Wisconsin Tacomas and bad financial advice

No. I'm not sure.....it's no leech like I've ever seen but......I didn't get a good look at it's head.
When I pulled it off it is slimy af and came off fairly easy. Makes me wonder if the bass was trying to eat it and it slipped out his gill?

Edit: After looking at some images, it probably was a lamprey....never seen one before today.

 

I didn't even realize we had lamprey in Wisconsin until a few years ago.

I actually had one attach to my kayak on the Chippewa River a few years ago. I pulled up on an island, and heard something flopping around underneath. I looked and a lamprey was swimming out from under the kayak. They're gross, horrible creatures!

 

Ya. This Chippewa River carries some species not found in the Wisconsin River (that I'm use to)...over by Lincoln and Marathon Counties.

Edit: "They're gross, horrible creatures!"
Didn't stop me from wading around knee deep in the river, with just some old shoes and shorts on. lol
Had a snapper and a beaver both float by and check me out. fuggers...

 

I liked the part when your son says, "Relax, we'll make it."

 

Back in my younger days fishing Lake Michigan it was not uncommon to get a fish in the boat with a lamprey on it, mostly on Lake Trout. Sometimes the lamprey would detach itself. Then the fun would begin.

 

Yeah, the Chippewa has been one of the most interesting places to fish for me. One day, with the kayak beached on a sandy point where two channels converge, I caught catfish, sheepshead, walleye, sucker, SM bass, and sturgeon all in the same spot, on the same bait. After bragging to my brothers, we tried there again a few weeks later and caught... NOTHING!

I'm not afraid to wade in there, either. The only thing I won't wade in is anything with a muck bottom. Oh, and I'm a little paranoid wading in saltwater after seeing this while wading on the Sanibel Causeway...



Funny coincidence: the Sanibel Causeway is also where I pulled this off a catfish:




Come to think of it, that's also where this happened:




You'd think by now I'd have no interest in fishing the Causeway. But, I look forward to getting back there sometime.

 

Looks like the smoke/haze has left the chat. It wasn't that clear 3 weeks ago. That drive is really awesome, and the road is wide enough to let you take in the views without any issue.

 

I have no idea where he comes up with some of that stuff..............

 

Did everyone remember to flip the calendar.

 

I'll avoid muck without waders.
The Prairie River going through Merrill was a lot wider before they tore down the dam. It was a dam from the old Ward Papermill. The mill closed in the 80's. Nobody wanted to keep up the dam anymore, so they took it out...

Fishing was better, then. We had a pedal boat that I'd take out with a couple buddies and fish all day.
In the shallow spots one buddy just got out and pushed.....Up to his frickin' arse in muck in one spot and it didn't even phase him....lol

 

Behold the LC80, in its natural habitat.

 

I’m still recovering from when I first learned about lampreys living in Lake Michigan. Had to be in third or fourth grade in the science textbook. Short little blurb about lampreys with a picture like this

Of course, no information in the book to give a sense of scale. So for the longest time I imagined these things to be huge monsters roaming about. I seemed to remember thinking why everybody was living their normal lives, totally unconcerned these things were lurking around in Lake Michigan. Then I found out they aren’t actually man sized monsters lol. Either way, disgusting.

















…oh FFS, I thought they were smaller than this! Now this picture shows up!

NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!!!

 

Update: no service for a while. Buck to service. Exhausted so more later. Did a trail into the Snake River-4500 vertical in 6 miles. Terrifying, narrow and steep

 

Pics or it didn’t happen!

 

Aaahhh!!! Burn it! Burn it with fire!!!



Kidding aside, the one the latched onto my kayak was probably about a foot long.

 

I believe @Pixeltim and/or @Stoney Ranger have talked about this place before, either here or around a fire. Interesting Madison stop...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLgZXpFvrDp/?igsh=MWJ4eGxvODA1Ymg1dA==

 

Had a nice day on the kayak to cap off this weekend. Put in a small lake in Adams County. Nothing spectacular, but I got a few bass, including a healthy 17-18".



My favorite thing was probably seeing a bunch of small turtles hanging out on a weed mat.



Shells were probably ar 4-5", so probably a year or two old.

 

Aye, that it is! It’s not for everyone, mind you!

ETA: it appears they’ve really updated the place in the last 40 or so years!

 

This is good to see.