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Hello, friends,

This past week I spent six days with friends and family camping at Wilderness County Park, which is located on the Petenwell Flowage in northern Juneau County.

Thursday, July 3

High 83, Low 52

My 47th birthday was yesterday, and I spent it here in camp with my stepson Joey and my daughter Selina.

This morning I was up at 4:30 a.m., and by 5:30 I was trolling for walleye with my old pal, Harold “The Wildman” Moll.

The Petenwell is the second-largest lake in Wisconsin, and over the course of the next four hours, we only saw four other boats on the water. I hope it always stays that way.

The Wildman and I did not exactly put a big hurting on the local walleye population and really did not care. The Molls, Harold and Ann, are camped next to us and for the next five days, and Selina would get up between 5 and 7 each morning and go snuggle with Ann.

Our trip to Wilderness Park was spent with plenty of friends and lots of time around the campfire and at the beach as well as in the boat. This morning, after returning from our fishing experience, my friend Jody “Big Elk” Bigalke and his 7-year-old daughter “Tess” made it to camp for what would be Tess’ first camping trip. The girls played all day long, and this afternoon we went trolling for walleye and had very little luck until we anchored on a drop-off that went from 6 feet to 27 feet of water depending on what end of the boat you were sitting in.

We had action almost instantly, and Tess caught the big fish of the outing, which was a flathead catfish that weighed maybe four pounds.

Saturday, July 5

High 82, Low 53

Our gang headed over to New Miner today along with about a thousand other people for there annual Fourth of July celebration. It always makes me feel proud to be an American when I see the veterans marching and the fun created by a bunch of hard-working volunteers.

Wilderness Park is a highly respected campground that has been around forever, and today I stopped by to visit what I believe are the oldest seasonal campers to annually camp at Wilderness Park.

Vernie Prust of Necedah, Grace McCarthy of New Miner and their sister Erna Rohrschneider of Beaver Dam are 81, 77 and 88 years young. These gals love spending each weekend at their campsite and told me that when their seasonal permit ends after Labor Day Weekend a tear comes to their eyes when they know it will another nine months before they return.

Monday, July 7

High 79, Low 53

Today my 18-year-old stepson Kevin Dushek and his buddy Bryan Bethe came to camp for a 24-hour visit that was supposed to include a night on the water catfishing. A thunderstorm put a halt to that at the boat launch, and that was a bummer because Bryan had driven up from Milwaukee just for this experience.

Joey, Kevin and Bryan decided to try fishing from shore and put a hurting on a bucketful of slab-crappie and even landed about four walleye.

Well after dark, each of the boys took turns filleting their catch and I fried them up with nothing on the side. We ate until we could eat no more and the next day broke camp and headed home.

The night we got home we launched the boat on the Wisconsin River and caught some more fish.

Live large! Sunset.