The elusive "Sander vitreus vitreus"

I leave for WI this Monday. Then I head up to the Rainbow Flowage in Lake Tomahawk on Friday for a week of fishing, drinking, smoking, cards, music, horseshoes, family and friends and the outdoors...UP NORTH Wisconsin! And this is what I'm going fishing for - Walleye. Lake fish - it's a white fish. 15 inch limit - 3 per day, per man. We bait fish - worms and minnows. Cast and jig. Best lake-water fish you can eat. Believe me - I've fried it for dozens of people from Iowa to California and NO ONE has ever complained. We fish twice a day - late morning and early evening. Sometimes we go early morning (my brother does). Mostly we sleep in. Sometimes we get a late start for the early evening fishing 'cause we run into town for minnows around 2 p.m and then stop into a bar for beer and brandy old-fashioned sweets (go ahead, click this link), put a few bucks in the jukebox, order a pizza and talk and laugh. It's vacation, remember?

Ahhh...the outdoors. I'm in desperate need of this sojourn. Tranquility. Peace. Nature. This IS God's Country.

Of the three weeks I'm gone, the fishing trip is the true vacation. Otherwise, I'm running around visiting family and friends in Wisconsin, Chicago and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This big flowage in the upper right corner is the Rainbow. The 2,035-acre flowage with a maximum depth of 28 feet is located in northern Oneida County. The Wisconsin River runs right through the center of it - it was dug out in the 1920's.

A 2007 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report on fishing the Rainbow. Family friend Dave Hranicka's grandfather first came to Lake Tomahawk when Dave was just a kid (he's in his 50's now). Dave's father had property - and now Dave owns that same land. Yep - we've had pretty near 20 years of some great fishing up at the Rainbow. Good times. Good times are had by all.

Oops. That's not - that...that belongs somewhere else. Sorry. Dammit.

Where were we? Ahh...yes, the Rainbow. The Great Outdoors. Up North in Wisconsin. Don't get any better than that, does it?