Legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky once brilliantly summarized, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." You’ll never succeed unless you try. Additionally, that means you have to take action if you want dreams to become a reality. It was a flat calm sunny afternoon on August 31, 2017. My good friend Mike Piorkowski and I were casting our swimbaits into the open water abyss of a Northern Wisconsin lake in search for a potential unicorn smallmouth. That day, we challenged ourselves to the extremity of one bite. It was low expectations fishing for both of us. Post-cold front conditions, high skies, and calm waters intensified the challenge. Our methodology consisted of launching 3.8” Kalin’s Sizmic Shad paddletails with ½ oz. Freedom Tackle Corp. Hydras as far as possible into the deep open water, slow rolling them down towards bottom, and then moderately swimming them back to the boat. 999 of our inspired casts that afternoon came up empty, but we didn’t care. This is what we signed up for! However, one cast resulted in a more powerful and heavier than usual strike. Hooks were set. I carefully played and reeled the fish in, to make sure it wasn�