOT right before sunrise! Flag!!!
Jean pulled a beauty in from the tip-up. All the other fish on this trip were caught jigging.
50 feet from us was a duck party in open water, yet we were on a good 17 inches of ice.
The fish liked us!!!
We were terrified of them!
We seemed to get a little braver with each fish.
We stayed in the same spot all morning.
Only one other person was out fishing, besides Jean and I. We all thought we may have to swim back to our vehicles since the mild temps was rapidly thawing the Bay.
I thought it to be odd for Wisconsin's Free Fishing Weekend and the place be so empty.
By the time we breaked for lunch, we had caught a total of five walleye since we had arrived in Green Bay. Yeah, we felt all bad ass! ;)
We ordered up a batch of good ole Wisconsin Cheese Curds!
And Chili.
Instead of swimming back to the good spot, Jean DROVE us out on Lake Michigan!
We didn't see anyone at first, just tracks. I was soo scared that I stalled Jean by doing a quick photo shoot.
A young man about 12 years old, drove up to us on a four-wheeler, as we were taking pics. He said it was okay to drive on the lake.
In retrospect, it seems I do take advice from children often.
It may not have been the smartest or safest advice, but we didn't sink.
We fished for whitefish and whatever would bite.
Far out in the distance stood an array of other shanties, some semi-permanent.
As we drove, we realized that there were areas in the ice that looked like Swiss Cheese. We parked beside that area and fished from the abandoned holes.
We could have just fished from the truck.
It was soo cool and terrifying.
We noticed several fractures in the ice, such as this one:
We stayed on the ice pieces that seemed to be tightly connected to the shore.
Mostly, we panicked and fished. :)
Our plan was to drive out and follow the piles of floppy fish folk's had caught and tossed on the ice. Then we were gonna park and fish.
The trouble with that plan was, for the most part, we were lone riders.
They call the area that we frequented, Lipsky's.
We ate supper at a diner just down the road from where we entered the lake.
They had pie, as all good diners should.
Mmmmm, pie.
As we were leaving, we noticed a bunch of cats hanging around the back door. I was glad I had only a garden salad. :/ Jk.
After each day of fishing, we retreated back to the hotel's hot tub to thaw out; it was wonderful!
The pool was heated and nice too! Ahhhh, warmth!
The park was beginning to thaw, but still had plenty of good ice.
The ice was so clear that occasionally we could see the fish swimming below.
We made friends with someone who reminded us of Sherlock Holmes. Only instead of the English accent, he had a very pronounced Wisconsin flare, Ahy?
We lucked out and got a lift to and from the good spot. The park ice was not Trailblazer ready, as it only had about 10 inches, and there was plenty of standing water on the ice during high tide.
This ride was terrifying as well, for when we headed back, we DID BREAK THROUGH THE ICE.
SPLASH!!! Right at the water's edge. My pant legs got soaked, but thankfully we were all just fine, as it only sunk in a few feet of water.
Jean was on FIRE catching fish! Those walleye really liked her!
The magic walleye catching depth was nine feet of water. We fished about a foot off the bottom.
Jean tuned in to today's hits on the radio and the bite began to slow way down. Then I pulled up the Rollin Stones on Pandora and those walleye went berserk! Apparently, they have a taste for classic rock.
This poor fish has some sort of wart or yuck on it:
Jean has been on a pie kick lately. And the one day we couldn't find pie to save our life. Catching walleye was easier then, well... PIE. At least finding it that is. We wound up going to a bakery and splitting a mini cake.
No worries though, as we hiked around enough ice at the park to burn plenty of calories.
Tip-up fishing is not our strong point, as we had several flags, and lost several fish. Only one, of the nine walleye were caught by tip-up. I do think using a treble hook instead of the single would have helped. Our 30# test mono held up nicely though. Still, it made for even more exciting times.
Supper that evening was Mexican food.
Even though the temp outside was a nice and mild average of 32 degrees F, we still craved some heat. I have no idea what we ordered, but we split it, liked it and it was hot!
I breathed fire for the rest of that evening.
The last morning in Green Bay, we thought we'd try our hand fishing Lipsky's again. We arrived before sunrise.
We drove out and after setting up, realized that we were sitting on only 10 inches of ice! Yikes!
The finder wasn't even marking fish, so we moved quite a bit. Besides, I kept expecting to look out at the truck sinking.
The first time we drove the Trailblazer on the ice, I mentioned to Jean that I thought we'd be okay since my pillows were at the hotel.
I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, however, my brain on fear, thought like that.
Actually, my six goose down pillows are quite heavy. So, now this time we were hitting the road after we finished fishing and the pillows were in the truck. I was like-- we might sink-- the pillows are with us!
Oh, and the word, actually-- on the drive up to Wisconsin Jean said that word-- actually, so much that I started counted them out load. I told her for every time she said it, she had to catch a fish. She made her quota, actually! :)
Besides, cheese curds and supper clubs, Wisconsin has plenty of very nice folk's.
Everyone we met on the ice was extremely helpful. For a nice weather weekend I expected the lake to be very populated with fishing folk's and none of the places we visited were.
So, as it became closer to the time to head home, we contemplated taking the lake route home. That is to say, traffic on Lake Michigan is good, so we went for it.
Until we realized, out in the distance a barge was floating in open water! Eh, change of plans, back to the boring ole pavement. :)
I will miss being able to pull the truck right up to the fishing hole. How convenient, Ahy?
Reeling in clams and a rock, though the ice.
Yeah, I got a rock! Nope, it didn't fight hard.
Jean lost a pink sucker fish right at the hole. I screamed because it wasn't a whitefish or something I expected.
When it was time to hit the road, all I could do was thank dash board Jesus for keeping us safe.
Chocolate and land helped to erase our fears. I bought maple fudge.
Somehow in many ways, the lake seemed safer than the actual drive home.
