Monday night after work I decided to go out for a few hours and see if I
could find some smallies. When I launched it was 74 degrees and the
wind was blowing about 3 to 5 mph from the Northwest, making my side of
the lake just about glass.
I moved around hitting some points, catching a few small fish. I
noticed to the north it was getting dark, and the forecast had predicted
rain, but not until late that night. Well I continued fishing, and
suddenly every cast I was either catching a smallmouth or a sheepshead.
It was a spot I was familiar with, and have caught a lot of fish there
before. Well, I landed one of them, and for some reason decided to look
over my shoulder to the East out into the main lake. The main lake 2
minutes earlier was dead calm, now there were whitecaps out there, but I
didn't even feel a breeze. So I didn't think much of it and kept
fishing. Well, the next 10 casts produced nothing, and then like
Locusts over the tops of the trees the wind hit me right in the face
making me actually stumble, and spinning my boat from facing West to
facing South. I look out at the lake and it is ripping, and I see a Big
, probably 19 or 20' Lund just getting bounced around as they were
running south. I figured it was a good time to pack up. Well, I got
everything latched down, and jumped on it, I was running Mid-50's out of
the bay heading south , but when I hit the lake there were probably 3'
waves , but with the wind blowing so hard they were right on top of each
other, so I could run over the top of them. WHen I finally hit the main
part of the lake ( I can't run close to shore, especially on the North
side of Winnebago, it is too shallow, as Steve H. can attest to :-) ). I
was in 4' waves with the Wind blowing out of the north constantly at
probably 30+ mph. Now the waves that were tightly packed were spreading
out, and creating some nasty troughs with 4'+ waves mixed in. This all
happened within the matter of 5 or 10 minutes. Again, Steve can
probably back me up on this, but this lake goes from 0 to ****ed off at
the world in no time flat. I blew past the Lund heading for the launch,
and now the wind was turning and coming out of the northeast still
blowing just as hard. I was staying pretty dry the whole run, hitting a
couple of crests pretty hard, but stayed up on top. The way the boat
launch is where i launch is a breakwall with opening on the south end of
the breakwall to get into the docks. Well If you can picture it, those
waves with the wind blowing out of the northeast were HUGE (for me, not
Lake Erie or Michigan stuff, but still pretty big), so as I turned it
hard to try and get in between waves to dock I had a wave break right
over the side of the boat and over the top of me, instantly soaked :-)....
It was a hell of an experience, I almost went back out, that same Lund I
mentioned earlier also launched at this ramp, and a normal 5 minute run
back in was going on 30 minutes and I still hadn't seen them. As I was
talking to my wife telling her I was going to look for them they came
around the corner getting tossed all over. I was never worried about
sinking my boat, but it just amazed me how quick nature can turn on you.
Maybe it is revenge for me hitting the Heron in the head with my float
rod???

Chris