National Championship Musky Open 2008 by Mike Lauenstein

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National Championship Musky Open 2008

~ Mike Lauenstein (8/19/2008 @ 8:18 AM)

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This is going to be an advertisement some day... funny how we all took a nap after this picture.

25"er... nice fish!

We'll see you guys in a couple weeks!

Trust me... we were ready to go musky fishing!

The National Championship Musky Open in Eagle River, Wisconsin never fails to make true musky fishermen feel like boys among men. Granted some may take this tournament more seriously than us, but none the less, no matter what our excuse is for not putting fish in the boat, we are always humbled when we see the fish counts on the Sunday afternoon after the tournament. Too much boat traffic, too much pressure, bad weather (in this case perfectly sunny with 3-5 MPH wind out of the NE, 78 degrees), wrong bait choice, wrong color, wrong structure... blah blah blah. Doesn't mean a thing. The fact of the matter is some people know where the fish are and know how to catch them, while other people (us) fish these lakes for the first time during the tournament and use the tournament as a good excuse to learn new waters.

Let me take you through our approach to the National Championship Musky Open:

Start out on Friday morning, ready to go, pumped for a long day on the water. With 6 months to prepared, we ended up deciding which lake to fish on Friday morning at about 5:30 (about 30 minutes before the start of the tournament), found it on the map and headed out. On the water by 6:15-6:30... 30 minutes past the start of the tournament. No too bad. Jim Hayes of Twin Lakes, WI and proud owner of Rugan's Wine and Ale House (one of our sponsors) and I were out on White Sand Lake near Boulder Junction, WI. Headed out to a nice piece of structure not far from the boat landing. As soon as we settled in there was a huge splash and ton of water moved about 20-30 feet to our right. No doubt a musky. We casted a couple Bull Dogs, Grandma and Jake baits and even tried running some top water over the top of the 5' peak of the hump. After another 10 minutes of casted there was another huge explosion of water about 20 yards in front of the boat... another fish. There is no doubt the fish were there, we just didn't have what they wanted. The structure was perfect, 50' of water surrounding a 5' hump with little points and jaunts coming off of it. At 16' the weeds started (primarily coontail) and 18' they ended. This line of weeds worked itself around the entire piece of structure and there is no doubt that this spot produces fish... just not today. Since White Sand Lake in Vilas County is as clear as nice glass of gin on a hot summer day, we decided to call it quits once the sun got a little ways above the tree line.

We hit up The Outdoorsmen in Boulder Junction for some breakfast. You know something... you'll always get some of the best food in town, but the service can get frustrating at times. I swear I leave there ticked off 90% of the time, but I keep going back because the breakfast is THAT good!

After that we hit up High Lake, while Dean and Bill finished up on Wildcat Lake. High Lake has the potential to produce some awesome fish, both walleye and musky. We overhead a couple guys chatting about the 40" they caught and a couple other nice follows they had. Over the weekend we did raise a couple nice fish out on High Lake and saw a couple more surface, but just couldn't get anything to take the bait. Most of the follows came on Slop Masters thrown in 7-9' of water. We even a nice upper 30's follow my figure 8 at the boat then move over to Jim's figure 8, but still we could not get it to hit. After so much fishing and minimal success, we decided to go after some walleyes... Wildcat Lake. This pretty much just turned into a beer drinking, tanning and swimming adventure which seemed to have caught other lake goers off gaurd. Never thought putting a life jacket on upside down would be so much fun!

We definitely lost some patience for the rest of the weekend and ended up just fishing half the day on Saturday on High Lake and Fishtrap Lake and didn't even get out on Sunday. Like I said before, we don't take it quite a seriously as some folks, but we have fun doing it.

The one highlight of the weekend is that We did hammer the walleyes. Jim put a nice 25" in the boat and we had a total of 34 walleyes over the course of the weekend.

As for the tournament, it was pretty obvious that our Lake Family produce the smallest and least number of fish, while the other lake families surrounding the Eagle River area produced a ton a nice fish. I believe the totals were about 1100 fishermen, 193 muskies (most ever) which means about 18% of the guys picked up a fish. Pretty good odds all things considered.

Cheers!

"Lauey"
Mike Lauenstein
CrazyOutdoorsmen Managing Partner
http://www.crazyoutdoorsmen.com

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Opening morning on White Sand Lake... just a beautiful morning to be on the water!	The start of our Wildcat Lake musky fishing... I think Jim was illegally trolling here.	Fishing for walleyes	An "Ahha" moment... we found a table.
Just enjoyin' the day...

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Follow, follow, Nibble, Nibble just bite the bait in the MIDDLE! by Dean Olejniczak

Comments

Chris Lambie

Member Since: 7/14/2008

RE: National Championship Musky Open 2008
Posted On: 8/19/2008 4:07 PM

Mikey, nice write up. Bill, your picture is set as my desktop background and you have now officially moved to #3 on my Hero list(you still have to beat out Brett Favre and Teddy Roosevelt). Jimbo, nice eye.

Nic Dittbrenner

Member Since: 8/5/2008

RE: National Championship Musky Open 2008
Posted On: 8/19/2008 7:17 PM

Nice weekend gentelman! Only a guy from Illinois could hold a fish like that. Excellent work on the BBB.

Mike Lauenstein

Member Since: 7/12/2008

RE: National Championship Musky Open 2008
Posted On: 8/20/2008 7:13 AM

Surprisingly, that guy from Illinois caught more walleye than the rest of us combined... sad.

Cheers!

"Lauey"
Mike Lauenstein
CrazyOutdoorsmen Managing Partner
http://www.crazyoutdoorsmen.com

Dean Olejniczak

Member Since: 8/14/2008

RE: National Championship Musky Open 2008
Posted On: 11/5/2008 11:02 PM

Funny how the gay crowd is moving into the local scene with the "Salmon" colored shirts. Sorry Bill. Hell, what can say; we tried and beat the water for hours and what I learned was that we don't know DICK on how to catch SKIES in 80 degree weather. However, I provise you that I will learn and I will boat some fish next year. As a matter of fact, I have already fished 3 of the family of 7 lakes since the tournament and have 10 more months to study for next years test.

Dean "Dino" Olejniczak
Catch and Release for the pleasure of the sport; Please!

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