What a great weekend!!!

[bullseye]

We went to the Willow Flowage in central WI this last weekend for 5 days. It is one of the few almost totally natural lakes left in the state with only 1 mile of its 92 miles of shoreline developed. The area has been sparce on rain and snow for the last couple years so water levels are quite low. It makes it hazardous for those not familiar or careless on the water. It does keep a lot of pleasure boats, speed boats, and jet skis off the flowage.

We managed to catch a number of fish every day and had a great time. Smallmouth bass on topwater baits and northern pike, LM, and smallmouth on spinnerbaits. Debby managed to catch a couple of 30" dogfish (bowfin) which gave her quite a fight.

I went out with a friend on Sunday morning to slip bobber fish for walleye. While I didn't catch any legal walleye I did catch some nice perch, crappie, and bullhead. Dan, my buddy, caught the same but also some smallmouth and a big dogfish. We had a great 4 hours on the water together.

The flowage had a couple bald eagle nests, osprey nests, nesting loons, and a bunch of duck and goose broods all over. We did not see the usual beavers, otters, and mink but the low water levels prevented us from getting to the areas we usually saw these in.

Panda got to swim and run quite a bit and she had a great time too.

All in all a really great time.

[Jack]

Bullseye, that sounds like a great time.
I didn't realize you had bowfin out there. Florida is where I've seen them, so I thought they were a warmer climate fish.

[bullseye]

Jack, "doggies" are in some bodies of water but not all. They are probably the hardest fighting fish we catch, even moreso than smallmouth and musky for their size. While fishing the Winnebago system we catch them every once in a while but they seem to have a higher population on the Willow, where the current state record was caught.

You perked my interest on distibution so I found this website to show some of the areas they call home.

www.bowfinanglers.com/index.html

[Jack]

Interesting! From that website, they're obviously in a lot of places I didn't expect- including NY state. Thanks for the link!