The Luda Chris Craft: The Ultimate Multi-Purpose Pleasure Utility Boat!: 2012 Boating Season Begins

Once again, the Wolf River underwater cameras got us going and motivated us to get the boat all cleaned up and stocked for the season. We have been watching the cams (see: wisconsinfishporn.blogspot.com) like crazy and could clearly see that the walleyes were running so we loaded her up and made our annual trip to launch at Chico's Landing in Fremont, WI.

For the first time, we ran up river past Fremont. We wanted to try a new part of the river, and also wanted to find the infamous Nipple Beach. We have heard this is a great place to anchor the boat for summer fun. And, what the heck, we may as well try to catch a couple of fish along the way. The whole river is beautiful, and this part is was really interesting and different for us. The river twists and turns and narrows quite a bit in a few spots, but we didn't have any trouble navigating it. On many of the outside bends, there are fishing shanties lining the banks. Many of these shanties were quite elaborate with heat and potties, and we could tell that the occupants clearly have a good time while they are there.

As always, we spent the night on the water and even though the temperature got down in the mid 30's, we were toasty warm. Thanks to Dan for putting the generator and heater onboard, and convincing me to thow another sleeping bag in. Nutty as we are, we sat in the warm and cozy boat and happily watched our fish cam.

Just because there are fish down there, doesn't mean they are biting!

In the morning, we headed up river, anchored the boat and started fishing. After a few hours and no fish, Dan broke out the grill and started making breakfast. We loved the look on the faces of all of the guys in their boats when they caught the smell of bacon cooking. A few of them offered to trade us bacon for walleyes!

Packing the boat at the beginning of the season always takes a bit of work, and no matter how many lists we make, we seem to always forget something. This time, it was fuel and forks. We try to keep track of the fuel, knowing that each tank holds 18 gallons. The gauges aren't always reliable so we keep track using the Huminbird and with a grease pencil on the front windows. I assumed Dan knew there was fuel in the tanks and off we went. After breakfast, we decided to check to see how much fuel we had and needless to say, we were a little low. We were on a remote part of the river where there were no fuel docks, so we had to turn around before we made it to Nipple Beach, but vowed to make it back in the summer with a full load of fuel.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend:

We made it through the whole weekend without a wet dog. We're pretty sure we need to document this because it will probably NEVER happen again.

Did you notice I didn't mention a thing about catching any walleyes? That's because we didn't. We love the fish cams, but man is it frustrating when you can see them, but can't catch them! Admittedly, we aren't as serious about our fishing as most of these guys, but we make up for it by having a blast while on the boat!