North & South

Sturgeon Bay in Door County, Wisconsin

A Delta notification on my phone tells me that I can check in for my flight any time. I guess that means the next trip is getting close. I'll actually drive to Atlanta early tomorrow morning to get on a plane and will do the same thing next week at about the same time. Both are fishing trips that promise great action, the chance to field test some cool gear, and many opportunities to gather photos and story material, but that's where the similarities end.

Tomorrow's travels point me north. I'm flying to Minneapolis and then connecting to Green Bay, where I'll spend three days fishing the spectacular bays that bound Door County, which is located on the peninsula between the Green Bay and Lake Michigan. We'll fish cool, clear, rocky water and target smallmouth bass, walleyes and salmon, and I suspect it will be sweatshirt weather.

Next week's air travel take me south -- way south -- with the first flight going to Dallas and the connecting flight taking me to Mazatlan, Mexico. From Mazatlan, we'll travel by van to Lake El Salto, where big largemouth bass will be the lone target. We'll work timber and vegetation with big lures, and light fishing clothes will be the order of the day. I'll go with sleeves and long pants, but only for the sake of sun protection.

Today's work is a mixed bag of wrapping up writing projects, packing, banking, charging batteries, clearing memory cards and doing the other stuff that will make me ready for travel. Hopefully I'll get to bed at a good time, because the 2:30 a.m. alarm is going to seem pretty early!