After reading about Tony Rizzo in the late 1980's, and talking with fellows that had fished with him, going musky fishing with him as my guide was my dream. But I never had the chance until 2003. About mid-summer of that year I called to find out if the weekend of June 12th and 13th of 2004 would be available, since the 13th was my fiancee's birthday. The weekend was open, so I made reservations for myself, my fiancee, Ann, and her brother, Sam,  to stay at the Star Lake Resort and spend Saturday the 12th fishing with Tony.
    On Friday, the 11th, we hooked up my 18 foot Starcraft and headed for Star Lake. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my fishing trips tend to get a bit memorable, and this was no exception. Around Wausau, WI, we missed a turnoff, and things just kept getting better from there. We did get on the right track relatively quickly, and arrived at the resort around 4pm Friday afternoon. We started unloading the car when the next incident occurred. At the time I was being treated for allergies and asthma, and when I went to unload my medicine container from the car it wasn't there! You could say I went into a bit of a panic about then. Actually, it was much more than a bit. I was ready to jump in the car and drive two hours back to Waupaca to get my meds, and was running around like an idiot. Luckily, Sam gave out a yell that they were in the cabin. In the excitement of the trip, I had already unloaded the stuff and promptly forgot about doing it. Situation #2 now under control.
    It wasn't long after that the radio announced that a severe thunderstorm was headed our way. That was the understatement of the day. It's a rather helpless feeling when trees are bending and breaking all around, the wind is howling like a banshee, and you don't have any place to take shelter. We all came though the storm in one piece, but that couldn't be said for the area around Star Lake. There were trees down, the power was out for quite a while, and there were branches and leaves scattered all over. Once things settled down, we  made our plans with Tony after dinner, and found that he would only take two people at a time with him in his boat. So we decided that Ann and I would go out with Tony in the morning, and Sam and I would go out in the afternoon. That decided, it was off to bed.
    Early Saturday morning we met up with Tony and he asked if we wanted to fish for trophies or just catch muskies. Since I had already had caught a legal musky, and my guests hadn't, I told Tony we would go for quantity instead of quality. So we headed for Irving Lake, a lake that the DNR stocked for the purpose of catching muskies, although Tony warned us that they would most likely all be under legal size. But it did give a newcomer to the sport the thrill of at least catching a musky even if they couldn't keep it.
    About 15 to 20 minutes later we arrived at the boat landing and Tony proceeded to launch the boat and we headed out. Tony, of course, was in back, I had the middle seat, and Ann had the front. When we arrived at the area we were to fish, Tony rigged up a sucker to keep just behind the boat in case any follows might decide to sample it instead of a lure. We were lucky to even have any live suckers, since the power outage the night before cost Tony most of his supply of bait since the aerators in his bait tanks weren't working. But over the side went the sucker, and we proceeded to start casting as we slowly made our way around the lake.
    The lake we were on was full of wild rice, and being early spring, it was just beginning to emerge from its winter slumber. Luckily it was still deep enough so you didn't get snagged on every cast, but yet still offered good cover for muskies and anything else that was in the lake. It didn't take too long and I had a fish on. I got it up the the boat and it was a nice Tiger Musky, about 28-30 inches long. The legal limit being 32 inches, we unhooked and released it. It wasn't much longer after that I had another fish about the same size and released it as well. Shortly after I caught my 3rd fish, folks in another boat yelled over at Tony and asked him why I was the only one catching any fish! By 11am, I had landed 6 muskies and poor Ann hadn't even had a strike. It was time to head back to the resort for lunch and then head out in the afternoon. Since I had caught 6 fish already, I figured that I already had gotten my money's worth out of the trip and said that I would stay back at the cottage and go out on Star Lake in my boat while Ann and Sam went back out with Tony.
    Tony dropped us off by our cabin and we had a bit of lunch. Shortly after eating, I got ready to head out on Star Lake in my own boat. I wanted to take along a sucker but had forgotten to bring along a minnow bucket. I figured I could try to contact Tony at his house, but he wasn't there. His daughter was home, and after explaining my predicament to her, she told me to go ahead and take a bucket stored by the bait tanks and take whatever I needed for suckers. So I got a couple of suckers and the bucket, and headed back to the cabin to see Ann and Sam off. It wasn't long before Tony picked them up. I wished them luck, then headed out onto Star Lake, where I spent a lazy afternoon on the water, not really caring if I caught anything or not. About the time Ann and Sam were due back, I headed for the landing.
    After Tony dropped them off, they laughingly told me of their interesting afternoon. They had decided to go for walleyes instead of muskies, so Tony took them to another lake. Tony backed down the landing and floated the boat off. As he pulled away, he asked Sam, "Did you grab the rope?" Sams' reply was just perfect for our trip, "What rope?". Muttering under his breath, Tony stripped to his shorts and waded into the not too warm water to retrieve the boat. Sam was worried that Tony was "mad at him" because he was doing a bit of swearing while in the water. But it worked out OK, and although they didn't land any fish, they did have some on but lost them when it appeared that the lines were cut by teeth. But the best was yet to come. They started telling me about the old, dilapidated plastic minnow bucket they had to use for their bait. While getting some minnows out, the cover broke off the bucket and started floating away. Tony told them, "I had a real nice minnow bucket, but I can't find it." Sam asked Tony, "Was it a metal one?" It turned out that the bucket I had taken was the one Tony normally used. I started laughing, but was a bit worried as well. The bucket in question was in MY boat. So I went to Tony and explained what happened, and in the end we all had a good chuckle over the incident, and there were no hard feelings, although I did feel a bit sheepish.
    Ann made the remark that she didn't think Tony would forget us, and wouldn't be surprised if we didn't give him some ideas for a paragraph (or chapter) or two in his next book. And Sam got me back that Christmas by giving me a nice shiny metal minnow bucket so I wouldn't have to borrow one the next time I went fishing. But I get a chance to get even once in a while by telling the story of "What Rope?" The two stories have become part of the history of our families now.
    The following morning, we decided to go back to Irving Lake to see if Ann and Sam could connect with a fish or two. We got to the lake and went to the approximate area we had fished the previous morning. Since I had already caught 6 muskies, I figured that I would experiment with different lures just to see what would happen. It didn't take long before I found out by hooking another musky. Releasing that one, I figured on trying a surface lure to see what happened. A few casts later, a nice musky came out of the water, arched over and grabbed the lure on the way down. "Hey, I got another one!" was my excited reply. And I changed lures again. It wasn't long before I had ANOTHER musky landed  and released. Sam by now had finally caught and released a nice tiger, though like the others, was just shy of being legal. Ann still hadn't connected. I caught two more fish, and suddenly had two voices telling me to stop fishing and give them a chance. That said, I couldn't help but agree. Sam had a couple of follows but didn't land anymore fish. Then the directional controls on my bow mounted trolling motor went out, although the motor still ran. So, some tape and a stick from shore soon got us somewhat back in business.
    Finally, about a half-hour before we had to pack it up and head home, Ann had a strike and hooked her fish. But, we never got to see how big it was. After five to ten minutes of fighting it, her line went slack. But, instead of breaking the line, one of the hooks on the lure had been straightened out. It was my opinion that she probably had a decent sized, legal fish on, but not seeing it, we will never know. So even though she hadn't landed a fish, she did have an exciting weekend, as we all did. We don't know if Tony remembered us and our trip, but we certainly remembered the fun we had with him, and even now, six years later, we still talk about it. And of course, "Where's the rope?" is usually the first thing that comes out of our mouths!
    I hope that you enjoyed the continuing stories of our fishing trips, as there will be more to come in the days and weeks ahead.

Jaymz