Spent almost a full week at Craig Lake for the Chris Musselman bachelor party. Had 9 Total guys show up for the festivities. I had never been to Craig this late in the year before and we were at the mercy of the mid fall weather on this row only lake. Luckily the snow came a day prior to our arrival and stayed away for the time we were there, but the rain and wind did not. We had a few days of nice weather mixed in with days of heavy rain and wind and temps were consistently in the 40s. The fall colors were in full swing on the drive up but the further west we got the leaves all but disappeared.

The weekend days were mostly spent hanging out in the woods playing Kanjam but we also spent a good amount of time on the water. Most of the dudes were not into the muskie fishing so we spent some time in the early days chasing other species part of the time and the non-muskie fishing was phenomenal, more specifically, the crappie. We got into some real good crappie, both in size and numbers, with plenty of fish to eat and several master anglers. I think 4 or 5 of the guys caught at least 1 MA crappie and we got some nice pike and walleye as well.

Unfortunately the muskies did not cooperate, although to be honest, we did not target them as much as I would have wanted. Some of the guys left Sunday and I hoped to spend the last few days solely fishing muskies, but the weather made those last days pretty tough. Heavy winds up to 30mph rolled in Sunday and stuck around the rest of the time we were there and it pretty much rained the entire day Monday. Tough conditions for a row boat as it was hard to maintain boat control. Ended up with a handful of pike with the biggest in the mid-upper 30s but zero muskies were found. First time in my last 3 trips without a muskie caught but the time enjoying the wilderness was well spent and I look forward to going back again next year.