Another 23 hour day

Again I couldn't sleep at 12 am so I got up and started to get ready to go. I ate, drank some coffee and packed the boat. I started to pull out of the drive and noticed the passenger side taillights on the trailer were not working.
I forgot to tell you that last week on the way home I ran over a chunk of rubber. It jumped up and busted out the passenger side taillight on the trailer. So I got a new set of lights and replaced both taillights on the trailer.
So I got out, pulled out the tools and within 15 minutes I had the lights working and I was on my way.
I got to Freeman lake at dawn, put the boat in and ran down to the dam. I went here for the white bass of which they have many. Well I fished til 1 pm before I saw my first white bass. They finally started chasing the shad up on one of the points. I caught several on this point but they were all small, so they all went back. Before the white bass I had caught a couple small mouth, a couple drum and the crappie in the pic. After the "silvers" stopped chasing everyone started hitting the water pretty hard so I loaded up and moved to Max.
The first thing I did was unload the boat and get in the water to cool off. Man did that feel good, then I got to some serious fishing.
I hit a largemouth first and then a smallmouth, I noticed the water was pretty dingy. They were hitting this lake pretty good too. I remembered that in the past the smallies chased up the baitfish, so I went to the break and watched. Sure enough they were chasing up the baitfish so I started casting and hooked up with the big white bass. Man I'm telling you he doubled up my pole and pulled like a King. I mean he just smacked it and ran, it was awesome. After I boated him and landed and lost some more smallies I decided to pack up and head for home.I got home put the gear away and cleaned the fish, took a shower, ate and went to bed. Whew what a day.

Lake Michigan 14 July

Woke up at midnight unable to sleep, ate breakfast, packed the boat and started driving. Got 5 min away and realized I forgot to take my chair out of the boat, so I turned around and went back.
Back on the road thinking to myself how stupid it was to forget about the chair. I realized I left my Ill. license on the couch. I turn around drive the 10 min back to the house and get the license.
Finally on the road I get to Pastrick Marina at 30 min before sunrise. I start setting up the boat and notice that they're are alot of boats coming into the Marina. I get launched and followed 3 other boats out, thinking they have some local knowledge that I wasn't privy to. Turns out they didn't cause they started bangin' em about a mile from where I was. I started trolling over to where the action is and I hit my first fish a nice brown. I was in the trolling rotation with everyone else when I get my second a nice coho.
It is now afternoon and I am the only idiot still trolling around. I trolled all the way out to the Ill. border and get into 63 fow when I banged my King. He made 5 drag burning runs when I finally wore him down and put him in the net. Today I went 3 for 5 which is alot better than my previous outings this year. I'm hoping that since I started using "hooks" I might be able to improve my record to 100% next time.By the way to ruler on the board is 2' long. I was looking back on my past pics my fish look really small, so I put it in there so you can see just how huge the fish really are.
FYI- I made it home and in bed by 11:16 pm almost a 24 hour day.

Clear and Hamilton

My quest for a rainbow off of Clear continues. I trolled all morning until the speedboats came out with no luck. I didn't even catch a smallie, nothing was hitting.
So after the thermometer hit 90 degrees I hopped lakes to give Hamilton a try. That's where the fish were, I really got into 'em. They were chasing huge schools of shad up to the surface and smackin' them. So I just sat there and caught fish after fish. I didn't catch anything of size but I still had a great time. Sorry no pics this week there just wasn't anything to take a pic of, hopefully next week.

Tippy last week/ Lake Michigan yesterday

Tippy was my destination last week. The wind blew all day however I managed 30 plus largemouth and white bass. Not really a whole lot to say, I just got into em last week. After fishing at Tippy for most of the day I started home and stopped at Robinson for some scum frog action, I landed 3.
I took a picture of the spider culvert that I have to go through to get to the lake.
Well that was last week.
I've been waiting for a couple days were it was cool enough at night and not windy, to be able to get up to the big lake and fish for a couple days. Well I finally got my wish this week. I started up to The Dunes Wed. to set up camp and cook some supper, get a good nights sleep and get to fishin bright and early. Catch my limit by noon head back to camp, put some fresh salmon on the fire, have an adult beverage, go to bed and do it again the next day.
Well that was how I envisioned it, this is how it went down.......
I got to the Dunes around 8pm to a sign that said,"campground full" oh crap. I head on up to the gate and ask if there are any more sites left open. The guard calls in to the office an tells me there is one site left.
Man do I have good luck.
Well I pay the 5 bucks to enter.
I go to the camp office only to find out I can only have the site for 1 night. It seems it is reserved for the next night. I had the option to be at the campground before 2 pm to see if anything else is available. Now remember the whole reason for the camping is to stay close to the lake and have more time to fish and not drive home beat axx tired.
So I paid the 18 bucks for a site that I won't even be able to put a tent up at or leave anything behind when I leave to go fishin at 4:30 in the am.
I called Sarah to tell her what's going on. She gave me her condolences and urges me to make the best of it, since this is the only camping trip I will go on this year.
Ok, time to make supper so I put the duck that I bought on the fire to cook. By the time it's done I came to the conclusion that the campers to the right and in back of me have approx. 6 (loud) kids between them.
I finish supper while watching the comings and goings of people going to and coming from the camp facilities. The crapper was close enough for me to hit it with a rock.
After the rousing game of cross campground Marco Polo, played by my neighbors and 3 other random kids (which stopped being cute after the 4th round) it finally turned 10pm.
This is the best part- I got to unload all my camping gear from my truck and sleep in the bed under my tonneau cover.
Even though they call it a "bed" trust me when I say it is not comfortable.
Time to crawl under the cover and get some sleep....... oh good the dad's of the two sites decided to see who could drink more beer...... I really don't know who won but they finally gave up or passed out at 3 am. I tossed and turned until 4 am. With no sleep in sight, and a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I got up, took a shower, packed up my "campsite" and headed out to do some fishing.
I got to the landing with plenty of time to get my boat ready.







This was Chicago in the morning.




















This was the afternoon










So as you can see the Lake really wasn't cooperating with my plan either.
Well I trolled for 13 hours, then I pulled in my lines and slow rolled into the marina.
I managed to land 2 fish, one king and a coho. I went 2 for 10 (that means 10 got away) I had 3 come unbuttoned within 10 feet of the boat.
For my next trip up I think I'm going to try this new thing called "hooks", and see if that up's my hooking to landing ratio.

Fishing is done for the day. Now I had the option to try and find a campground and sleep in the bed of my truck again, or drive home 3 hours dead axx tired........ It was a long drive.
I would've been better off just biting the bullet and making the drive like I always do.

4 hours sleep
$110.00 for gas,lodging,entry fees,ext.....
2 fish
and still driving home dead axx tired....priceless