Bad Day Today on Shawano Lake - Bad Ice

I shot this today on the North side of Shawano Lake by the County Park. This guy thought he was going to take a short cut over the pressure crack and found out that wasn't going to happen. It's ironic the music on the radio playing in the beginning as I started filming. "Oh Happy Days" I'll bet he was happy after he got it pulled out and he drove off the Lake. He was checking for damage underneath as we left.

Time Keeps Flyin' By...

Been retired for over 9 weeks already. Time really flies. Sure doesn't seem that long.
I haven't got a whole lot done yet either.  Made over a dozen bird houses. (Tracy painted half of them.) Made a dozen pens or so and did some finishing work in the garage that's been waiting to get done for 7 years already.

Only got out fishing once so far since last October and that was about 5 weeks ago. Caught enough White Bass for quite a few meals. They taste good deep fried in "Panko" or "Beer Batter". We've had them both ways so far.

White Bass caught at Winneconne early this Spring with a

friend who said he was going to take me out for Walleye

for almost 20 years. Had a great time.

I still have to clean up the boat and get it ready for the water as well as change the line on a number of rods and reels before we go up to the Chippewa Flowage in about three weeks. Hope to get it in Shawano Lake this week to make sure I can get it started first. Maybe catch a few panfish at the same time?

Some of our tomato plants we started in the green house are getting to be almost a foot tall already. We can't get the garden worked up either because of the frost every night for a period there and now we've had rain for about a week. Last year it was the 4th of July before we finished the garden because it was so wet.  We have 5 different kinds of tomatoes and at least that in different types of hot peppers. Our hot little purple pepper plant made it through another winter. We've had it for about 12 years so far and we've had peppers every year. We started a second plant about a year ago to back this one up in case something happens to it.

Fire on Ice 2012

We ended up getting there late but Fire on Ice is happening again this year. They switched from Cecil Bay to the County Park area on Shawano Lake I assume to coincide with the famous Figure 8 Musky Club Fishing Tournament this weekend. The landing to access the contest appears to be better on the other side of the lake.  The Fishing Tournament has a pretty good draw by itself.

As you can see – the number of cars in the races that were left when we finally arrived was slim but they still gave it there all.

John & Mona's Blog

Last Open Water Fishing in 2011?

We went out fishing on Shawano Lake just over a week ago. You couldn’t beat the weather compared to this week. Near 80 degrees on October 9 – can’t beat that.

Mona caught this Largemouth Bass on a spinnerbait after a half hour or so.

If she can do it – I can do it too. I think hers was a little bigger though (not by much). Both fish were released.

Fire on Ice on Shawano Lake–January 9, 2010

These photos were taken on Sunday, January 9. We weren’t able to stay at the race very long since we had a previous commitment but it’s the largest crowd I remember seeing. I hope to get more photos posted in the future and even have a short movie but also short of time. (You should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them.)

It’s Christmas Eve… and we have way too much snow!

John out plowing snow again.  It’s the third time already this year that he’s had to clear the driveway. We have over three months to go yet!

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Above left – Shawano Lake in the background; also snow covered with about12 inches of ice and 4 inches of slush for the fishermen that are driving out there.

There’s One Born Every Minute… (Swan Acre Boat Landing)

Two days after Thanksgiving and there were two groups of guys out on Shawano Lake on the ice fishing already. By the landing down from our house we saw two guys walking out on the ice with a piece of galvanized pipe which one of them used to punch a hole in the ice.  It took about two or three blows and he had his hole ready to start fishing. As he scooped the ice out of the hole with his bare hand, you could see it was only an inch to an inch and a half thick. The guy wasn’t very small and he moved about rather gingerly as not to go through the ice the way it appeared. Mona said they didn’t stay out there long so I assume he could have fallen through? (only three to four feet of water by the dock) or they got sick of it real quick. I know they didn’t catch their limit of fish there that soon.

A second vehicle parked down there later on in the afternoon into the evening.  I couldn’t see where he was fishing but I think these guys are really pushing it too soon.

Note: The photo was taken about a half an hour ago from our activity room. There were also three Bald Eagles out on the ice yesterday.

Last Day Fishing in 2010–Shawano Lake

 

We went fishing on Shawano Lake one last time this year on Sunday, November 7. The fish didn’t cooperate but we had fun anyway. (Plus we didn’t have any boat problems this trip for a change.) Mona decided to take it a little easy this day so she brought along a book to keep her busy. Weather was in the 50’s and wasn’t to bad unless we were running the boat at 45 to 50 mph.

 

John takes a break from casting just to enjoy the last outing of the year. It’s going to be a long cold winter until we can get the boat out again. Monday night the boat went in to get winterized and we picked it up and put it back in the garage for storage on Tuesday night. Note the BP Station in Cecil over John’s left shoulder. That’s the corner of Highway 117 and 22.

 

 

Photo of the boat landing and Camp Grounds in Cecil. All of the seasonal campers have been pulled out and put in storage as well. There’s a few seagulls sitting in the calm lake in the foreground. The Washington Inn can be seen on the right side of the photo.

 

 

With a sad feeling within us, we decided to hang ‘er up around 3:00 pm or so. We didn’t even see one sign of a fish that day. No strikes at all, and normally you can see the little ones swimming around the boat, especially on a nice sunny day like today. This photo was taken by John as we started pulling up to the Swan Acre Boat Landing. You can make out our house in the background just over the cars and trailers in the center.

One Way Trip on Shawano Lake on 10/10/2010

Sunday morning we got up and made our breakfast as usual. Hooked up the boat to the van and took off to Cecil to fill the boat with gas before heading out to Shawano Lake.  We didn't want to run out of gas like we did a few outings ago while we were out by the Island. We got on the lake shortly after 8:30 or so. (Click on photos to enlarge)



Mona caught and released this 5 inch Largemouth while fishing for Bluegills.

While heading down the outlet toward the river we spotted a pair of Eagles.

A short time later we came upon another pair of Eagles. One of them flew away before we could get a picture of them.

We fished for about 3 hours for Bass and Northern with little success. Being somewhat bored and needing to put a couple meals of fish in our freezer we decided to fish for Bluegills. Between the two of us, we caught about 20 of them but nothing with any size worth putting in the livewell.

The decision was made to head over to The Lighthouse Bar near the Airport to hit the rest rooms and get a couple cans of soda since the weather was beginning to warm up a little bit. Once returning to the boat we decided that we would head down the outlet towards downtown Shawano. While motoring towards downtown at a no wake speed, John kept on snapping photos of the fall scenery that surrounded us. By the end of the day he had over 150 photos.

After going as far as we wanted we turned around and ran wide open up to the no wake area a few hundred yards from the bridge we go under to go back towards the lake. All of a sudden the alarm on the motor went off indicating the the motor had over heated on us. John shut the motor of right away so that we wouldn't cause any damage to the motor. We had been traveling through a lot of weeds in the water and the motor probably wasn't getting enough water to cool it properly.

We used the trolling motor again to get us over to the marina right by the bridge and tied up to one of their docks and waited for the motor to cool down so that we could head back home and watch the rest of the Packer Game. The motor wouldn't start after several attempts over a period of time. Here we are nearly 8 miles from our van and boat trailer and we can't get the boat started.

Mona had her cell phone so she called one of our neighbors who was kind enough to pick John up and run him back to our vehicle. The marina had a boat launch, however it is not in the best condition. We got the boat on the trailer after a lot of effort but when we tried to pull the trailer out of the water the front wheels of the van only spun and wouldn't move. We had to push the boat back into the water and move the trailer out of the water a little more. The landing has a drastic 6 inch straight down drop that the trailer tires got stuck on.  Now there were no trailer rollers in the water so it was going to be a job getting the boat out.  We were lucky that there was a women who stopped to check out the area for fishing and a guy with a jet ski who wanted to launch showed up. After a good amount of effort from the four of us we got the boat on the trailer and this time the van had no problem pulling it out. (The motor started the next day after changing the spark plugs.)

Another Shawano Lake Large-Mouth

Of course I'm referring to the fish. Mona caught this nice Large-Mouth Bass last weekend on my favoirte spinner bait by Northland. Note: In case you were wondering - we only do C.P.R. on Bass and other large trophy game fish. This one should still be swimming around in the Lake until it grabs another lure.

Go Fly a Kite

This guy was out on Cecil Bay on Shawano Lake on Saturday January 16th. At one time he had 8 kites in the air (that we saw). I had a few videos (actually one or two better than this one) but I lost them somewhere in my gigabytes.

The first kite with the long tail is huge and I think very impressive. The last one at the end resembles an Eagle.

Don't remember if it was last year or the year before when Mona and I were out on the Lake we saw these same kites being pulled by a couple in a boat. (Trolling slowly of course.) Yesterday (as per Mona with the binoculars) said it looked like he had them tied to buckets. Sure wish I could find the other videos. If I do, I'll post one. (This particular video was shot with a Sony DSC-HX1 Digital Still Camera)

Fire On Ice on Shawano Lake is Back in 2010

The Fire On Ice Races are back on Shawano Lake again. I guess they started last Sunday. A couple of the photos below are from last week and a couple from today. I saw I was getting a few hits on searches for the event so I figured I take the time to throw a few more pics up here.

With the nice weather today the attendance was decent. I ran down to the Cecil end of the Lake with the 4-wheeler and parked for about 1/2 hour or so. Got parked in and had to ride the length of the track just to get out.

There was one spectator there all set up for tailgating with the card table and chairs out as well as the old Smokey Joe BBQ.

Hope to get a post or two in the future if everything turns out OK.

Shawano Lake and Surrounding Area Ice Conditions 2012

For anyone traveling to Shawano Lake for a little recreation here are the current Ice Conditions. Be Safe!

http://www.co.shawano.wi.us/departments/page_f300c0470471/?department=caa27d351746&subdepartment=aa9642ed0774

WOW! What a change in the Seasons...

What a change in Seasons. The last posting was from Route Lake in September (Labor Day Week) when we had 70 Degree weather in the far North.

What a difference. Although it may not look so bad in this photo we just got 13 inches of snow dumped in our driveway. Mona used the snowblower to open up a few areas as John used the ATV.

The ATV seems to be running better since we took it to Gillet to have it tuned up. We always wanted to hit the ATV trails and head up north toward Suring or Townsend but never got around to it. Seems like there's too many things going on.

I heard there's anywhere from 6-8 inches of Ice on Shawano Lake - at least on our end and we've been seeing good numbers of fishermen on the Lake as well as a few 4-wheelers. It won't be long and the Fire N Ice racers will be running again.

More Ice Racing on Shawano Lake - 2009

We stopped over by the races again today. I wanted to try to experiment more with video clips and my little pocket camera with the video option on it. I am more than satisfied with the results of the video as it was zoomed in more than I wanted to.

The race presented here was won by car number 43 who had the lead from the beginning. Temp's were around 40 degrees and this was probably the largest crowd I've seen at one of these races. You can see the results of the fine winter day with plenty of sunshine that brought about a lot of water on top of the ice. I'll bet those cars were pretty clean by the end of the race.

Ice Racing on Shawano Lake 2009

On Sunday, January 18, Mona and I stopped in at the Fire On Ice races on Shawano Lake on our way to drop of the computer at the computer place in Green Bay. (Our computer is sick again.)

The easiest access to the races is by the public boat launch in Cecil. The landing appeared to be in better shape this week than last week. There were all kinds of cars, trucks, ATV's and snowmobiles out there. Although I don't know much about them, the races have been held on Sunday afternoons again this year. This race was later in the afternoon and appears to only have four cars in it however, earlier races had more participants.

It's a good place to join the crowd and spend a Sunday afternoon. You can even get yourself a brat or hot dog as well as something to drink on the ice. You could even tune in on your car FM radio and keep up with what was going on as well as lap by lap information.

Toward the end of the video you can hear a lot of extra noise. There was a kid on a four wheeler next to me. Another lesson learned for in the future.

Shawano Lake Weed Cutter

I was leaving for work on Wednesday morning October 22, when I noticed a commotion down by the boat landing so I decided to check it out.

Pictured here is a crew that was loading up the weedcutter that had been parked in the Swan Acre landing on Shawano Lake for several months now. With the weed problem as bad as it is on the Lake the Lake Association has resorted to having them cut and removed. Some areas of the Lake have such a weed problem that its near impossible to get a motorized boat through it.

One More Cast... Then We'll Go

The sun is setting on another fishing season for us soft water anglers. Pictured here is John still trying to catch a fish after Mona caught and released the nice Largemouth below. With some luck - we might be able to get out one more time?

I'll Have a Gallon of Gas... To Go!

Mona returns from her walk to the gas station to buy a second gallon of gas.

(See - Last Fishing Trip 2008)

Huckleberry Boat Landing

Photo of Huckleberry Boat Landing downtown Shawano. Note the weed cutter used for cutting the weeds in the Lake in the center of the Photo. This is the landing we managed to get to when we ran the boat motor out of gas. We were able to tie up the boat on a tree next to the cutter.