Going Skiing in The North Woods!

Got up north Friday evening and went out for about an hour. Hit some usual spots that hold fish but did not raise any fish. Woke up with the sun on Saturday and hit shallow weeds in the morning and then moved out to deeper rock piles in the late morning, but didn't even raise a fish.

Since we didn't see any skis, we decided to hit the deeper rocks for eyeballs with live bait rigs. Still, we got nothing except for some nice perch but that was not the preferred catch so we threw those back. In the afternoon, we hit the cabbage weeds again to see if any skis were active but still nothing. This was unusual to not even get a follow with the water temps as warm as they were. The water was anywhere between 74-80 depending on water depth and time of day with the high air temps ranging from mid to upper 90's which was much higher than forecasted.

Saturday evening we went out again and started throwing a large black and orange Rizzo Wizz near some shallow weeds. About 20 minutes after we got out, a big girl slammed the lure!! After a great fight, I landed what ended up being a big 43.25 incher! FINALLY!! It felt great to get her landed because we had  been pounding the water pretty hard with not so much as a follow. To top it all off, I broke a tooth in half at dinner and I was in incredible pain. Nothing like a nice ski to forget about the pain. For the rest of the night, we fished with the Rizzo Wizz and a mud puppy surface lure, but had no more luck.

43.25" Musky

We got back at it on Sunday morning and almost immediately I got a follow from a nice little ski. He charged the lure right at the side of the boat. Despite figure eighting him; I just couldn't get him to make another push. We fished for another hour and a half with nothing else to show and by this time it was evident that the fish were all in a negative mood and there were no eyeballs to show for several outings either. To top it off, we were getting tired so I told my friend Dave, who was on a quest for his first toothy critter ever, to make one last casts out towards the front of the boat. All of the sudden, I saw a green torpedo bearing down on his lure. I could not even get the words out of my mouth and the fish went airborne right at boat side and struck like a little freight train. Dave set the hook and the fight was on. A few minutes later Dave landed his first ever toothy critter a nice 32 inch 12lb ski.

After releasing Dave's musky, we headed in for a bite to eat before we headed back out Sunday evening. I had high hopes that they would get a little more active later in the day, but we only saw one ski bearing down on Dave's lure that ultimately missed. I could no longer take the pain of my tooth, so we came home early on Monday morning instead of fishing the morning and evening as planned.

I did manage to take some video of the trip. Normally, I would have had some great boat side action of the strikes, but my camera glasses went belly up so I was only able to get more conventional video. Despite the tough fishing, broken tooth, and broken camera glasses it was a great trip. Up until this trip, Dave's biggest fish was a 3.5lb largie so I say the trip was a definite success!!

Check out the video!!!