Wisconsin Trip August 2025

[FSH 210 Sport]

I’ve been meaning to get this posted up for some time now but things kept getting in the way, and or I just didn’t feel like writing, and since I didn’t keep a journal it kept getting harder and harder to remember details, but I did take some pictures so that jogged my memory.

I waited a year to head back over to WI and see my friends Drewkaree and WiskyDan. Finally made that happen on July 31, 2025.

First things first… a couple days before I left I headed to the AIS inspection / abatement station to get my boat decontaminated with a seal on the bow eye and a receipt showing the date and time when it was done. The guys over at the Wyoming AIS are great and they have the correct equipment. Of the 6 states I have been to Wyoming is the state that has their act together in the AIS department.



July 31st
Got on the road 0500 hrs in rain showers that gave way to a great sunrise. I had 790 miles to go, but good tunes, great highways and great adventures ahead make the early morning drive even better.

I wonder how many of you Metallica fans know the reason that Metallica became famous was because of Dave Mustaine?


heading east on interstate 90 through South Dakota, this road is billiard table smooth! That changes as soon as you cross into MN…





I got to the cottage on a Thursday night after a 15 hour drive from my place which gave me all day Friday to get the boat out of long distance travel configuration and back into boating configuration and be prepared for the Sand Bar Bash on Saturday.


I rented the same lake side cottage that I rented last year, the owners, Sarah and Jason-awesome people, had made a few upgrades this year, the bedroom and bathroom windows had been replaced and they added a wall AC unit in the enclosed porch area which kept the place quite comfortable even when it got hot.. having said that, when I arrived the overnight lows were in the low 50’s. The neighborhood is secluded and quiet, at night its graveyard quiet and dark! Love that!

August 1st
First thing Friday morning I made coffee and enjoyed the view and tranquility of my lake front cottage..


Grabbed a shower and headed over to The Hotel Fremont for breakfast.


I ordered the Farmers omelette which is just fantastic!


Took in the view whilst waiting..


Heaven on a plate..


After breakfast time to put the wind screen back on the helm, put on the rag top, install the MFD and make up my fishing rods..








Know what’s so awesome about owning a trailer boat? Trailering it to different places and exploring!

I set the depth colors on my Humminbird SOLIX MFD for;
Red is 3’ or less
Yellow 3’-7’
Green 7’-12’
Blue above 12’

Lake Poygan


Lake Michigan by comparison.


I usually don’t have the colors set like that but the lakes over there are a lot shallower than what I’m used to at home and having the visual cues is great.

After getting the boat ready for the water and unpacking I went to dinner at The Bridge Bar on the river.. awesome burgers, fries and atmosphere.

August 2nd
Saturday morning came with calm winds and a trip back to the Hotel Fremont for breakfast.



I met up with Drewkaree and his wonderful wife later that morning and got my boat launched and tied up to Drewkaree’s neighbors dock. Several of Drewkaree’s family members were around in their boats and on dry land and I had offered to take folks over to the sandbar bash that needed a ride. While Drewkaree was playing master of ceremonies with various family members I took the opportunity to take my boat for a quick spin with the Leading Edge high altitude impellers I had installed, at home at 5000’ I was getting 7300 rpm out of them, on Lake Poygan and its 750’ elevation, WOW, 8000 rpm and smooth as silk and perfectly synchronized at WFO. It just ripped, powered through tight turns, man, I wish it ran like this at home! Got a phone call from Drewkaree as to my whereabouts and I headed back to the dock to pick up the BIL, Jay, for a ride over to the SBB. Once I got Jay in the boat I put him to work giving the deck a quick spritz to get the road grime off.

Just like last year there was a lot of boats, and a lot of people enjoying the day together.

This guy was here last year with his converted Semi Tractor boat..

When we got over to the sand bar, WiskyDan was there, and had us lined out on a great place to anchor up, great to chat with him in person again!










This year I brought enough burgers and fixins to feed everyone in our group.


Unfortunately one of the guys wife fell and hit her head on the transom of their boat that I was rafted up with. Not long after she became non responsive and they had to get going asap. @drewkaree went with them and called ahead and the paramedics were at the ramp when they pulled in, a life flight helo was either close by or already at a landing zone not far from the dock and she was airlifted to a nearby hospital. As a group everyone reacted without panic and everyone assumed a role that was helpful to get her the quickest care. @drewkaree extended thanks from her husband and to everyone else for helping out.

@drewkaree and his wife went to be with the family and I topped off the day with dinner at The Bus Stop Bar and my favorite bar maid Nicole, the busiest bar maid not even in show business.


This place gets packed on the weekends…full of great folks!


The have bar food here.. frozen pizza’s for one, these taste awesome!


That night there was a full moon with skies a bit obscured by the Canadian wildfires…


August 3rd
On Sunday the mood was understandably somber as we were all waiting on positive news from the hospital about the lady’s condition. Thankfully after a day of being non responsive she came around and within a couple of days was released from the hospital a bit banged up and with a very sore neck.

On Monday August 4th at the urging of my friend who had been up the thumb of WI when he worked for Volvo marine I made plans to go up to Sister Bay on Tuesday. He said I should run up the west side of the coast, aka The Thumb, and make a loop around Washington Island. This trip was not part of my original plan when I came out to WI this year and put me a bit out of my comfort zone, I had planned to go up to Algoma again and put in there and hit Lake Michigan for more Salmon fishing. I topped the boat off and got things set up to trailer my boat the three hour drive up to Sister Bay marina.

August 5th
I was up at 0330hrs the next morning and on my way by 0430hrs, the highways were in good shape with some construction zones along the way and some interesting sights along the way. As I got up into Door County proper I could see past the fog and how beautiful that area is, open area’s gave way to dense trees along the sides of the road.





I found my way to Sister bay Marina, a great marina with a nice launch ramp. I was totally unfamiliar with this area, this is Door County, a bit boujee and definitely affluent. It kind of reminded me of Monterey CA, a great place to take your girl and stay a few days.


A nice keep sake.


Had a nice chat with a couple of guys at the ramp who had a brought a big ass Boston Whaler over from their shop for a sea test. Turns out one of the guys had moved there from San Diego CA 25 years earlier and his only regret was not moving there sooner. I got my boat rigged up to hit the water, launched my boat and left it tied to the dock while I parked my truck and trailer across the street in the marina’s parking area.. I made my way out of the marina and out onto Green Bay, it was a beautiful morning although the smoke from the Canadian wild fires was pretty thick.. got a ways outside the marina and dropped he hammer to see how the boat would run on the almost flat water. Both tachs were above 8000 rpm and fuel consumption was 18.2-18.3 gph with the Leading Edge high altitude impellers. The book says 17.7 is the max gph so the engines were definitely topped out.

Man, I wish my engines ran like this at home..

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I dropped back to best cruise at 6000 rpm and headed north up the west side of the thumb of Wisconsin. There were high stone bluffs with trees, there were many mansions on the bluffs overlooking Green Bay, most had their own beaches and stairways down to the beach, others had boat docks and some had what looked like small marina’s with boat lifts. This is definitely where Robin Leeches friends live!

Insert pics of cruising up the west side of the thumb here..









I rounded the end of a peninsula and headed out towards Lake Michigan. I would later find out from WiskyDan this passage is known as Deaths Door. The water got rougher and I had to slow down a bit to deal with the 1-2’ rollers with the occasional 3’.

Porte des Morts - Wikipedia


I survived Deaths Door and headed over to Pilot Island, a historic light house is here marking the entrance to Deaths Door. The place is now home to A LOT of birds.. and it smelled really bad.

After leaving Pilot Island I was headed around the east side of Washington Island.. just beautiful.








Wrapped around Washington Island and headed down the east side on the Green Bay side. Beautiful waters.. and much warmer than the Lake Michigan side.






I was cruising along and saw a sport fishing boat going the opposite way I was going putting out all their fishing gear.. hmmm they must know something so I put out two down riggers and started trolling back. As I was crossing across Deaths Door on the way back I had a knock down and was able to put an 8 pound Salmon on the boat..






Trolled for quite a while after that on a beautiful afternoon, the smoke from the Canadian wildfires was pretty bad…

When I got close to Sister Bay I enjoyed more sport boating on the lake… so much fun being at low altitude and a little bit underpropped..

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

August 8th trip down to Winnebago

WiskyDan took Friday off work to be my tour guide around Lake Winnebago. I left early from Lake Poygan and headed towards Lake Winnebago.. seas were calm and so was the wind.

The plan was to make a full lap around Winnebago before heading back to Lake Poygan there in the upper left.


Insert video of running across Poygan on August 8th.

I picked up WiskyDan at the Rainbow Park fishing pier in OshKosh. What a totally beautiful area with great views and a really nice park. I was taking in so much of the view that I cruised right past WiskyDan and he had to call me on the phone.. what a Derp!
Insert pics of the area where I picked up Dan at Rainbow Park Fishing Pier

From the there we headed down the Fox River towards Winnebago

Approach to the OshKosh Train draw bridge with WiskyDan at the helm

Passing under the draw bridge with WiskyDan at the helm

When we got past the draw bridge we decided to head down the western side of Winnebago and just follow the shore line and look at all the scenery and lake front properties along the way, we figured we’d stop at the south end at Fond Du Lac. For those not familiar this is Mercury Marines test lair.

I didn’t get very many pictures on the day at Winnebago, guess I was too busy being in the moment and driving the boat.






When we got down towards Fond Du Lac we got into an area where the grass on the lake bottom was exceptionally tall, I turned away from the grass but it was too late, pretty soon I could hear the engines speed up a bit and the boat was slowing down so I cut power and shut the engines off. I put the trolling motor in and turn on spot lock and began pulling all the grass out of the clean outs. This was the first time in the 5 years I’ve owned the boat where I had to stop and clear the jet pumps of grass. I’d say I spent about 20-30 minutes clearing the grass with WiskyDan keeping an eye on things. While I was clearing grass out of the pumps the wind was starting to come up and WiskyDan suggested we forgo stopping in at Light House Harbor and start heading back.

The lake was definitely getting rough as we cruised up the east side of the lake with some 2 and 3’ rollers in a head sea with a little confusion tossed in, we just kept the speed down and were enjoying the ride. Somewhere north of Deadwood point in about 9’ of water and at least 500 yards from shore Dan and I felt a whump on the bottom of the boat. Me, with the most brilliant question of the year, WTF was that? Dan-I don’t know. We kept on cruising along and the bilge pumps didn’t come on so I figured it was about as good as it could get with no hole ripped in the bottom and the bilge flooding. Definitely running with a tight ass after that LOL!

On the way back in the OshKosh train bridge was up and we passed through without a wait.

On the way back to Rainbow Park fishing pier passing under Jackson Street bridge

I dropped Dan off at the Rainbow Park fishing pier and I was headed back to Lake Poygan. When I got to Lake Butte Des Morts I stopped for a snack and a swim and checked the hull out in about 6’ of water. I couldn’t see anything in the tea like water, and couldn’t feel anything either as I checked the entire hull. Kicked back on the helm had a lunch of salami and cheese sticks and went for a couple more swims in the warm water before heading back.

The next morning I checked the bottom of the boat and found some longitudinal lines on the bottom, slight indentations but no sharp edges. I think it was a mat off of the bottom that had floated up with the rough water.. still made my ass slam shut!

August 9th was pretty windy so no outings

So Drewkaree takes me over to Hans for a happening and to meet up with his family, the famous BIL’s SIL’s and such.. first we encounter Joel at the bar, Joel is a big guy and he’s clearly been enjoying himself at the bar for some time.. after the usual pleasantries Joel starts flipping me a bunch of guff, all in good fun and everyone is laughing and having fun with it… our little party leaves to go find a fish fry and libation. We come back to the campground where the extended family has their RV’s circled up and enjoy a campfire with more libations and a thirst for talk.. shortly after arriving, the wife character and her two brothers head off to the bar in the golf cart for poppers and a game of chance.. a while later they return, the BIL’s with full solo cups that were probably a fire hazard with their level of booze to mix ratio.. and lo, Joel is cradling some sort of high end booze in a 1/5 th container of glass.. as Joel makes his way past the SIL’s and the camp fire, his foot hooks on a dog cot in the dark annnnnd he’s down on his face in the dirt. His wife casually looks up from her phone and passively asks if he is okay…a groan is all that heard, Jay’s wife who is a nurse walks over to triage the downed big man and gets him rolled over onto his back, he’s still clutching the bottle of fun, his brother Jay in a moment of sheer compassion asks whether or not the bottle of good times got broken in the fall, gotta love brotherly love. After the nurse walks away I walk over and ask the still prone Joel if he wants me to get him a blanket and pillow so he can just spend the night there. Joel says I’m not very nice, I told him, well you should have thought about that when you flipped me all that guff when I first met you… Joel laughs.. about this time his apple watched starts emitting an alarm sound. Joels asks what that noise is, I tell him its your watch.. Joel is baffled, wants to know why its doing that, I say, dude its your watch you should know what that is. Eventually the watch stops making noise and brother Jay comes over to help him get up off the ground. So, we’ve got one guy who is annihilated on the ground, and another equally annihilated going to assist his brother who is bigger than he is getting up. I should have gotten out my phone for this darn it. As the big guy sort of gets his legs under him the two go off balance and accelerate backwards in rapid fashion before they both end up on the ground. More groans, now from both of them. Eventually the ship gets righted and both Joel and Jay are seated once again with the amount of effort that I’m sure felt like the lone warrior reporting to Marathon felt. About this time I see the 5 Oh rolling up to the bar which is about 50 yards away.. hmmm. Shortly thereafter a lady comes by in a golf cart and wants to know if someone had a problem with a watch.. I immediately turn to Joel and say “hey! Nice going, your Apple Watch called the cops and now there here because you fell and couldn’t get up”. Joel says well I didn’t know, I said, well, its your watch this is your fault. So the wife character leaves with the newly arrived lady to smooth things over with the local constabulary. Shortly thereafter Joel’s phone rings, its his neighbor from Milwaukee who is in a panic because he too got the I’ve fallen and can’t get up alert from Joel’s watch. This is something right out of a movie.

It occurs to me in a flash in striking detail that Drewkaree and his extended family could have their own TV show. I saw it all in an instant, the show could visit each household at home, then when everyone is in Fremont on the weekends, the show would be called Fremont of course. This little story doesn’t include all of the “interesting” stuff I’ve learned about what goes on in the little village of Fremont as well.. who would have thought? These people are hoot to hang out with! Can’t wait to get back there!

August 10th
Severe thunderstorms were forecast and barely missed Poygan but hit Milwaukee very hard with lots of urban flooding..








The struggle is real….


Went down to Fremont and saw Amish vegetable stand with honor system pay.. it’s so nice to be in a place where an honor system can still work!

Insert pics of the flatbed with the Amish vegetable stand












But thankfully those storms didn’t impact the VFW bbq !

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

August 11th
Rain day… I decided to stay a few extra days because I really wanted to fish Lake Michigan again, and the weatherman had said that the weather was going to improve over the next few days so I made a plan to put in at Sturgeon bay and fish for a day on LM. I managed to get a couple of pics of the bottom of the boat.. pretty hard to see the lines but they are there.





August 12th
Went and checked out blue top to possibly stay there as they have their own little marina off of partridge lake. I thought I had taken pics of this place but apparently I did not.. really nice campground with some cottages to rent, nice RV spots and docking space with electric hook ups to charge the batteries.



Went and checked out a few local tourist shops in Fremont.







Then off to a place that had ribs for dinner..



Went to take a leak and saw this dispenser above the urinal.. haven’t seen one of those in a while..

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

August 13th
Trip to Lake Michigan.. sturgeon bay

Up at 0330hrs and on the road to Sturgeon Bay.. the weatherman was spot on, and the day dawned clear and looked like a stunning day ahead.






The great thing about putting in at Sturgeon Bay is that if winds are easterly you can head out onto Green Bay and the waters will be calm and 20* warmer than Lake Michigan, and if the winds are westerly you can head out onto Lake Michigan and the waters will be relatively calm although you’re still going to get some decent ground swell.

I wish I would have taken some pictures of Sawyer Park boat launch.. it’s a great facility with a fish cleaning station and lots of room to park with a great boat launch that is sheltered.

Here’s some pics heading out towards LM, the big boats were moving right a long and I was just trying to stay out of the way and not be “the new guy” or “that guy”. I pulled to the side a couple of times and followed the big boats out. The water in Sturgeon Bay was roughly 74*, the water in the ship channel was 52*… the temp difference between where I had been and where I was going was so much cooler my tachs were fogging up a little bit.





The ship channel leading to Lake Michigan..



USCG station and light house at the mouth of the ship channel.







Once clear of the ship channel I was able to start cruising out to 130’ of water which is where the owner of the lake house rental had told me to go. There was a fog bank out a ways, the water was smooth except for a bit of a ground swell.

As I got out to 130’ of depth I was running into some pretty dense fog so I stopped and got my tackle set up to start trolling. As I was getting my stuff ready I heard voices pretty clear and a fishing boat came out of the fog about 50 yards away. I got set up and started trolling along the 130’ contour line. After about 20 minutes or so the fog started to lift, in another 10 minutes I got a strike and the drag was screaming! I slowed the boat down to .5 mph and got the pole in my hands and watched the level wind bar bouncing back and forth as line was getting ripped off of the reel. After about 350’ of line had gotten pulled off I started to slowly increase the drag and got the fish to slow down and eventually stop pulling more line off. It was some time before I could start getting some of the line back in. When I had gotten about half the line back in that the fish had taken it made another run and was pulling very hard so I loosened the drag a bit and let it run, it pulled about 150’ of line off before it slowed down and I put a bit more drag into the reel and slowly started getting the fish to the boat. It came up to the surface about 200’ behind the boat and I could see it was a good size fish. I kept working the fish towards the boat, when it got close I grabbed the net with my right hand and stepped onto the lowest swim step and leader’d the fish up to the boat and got the next under it and then lifted then net with both hands and got the fish inside the boat..



That fish weighted 18 pounds 8 ounces! What an exciting catch! All in all it took about 30 minutes to get that fish on the boat.

I got everything secured and started trolling again and manage to catch a 5 pound fish and that would be it for the day.





I trolled for another 8 hours before calling it a day.

Later in the day there was a lot of big fishing boats that came out..





Everyone was super friendly and everyone on board was waving like they had just seen their long lost friend.

I left the boat ramp around dusk and got back to the lake house around midnight again and got in bed about 0100 hours.. a 22 hour day. Man, thats a long ass day. A friend of mine works nights so I called him on the way home to talk with so I wouldn’t get drowsy..

The next day was August 14th, I slept late, went to the Fremont Hotel again and had a big breakfast with a lot of coffee. I spent the rest of the day packing up and getting the boat ready to travel and cleaned up the house a little bit.

August 15th and I was up at 0330 again for the drive home. The weather was good, no wind and clear skies.



At one of my stops I made a long very easy slow down and checked the hub temps ( I checked them on the way out too but didn’t take any pics) as soon as I stopped I got out and took temp readings on the hubs. This was the most consistent temperatures I saw as well as the lowest.





I attribute that to the brake caliper maintenance, hub maintenance and pressure blending the brakes.

As I got close to home the skies clouded up a bit but there was no rain.



After driving the 800 miles I was kinda tired but a good tired. Thanks again to my hosts @drewkaree and @WiskyDan for hanging out with me and having a great time! I’ve already got plans going to get back over there this next year!

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I write these trip posts to share my trip with others and to hopefully inspire everyone to take advantage of owning a trailer boat. When I was young my folks took me on a lot of traveling adventures, sometimes we stayed in a tent and dry camped, other times we took our small Zenith travel trailer. We made weekend trips and longer trips during summer vacation, as my Dad used to say, let’s go see the country. It’s not that hard to do, sure it takes some work and some prep but you don’t need as much as you think you do. There are so many beautiful places to see in our country, and even more lakes and rivers that can be explored by boat.

Get out there this summer and do something out of your comfort zone, take your boat to a new body of water and experience places you haven’t been before.

Fortune Favors the Bold
Admiral Pit