Labor Day on The Lake. Boy Howdy, it was fine. The truck knew the
way; the boat knew where to go, and the weather cooperated with smooth water and sunny skies. We slipped in before sunrise; there were a lot of people fishing the shoreline near the public launch; friendly folks they were, too. My neighbor and I found the water still rather warm, but we used monofilament line instead of the leaded stuff and fished only 7-8 feet down, luring them in with our traditional wedding ring lures (both red AND green to show how unfussy those fish are!) We got our limits in two hours. We kept to the part of the lake between the boat launch and the power lines that hang over the lake, doing slow racetrack patterns in the steeper shallow-to-deep parts of the lake. We love Badger Lake; it fishes good and the people we've met are friendly (a fishermen's lake) but it has its share of jerks visiting, too. Case in point: jerks fouled the restrooms at the public launch. Those jerks don't fish, they just drown bait and cause trouble, then leave their garbage as their "autographs". 99.9% of people fish, but it takes only one jerk to spoil things for the rest of us. Thanks, Badger Lake for the fun fishing times, and a Pox on the one or two jerks who work to spoil it for the rest of us.

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