Hello, friends. Today marked the start of 11 days of living on the edge, in terms of time, money and outdoor experience. My stepson, Joey Dushek and I will spend 20 hours living in my boat on Lake Mendota.

Next, all the kids and myself will spend about 36 hours celebrating Harold “the Wildman” Moll’s 70th birthday with many of his family members and friends.

On Sunday morning, Joey and I will get up and head north of the Canadian border to partake in Joey’s first bear hunt.

On Thursday night, Joey and I will head back to Wisconsin and stop at Moose Jaw Resort for a three-day pit stop, where I will fish musky in a tournament with about 20 of my friends and family members.

When we return home, I will have dumped a good $800 worth of gas in the truck.

We will both be dead-dog tired, will have had a blast with a whole bunch of people and hopefully will be dropping off a bear head at my taxidermist.

Thursday, Aug. 14

High 76, low 53

Spending an afternoon and then a night and the following morning in my boat while fishing on Madison’s Lake Mendota is an experience that I really enjoy each August.

This afternoon, Joey and I launched my 16-foot boat at Warner Park and thus our experience began.

My plan, which would last until about 11 the following morning, would first have us fishing bluegill by drifting off from Dunn’s Bar. Next we would troll for whatever was hungry with crankbaits and nightcrawler harnesses. After dark, we would anchor and fish with nightcrawlers and cut bait and sleep in the boat. The next morning, we would troll or fish for panfish.

The Madison lakes still have a 500-foot no wake rule, but once we had traveled just about two football fields, Joey and I headed toward Dunn’s Bar and I was feeling pretty good about the next 20 hours.

Beautiful skies and just a slight north wind greeted us as we began drifting in 10 feet of water and heading south toward the Capitol and much deeper water.

Both Joey and I were fishing vertical with 1/32-ounce jigs tipped with a small piece of crawler. This method has been successful for us in the past and hopefully would be today.

It did not take long and we were over 50 feet of water and off to the south, I could see thunderstorms building.

The north wind picked up. Joey caught five fish — a couple of gills, two stripers, a smallmouth bass and a dandy largemouth bass.

The storm passed, the wind picked up and I made a foolish decision to make what I believe is about a five-mile boat ride to University Bay.

When I was kid, my neighbor, Richard Elsing, used to take me perch fishing in that area, and I just wanted to see it for old times sake.

The boat ride over was a dandy. It was too windy to fish in the bay and the boat ride back to Warner Bay was one where I was real happy my bilge pump was working.

As soon as we returned to Warner Bay, we rigged up for trolling and had almost instant success that made me wish we had never left. We kept several striped bass for cut bait and caught catfish and crappie as well (striped bass are excellent eating as long as they are iced) and before we knew it darkness had replaced daylight.

We anchored over about 7 feet of water, lit two Coleman lanterns and put out three poles with nightcrawlers and two with pieces of striper fillet.

While Joey was filleting the striper, he dared me to eat a piece of the fillet raw. I did and I’m telling you it did not taste half bad. If it had been rinsed and iced, I could see making a meal of it.

I fried chicken breasts for supper and as soon we had consumed one very tasty meal, the cut bait rigs became active. Just about every catfish we caught was 7 pounds or bigger. If we had not been concerned about getting at least a couple of hours of sleep, we could have filled the boat with big cats. This summer catching catfish has been so easy for us that we hardly ever keep one over 3 pounds as the smaller ones are much tastier.

Try to remember this tidbit. We had three poles out with crawlers, two with cut bait. All of our cats were caught with the cut bait.

That night, we began “The Wildman” festivities, it is now the next morning and the real shindig begins in a couple hours.

Tomorrow, Joey and I head to Canada and on the way home we stop for three days at Moose Jaw Resort.

See ya. Sunset.