I fish SE Wisconsin a lot and 10-15ft is a luxury some days. I treat it differently depending on where I’m fishing. Super popular metro lake, I expect to be crowded. Now, when I’m in Northern Wisconsin or Northern Minnesota, I would hope people would try to give a decent bit of space. I don’t mind if you swing by and we have a conversation at all. I have no problem talking about what and how I’m using things that are working. Most times if you’re struggling where you are I’ll invite you to move closer, but don’t start right on top of me.

The only time I have no problem being crowded whenever or wherever when I’m out is if someone has kids with them. Then come as close as you want and fish any hole I’m not in. Seeing kids outdoors and having fun is something I will never get upset about. Hell they can even pull in tip ups for me if they want.

I use mine exclusively for ice fishing, so no snow sucks, but with picked tracks it’s doable. I’ve been looking to upgrade both of mine the last few years thinking that with crap snow cover the prices would come back to earth, but unfortunately they are still stupid high.

When I was going into college I also took a gap year to try to make a nest egg. One of the worst decisions I ever made. Brain drain is a real thing, and fields such as engineering require you to remember a lot of things learned in HS. I was a great high school student, but college is a different animal altogether. Studying efficiently is a skill that you can lose rather quickly. I saw others who took a gap year fall by the wayside due to struggles with becoming a full time student again.

Appreciate everyone for the responses.

You guys use fatheads to tip spoons and whatnot with still? I’m assuming the suckers and shiners are for set lines. Also, does anyone use chubs there?

Absolutely.
At this point I hate all of the candidates. Every other commercial is an ad, constant texts, emails, and phone calls.

In the fall at my brother’s cabin we soak suckers for musky out of his pontoon. My dad doesn’t do to well in a fishing boat anymore, but in the potoon he can enjoy musky fishing again. I won’t lie, it is pretty nice having the room and comfort of a pontoon.

I love my Baffin Apex, but this year I am going to give the Korker Polar Vortex 1200’s a go this year. The BOA system and interchangeable soles really is what drew me to them. They are also lighter so we’ll see how they hold up in the coldest days.

My kids are 15 and 25, but my nieces and nephews are very young yet so watching their excitement on Christmas is probably my why it is number 1 for me.

Alex Fox wrote:

I was reading an article about this and they were discussing several ways you can cheat. One was shoving as much ice down their throat as possible. It adds weight, and is undetectable. This blew my mind at how simple it was. As long as money is involved, someone will find a way to cheat.

I have actually seen this one. I was with a friend and his father in Florida and went to watch a weigh in and a team got popped for it. Those guys in the video were a lot nicer than the fellas in Florida. But yeah, anytime money is involved, unfortunately there will be someone trying to game the system.

There’s accusations against these 2 going back a couple years now. They failed a polygraph after a tournament once before. If you listen to the crowd you can people say that it’s about time they were caught. Unfortunately this still happens.

As a kid growing up in the 80’s, I remember many nights spent at the bar with my father and grandfather after a day fishing in Northern Wisconsin. Summer or winter it didn’t matter, that’s where we went after fishing. Usually it was the launch we used so it was convenient. I would load up on change from them, get a kiddie cocktail, and hit the puck bowling, pinball, or whatever arcade they had. I could also sit on the dock and catch panfish while they drank until our food was ready.

I still see it today, but not nearly as much, I don’t mind it usually, but as others have said, if the kids are not being attended to and left to go wild. Then they can be a PIA. I think times have changed and people also look at kids in bar different then back then.

Thanks anyway. Someone is going to get a steal

Would you be willing to ship?

I run the same as Coletrain and have the same results. I regret not switching earlier to lithium.

Here in Milwaukee there is a group that are known as the Kia boys. They are responsible for dozens of stolen vehicles and countless dollars in damage to property. They are so bold that they made Youtube videos documenting everything they’ve been doing. I know one was arrested, but as stated above, they’re minors and it’s considered non violent, so they are processed and released in short order.

https://www.cbs58.com/news/milwaukee-filmmaker-shines-light-on-kia-boys-in-new-youtube-documentary

Matt Vogel wrote:

There’s been enough of these accidents where it’s now burned into my brain that lifejacket goes on and killswitch is attached. No lake outing is worth not coming home for.

That profile pic must be pre-burn.

This may come out wrong, so I’ll preface this right away. I in no way, shape, or form condone any type of violence or sexual assault.

The MLB policy seems rather ridiculous. If all of the legal proceedings have concluded and he wasn’t prosecuted, nor were the TRO’s extended. How can MLB continue to punish another 324 games? This seems to be a massive overreach. I understand Bauer has always been kind of off, but I don’t get this. I don’t think the punishment is fair given that he was “cleared” by the legal system. He was suspended while everything was going through the legal system.

Low hours on a big motor is more common than we think. My father has his boat on the lake they are on, and if that big motor gets 3 hours a year I’d be surprised. He just cruises to his spot and drops the trolling motor. Most of us don’t realize how little we actually use the big motor vs trolling motor.

I have a close friend who bought one with a bad motor and trans. It took a full year to get everything needed to repair it, but well worth it. It has been great to have. We’ve hit a lot lakes that we normally would never do. In the past we’d haul my wheelhouse out to the usual lakes, plunk it down, and stay in the usual spots. This year we’ve left the wheelhouse behind and just hit lakes that don’t cater to the wheelhouse crowd. What a difference. Reminds me of being young when we’d jump in the truck and just try different lakes that we researched and thought might be good.

I hope they stay in business, but agree that the prices are ridiculous.

1. Being able to fish lakes that I can’t reach in open water. Backwoods lakes that I just can’t walk to anymore after knee surgeries.

2. Spending time with my dad, he’s getting up there and has had some serious health problems over the years. His passion was always musky fishing, but physically he just can’t anymore. He’s not comfortable on a boat, so sitting in the shack with him is pretty damn cool.

It has it’s own lithium battery. I can leave everything off and it runs on it’s own internal battery.

Conrats to him. If it was caught legally and over the required size limit, he has every right to take that fish. Plus as Big Werm said, it was an old fish.

I’m a big musky guy, but a lot of the musky hardcores are hypocritical in my mind. They preach the save the musky gospel, but will treat bass and pike like carp when they accidentally catch one. These are the same guys that come winter will harvest their legal limits of panfish and walleye all winter long. Not trying to start a fight, but I hate when we give each other a hard time over keeping fish that are perfectly legal. That guy pays for a license the same as we do.

I second the Kershaw. I’m out on Lake Michigan probably twice-three times a week and have cleaned thousands of salmon and trout with it.

As most have said, avoid the south and west side and you should be fine. Also, use common sense, don’t put yourself in a situation where trouble is likely to be. It’s bad, but, if you stay more touristy areas you should be fine.

I agree with Big Werm, Jim Jefferies, Anthony Jeselnik, Ricky Gervais, Bill Burr, WHitney Cummings, and a whole bunch of other comedians are pushing back against the PC culture.

I have 2 in my garage. As others have said, it helps push the heat down in the winter and move the air. I leave mine on all year.

That time of year it is hard to beat Port Washington WI. We have some really good Captains here that I’m sure you would have a good trip with. The nice part about here is, we’re only about 20 minutes from Milwaukee. Which if it’s a bachelor party, you may want to go see some “dancers” at night. If not, we have a pretty good local bar scene as well.

Been going back and forth with buying a new boat. It’s hard to justify spending 90k+ on a new one, when the one I have does exactly the same thing. I mean the extra 2ft and the extra 150hp of the 622VS would be nice. I don’t know if I’m getting older and wiser or what, but I’m a lot more responsible with what I buy nowadays.

I did put all new Helix on this year. I finally made the switch from my old Lowrance units. Went with a Helix 12 at the console and 7s at the bow and stern. I wasn’t going to put one on the stern, but I was out with a buddy who has that and it was nice that he could be anywhere in the boat and easily see a graph.

Unfortunately it’s a part of life on the ice now in most places. I’ve grown accustomed to it. It happens all the time here in SE Wisconsin. You get out before sunrise and within an hour of sunrise there’s 20+ shacks/people around you. On Poygan we have a skid house that we leave in the same spot all year as a dummy shack. This year I put double doors on. I bought a cheapie snowmobile from Craigslist that we kept inside. We would pull it out so it looked like someone was there. During the week it would work pretty good. Weekends, not so much since there’s a ton of people out there.

I will say though, some people who drill 100+ holes covering huge swathes of ice and think they own an entire area with 2 guys is ridiculous as well. That’s just being selfish and asking for problems. We usually only drill in small grids, if nothing we move and start a whole new grid. Those first holes as far as I’m concerned are now open to the public.