Take A Vet Fishing

[hooah212002]

Is anyone at Bassresource involved with this program? Just curious if I will see anyone there in a couple weeks or better yet, get paired up with one of you guys.

 

http://takeavetfishing.com/

 

[Gatorbassman]

Too far of a drive for me. 

[Grizzn N Bassin]

I'm not a part of it but I did take both of my uncles out who are vets and fished.. good times !

[clayton86]

J Francho took me before I came a vet jut before I left but he just did it to do it had a blast

[Fishes in trees]

I've done the Fishing for Freedom project the past couple of years.  The one I've participated in is sponsored by the Leavenworth Bass Club, and fishes out of Long Shoal Marina on Truman Lake.  It is one of the more centrally located marinas on Truman Lake, with excellent facilities  The next one is scheduled for October, 2013 on the Sunday prior to Columbus Day.  There is still plenty of time to sign up, which one would do by going to the Leavenworth Bass Club web site and clicking on the Fishing for Freedom web site.

 

I'm not a member of this club, but I think that this is a good project that they sponsor.  I've had fun the past couple of years that I participated.  Weather could have been better last year, it was chilly in the morning.

 

I'm signed up to participate again this fall, I'm pretty certain that anyone who signs up will have a good time.  

Plus you'll get to take some vet fishing.  This is something for anyone who lives within driving distance of Truman Lake to consider, if you can get the time off.   All it takes is gas & motel money.  Meals for Saturday & Sunday are covered by the Leavenworth Bass Club,

[MarkH024]

I would love to participate and take someone on my boat, even you Hooah.    Unfortunately for me, we're having my twins 1st birthday party on that day so I'm stuck in IL that weekend. If you go, let us know how it turns out. I bet it will be a great event.

[hooah212002]

I would love to participate and take someone on my boat, even you Hooah.    Unfortunately for me, we're having my twins 1st birthday party on that day so I'm stuck in IL that weekend. If you go, let us know how it turns out. I bet it will be a great event.

 

I am going and I already plan on a detailed write up. I was just hoping someone here knew something about it so I had an idea what I am getting into. There are a few aspects that I am leery about, but my investigation of them leads nowhere. We shall see, I suppose.

[slonezp]

How did it go? I will definitely volunteer my boat next year. Madison is less than a 2 hour drive from here and a 1/2 hour from our property in the Dells. 

[hooah212002]

The event went off without a hitch. There was a huge thunderstorm in the forecast, as well as cloudy overcast conditions (in hindsight, I wish it was overcast as the fish would have cooperated more). Instead, we got a beautiful day with perfect weather (aside from the wind). I did not expect it to be as big of a deal as it was, but there were 70+ vets that attended. My "guide" was Lance Waite (they paired the vets with a volunteer with a boat). Most all of the other guides were actual professional guides, so it did them a good bit of public relation to do this event and get their name out there. Lance was just a volunteer. Just a guy with a boat that offered his services. He gained nothing from this except the knowledge that he did something good. Kudos to you, Lance. He was an excellent guide and a gracious host for me, a non-boater who has virtually no boating sense or knowledge (I found out I had NO idea how to drop a trolling motor. They taught me though). He brought along his good friend Don who is a Lake Link aficionado and did our best to get on the fish. 

 

Now for the underwhelming fishing report. I got first fish of the day, but it was not at all picture worthy and I assumed we would be nailing 'em all day (based on MY confidence alone, we would have won all tournaments for all of WI ever even though this was an event, not a tourny). The lake seemed to be in the midst of turning over and was very green and mucky on one end, the first side we fished. The carp were having a freakin blast all over the lake, though. We then went to what I believe they call mud lake (note: Waubesa is the southernmost lake in the Madison chain) which was just the northern part of the lake and it was bass/pike heaven. I hooked into a decent bass on a rage toad burning it across a group of lily pads (first topwater fish of the year, heck yea!), but I lost him when he made a run towards me. The muck got thicker and my rage toad kept turning over due to bad rigging, so I tied on my spro. I got another hit on that coming off yet another set of lily's but I yanked it away from the fish too soon. Lance caught a nice little 2-3 pounder on a frog of his own shortly after that. That was all the action for while. We did notice A LOT of dead crappie and bluegill floating around. We then went to a weed patch and floated through it. I tossed my nice dual willow white/chart War Eagle (my ONLY spinnerbait) and hooked something tooty first cast. It breached the surface and I reel in empty line. There is now a toothy fish with my spinnerbait in his face roaming around badgering carp. And that was basically it for any luck fishing. We hit a drop off towards the middle of the lake, but the only thing we accomplished was me picking out a backlash and completely negating to realize where my line was going in relation to the boat and ended up getting A LOT of it tangled in the prop. Kudo's again to Lance for being able to pick that out and having the patience of a thousand monks while doing so.

 

We headed in at around 1100, along with all other boats. As a note, they launched I think 45 boats in approximately an hour that morning. I doubt my picture of the launch in the morning does that any justice. What followed was a very well put together picnic with free hot dogs, brats, burgers, pop, chips and even a keg. They raffled off a bunch of items, to include a St. Croix rod donated by St. Croix as well as.....a week long all expense paid guide trip to Temple Bay lodge in Canada. They even included picking you up with that package. You paid NOTHING. Suffice to say, I am very jealous of the guy that won that.

 

A big THANK YOU (if any of them read this) to the VOLUNTEERS that helped put this together. That's right, everything was volunteer driven. The food, pop and beer was donated. The people that organized it did so out of their own good graces. At the top of it all was Jay Garstecki who did an excellent job making it all happen. 

 

I WILL be attending next year and I implore any of you to do so as well. It was an excellent time.

 

(please note that I never know what to take pictures of and I viewed this as a fishing trip, not the event that it was. I was genuinely shocked at what it turned out to be so I really did not realize what was truly going on around me until I got home. I apologize to all for not capturing what a big, special event this was)