Clever Title Goes Here

We have reached that critical mass point in the summer where fellow bloggers are apologizing for not posting more often due to busyness or 'unblogworthy' content. Surmounted by work, too busy with play, 57 channels (& nothing on), etc.

I'm guilty of all of those things but won't apologize here. Instead I will try to distract you with photos from my little excursion to Coon Lake with the boy a couple of weeks (already) ago.

The shakedown went well. The motor ran, the depth finder worked, the boat didn't leak, and everyone made it back to shore safely. Sunfish were caught and the fishing bug is now coursing through the boy's veins.




Of course so rarely are things perfect. The lake itself was a haven for jet skiers, tubers and drunken party bargers. These guys actually were some of the tame ones... I just took their photo because I thought their pontooon modification was impressive. In the second photo they are very close to a fishing boat though in all fairness I don't know who approached who.




Ultimately the boy needed to be dragged kicking and screaming off the lake, which secretly pleased me to no end. On the way home we stopped for a dilly bar, which seemed to go a good ways toward smoothing things over. As a man, I have the inexplicable need to take photos of my vehicle and my rig. I believe it is the Y-chromosome equivalent to females needing to take pictures of the food whenever there is a party.



That is all.

Queasy Rider

It all started with a storm.

Last Friday night as I was cooking dinner for my family a big thunderstorm system moved through our area, wreaking havoc on small towns west of the metro. Fortunately for me our community was unscathed. A few hours later I was riding shotgun in my friend Al's car, leading a caravan of four cars across Wisconsin, with the lightning still receding off to the East.

We were sharing a charter on the "Angler Managment," a 32-foot Trojan, out of Kewaunee, Wisconsin. We arrived in Kewaunee right at 6AM, when our charter was to begin, but because of the recent high winds we decided to delay until 8 to let things die down and to get some breakfast. When a Great Lakes charterboat captain suggests that you wait it out a bit, you don't really argue.

I wish now that I had actually eaten some breakfast in town -- But as it were, I had some greasy sausage sticks and other assorted pogey bait that I had brought along. I munched hungrilly on those sausage sticks as we motored out of the protected harbor. Out on the lake it was better than I expected but still pretty rough seas. After about 15-20 minutes of wave crashing I began to feel very very hot and very very queasy. I looked over at Al and he was worse off than me

I have only been seasick one other time in my life, and it also involved a hastily-scarfed breakfast of dubious components. I had to hurl a couple of cookies over the side but by and large held together. Thankfully my friend Faron had some Dramamine with him.

The first four hours of our charter were fruitless. In all that time we had one bite, which my friend Jet lost. It wasn't for a lack of trying; the skipper threw everything he had in the water save for Al's puke bucket. It was getting to be so bad that I suggested that we anchor the boat and fish with bobbers. About then the next bite hit. I was up.

At first I thought I was into the fish of a lifetime. He certainly felt that way. But as it turned out there was a problem with the planer board on my line, and I was basically trying to reel in my fish with the planer board turned sideways in the water. Making it worse we were still maintining trolling speed; so once the skipper saw what was wrong he slowed up the boat a bit and that helped. I boated the first fish of the day, about a 7 or 8 pound king.

The action picked up after that, and Jay, Faron and Al each boated fish. It was starting to look like things were picking up, but when we got back to the top of the order, it was Jet's turn and we didn't get anymore bites. So in the end we returned to port and Jet was empty-handed. Poor guy.


Here is the full group of us. From Left to right: Jeremy, Siegfried, Faron, Yours Truly, Jay, Al and Jet.

Siegfried and Jeremy were on a second boat with Sieg's grandkids. They boated three, so they didn't do much better. We're a pretty diverse group: A South African, a German, three Americans and Two Filipinos.

Here's a photo of yours truly with the skipper and his mate. Ironically the guy dressed for fish cleaning is the skipper, and the more 'skipperly'-looking fellow on the right is the mate.





Here is a picture of Faron and his King.
Faron took a lot more pictures than I did (I wasn't really in the mood once I started puking) so maybe he will get some more photos for me to post at a later date.









Here's me with my king.
Easily the smallest fish, he was pretty easy to find at the bottom of the cooler.








Big or no,
he sure did make for a tasty dinner.









Charter fishing is not really fishing.
Oh, some fishing does go on, but it is the skipper and the mate who do all that. That's what you pay them for. All you do on a charter is reel fish in. If there aren't any fish to reel in, then all you are left with is pretty much an 85 dollar an hour boat ride. I booked this trip before I knew that I was getting my boat. I probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't already committed a non-refundable deposit. I would have spent the money fishing around home.

I function better as my own skipper, and my rates are more reasonable.

Ice Fishing Glossary

This is a work in progress.

Please feel free to offer suggestions via the comments area at the bottom of this page.
(Updated 03/18/2008)

ABC•DEF•GHI•JKL•MNO•PQR•STU•VWX•YZ

4WH Report
Who, What Where, When and How. Who went fishing, what they caught, When the action took place, where they went and how they presented.
See Also: The Law of Diminishing Returns

A

As good as skunked
No fish worth keeping.(See Also: Keeper)

B

Bad Hand
Eveleth / Ely Lake colloquialism - in a fish house, a condition that occurs when a fisherman finishes his Hamms, puts down the can, and is left with an empty hand.

e.g., "Hey, I gotta bad hand over here!"

Bait Rape
When a fish takes your bait while avoiding the hook.

Bombing Run
Going in to town either for a drink or to purchase off sale liquor for later consumption.

Butt F'N Cold!
When it's so cold that a freshly cleared hole ices over in about 10 seconds - it can only be considered that cold when a person is angling without a shelter.

e.g., "It's not just cold, it's butt f'n cold!"

C

Crowd
Three people crammed into a two person house.

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D

Dead sea, The
Lake Mille Lacs in central Minnesota

E

"Eel Pout, Eel Pout, Eel Pout!"
A chant issued by a competitive ice fisherman with the intent of magically transforming the large fish on his partner's line into a lowly Burbot. It works (Much to the recipient's chagrin) - approximately 25 percent of the time.

Extreme Old School
No shelter, no electronics, Hand Auger

F

Free Range Maggot
A waxworm or eurolarvae that is dropped in favor of a bite on your second line. Said creature is then free to crawl away from wherever it landed.

Free Range Minnow
A minnow that becomes unhooked while landing a fish. Still alive, the crippled fish swims in confused circles in the hole until either it is retrieved, finds its way down the hole or succumbs to its injuries.

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G

George Jetson
Someone obsessed with the latest electronics and gizmos. The opposite of an old-schooler.

H

Hardcore
Old School Angling in subzero (Butt F'N Cold!)temperatures.

Harvey Wallbanger
Any loud drunk capable of shamelessly approaching a stranger's portable shelter and engaging in a semicoherant conversation with the startled occupants inside.

Hole Hypnosis
A trance-like condition induced by staring down a hole drilled into the ice, while ingesting moderate to severe amounts of carbon monoxide. Accute cases involve abrupt loss of depth perception, especially when uninterrupted attention is focused on a bobber or stike indicator in excess of 45 minutes.

I

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J

Jaques Cousteau
A person who owns an underwater camera.

K

Keeper
Any fish capable of providing fillets larger than a vandekamps fish stick.

L

Law of Diminishing Returns, The
Close friends or relatives have approximately a 50% chance of receiving an accurate 4WH Report. Strangers have virtually no chance.

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M

Making Ice
The popping and cracking of lake ice caused by expansion and contraction. Typically occurs at night or on extremely (Hardcore) cold days.
(i.e., "Boy, she's really makin' ice today!")

N

O

Old School
No Shelter, No Electronics
See Also: Extreme Old School

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P

Pogey Bait
Snack Food

Prairie Dogging
A condition associated with making it off the lake minutes or seconds prior to an imminent bowel movement.

Q

R

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S

Skunked
No Fish (See also: As good as skunked)

Spoon-on-a-Stick
Antique Swedish style cutting device (Not an auger proper) featuring an offset shaft tipped with a cup shaped bore.

Spud
Common name for a large heavy ice chisel used for starting or creating ice holes. Also used to describe the person operating said chisel when they a) start chiseling the ice with 20 or 30 feet of your shelter or b) operate it during the morning or evening bite or other prime fishing hours.

Steve McQueen
Any lake ice motorist who travels in excess of 30 MPH with little or no regard to the proximity of other anglers or property.

T

Territory Marker
Those patches of 'Yellow Snow' you see out on the lake.

U

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V

W

X

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Y

Z

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Hibernatin'

Tons going on in terms of my non-blog life. Overwhelmed by work, family health concerns, Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, so on and so forth. Patiently waiting to get the data cable for my phone so I can start pulling photos off of it. I got the thing over six months ago and promptly filled up the memory. Haven't taken a picture with it in months.

Going Ice fishing tomorrow. Don't expect to catch much but plan on having a blast in the warm 36-degree weather. Not taking the house, fishing old school in the open air.

Stopped by a local sporting good mart over my lunch hour and hit the clearance racks. I picked up a nice pair of convertible pants for $15 and an ice fishing rod & reel combo for $11. Score!

Smile, you son of a...

Roy Scheider played the reluctant, aquaphobic police chief-turned shark hunter who killed Jaws (No, not THAT Jaws). Scheider has died at age 75.

Scheider's character Brody mouthed one of the most memorable movie lines of all time ("You're gonna need a bigger boat") which according to IMDB was improvised and not in the script.

I don't know how much if ever I will blog about the movie Jaws again so I will also mention in passing that this movie contains one of the best monologues of all time (Though performed by co-star Robert Shaw, not by Scheider).

Scheider was an accomplished actor who appeared in a lot of other stuff too, but I note his passing due to the formative effect that the movie Jaws had on me. I very much identified with Brody's fish out of water (No pun intended) sense of insecurity and misplacement on Quint's boat. The conflict between Quint and Hooper reminded me a lot of the conflict in my family between my two brother in-laws. In fact it was the Quint-like one who took me to see Jaws while it was running in the theater. That would have made me maybe 7 years old at the time. That's a pretty heavy movie for a second grader to try and process.

Around that same time my family had just put a temporary end to our gypsy approach to camping & fishing and had settled into a cabin on Leech lake. The cabin was owned by my sister and the Quint-like brother in-law, so much like the movie, we had the similar experience of trying to coexist in Quint's domain. And all the while I was confronted with Leech lake - this big, wonderful yet mysterious body of water, dangerous as any ocean and scary as heck to a seven year old. Local resorts and bars contained photos and mounts of enormous Muskellunge, which saturated my subconscious with fears of swimming, fishing and even boating in that lake. A bigger boat sure sounded like a good idea to me. Yet like Brody, some conflicting sense of duty and curiosity called me out on to the water to confront these hobgoblins of my mind.

Predictably, around that time I went through a brief shark craze, a lot like the kids nowadays are into dinosaurs. All my reading and attention went into studying and understanding this phantom limb of my subconsciousness, voraciously eating up books as often as I could get to a library. Then snap, the informational feeding frenzy was over and I was on to something else. It's amazing how there is always something available to personify whatever fears we are dealing with. In the movie Brody went through a shark craze too, and came out the other end alive. Thanks Roy, for helping me get through mine.

Sweeter than Two Below, Honey

Well, we survived the big saturday fishing trip, and we brought home some fish to boot.

Unfortunately my camera was not so fortunate and died out on the lake so I only managed to get these two photos. I put us right on top of the fish as you can see in the second photo of my friend Roberto and his first crappie ever, plus the first keeper ever pulled up in my home made fish house. All said and done we kept 1 decent crappie plus three others I would have tossed back if we weren't trying to piece together a modest meal for Roberto and his kids. A little fruit off the tree is good incentive for planning another trip.

Oh yeah, I also got me a small walleye, who got sent back to grow some more. All in all it was a great trip, I even talked on the phone to one of the guys who canceled, who seemed a little dismayed to hear that not only had we NOT frozen to death but in fact we were so warm in the fish house that we had to shed clothes to stay warm, and that the fishing action was, well, active.

Some more pictures maybe later of when we got back to Roberto's house and his kids saw the fish.

...And then there were 2

Fishing plans for tomorrow were originally for 6 guys in three houses. Yesterday the two other guys with fish houses canceled because of the weather. One of the ride-alongs was similarly convinced not to go. That left me and two ride-alongs, one of whom was gracious enough to bow out, even though I could tell that it really was in his heart to go.

We Few, We Happy Few.

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmorland. No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It ernes me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace, I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more.
Rather proclaim it presently through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t'old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Henry V (IV, iii)

Baptism by Ice

After enduring much teasing and good-natured derision from Eric I finally got around to snapping some photos of the much-ballyhooed fish house. It's going to get some work this Saturday as I am taking a buddy out for his first ice fishing experience. Weather.com is currently predicting a high of 0 degrees that day so I guess you could call that a baptism by ice. I also took a picture of my auger (Over there, to the left) which I got from my dad when he hung up the jig sticks. It was actually my dad who inspired me to build my own fish house; I have vivid memories of watching him construct his 4' X 8' version when I was a kid.

I think my dad has inspired a lot of the behaviors I engage in that my beautiful wife finds to be simply inexplicable. Like solo hiking, building fish houses, ice fishing in general and ice fishing in sub zero temperatures specifically.

It never hurts to let your spouse think that you're a little crazy.

Anyway here are the photos, so enjoy-

From the outside:

            

From the inside:

            

Fish House Design

In my previous post I was not exactly truthful when I said that the design specifications were "contained entirely in my own head" - My notebook operates as an extension of my head. While these aren't really designs (You wont find any measurements or list of supplies here) here is a peek at my concept drawings. The fish house turned out pretty close to this except that I haven't had a chance to do the windows yet and I need to add a second vent.

I can't wait to get back out in it.

(60) Deck and Substructure (61) Front view (Radius approximate)



(62) Rear (Again radius is approximate) (63) Window assembly concepts

DIY Rod Tube

Sporting goods are just getting to be too darned expensive these days. Magazines and media are quietly preaching consumerism to us, leading many to think that they cannot enjoy the outdoors without spending a fortune on all the latest gadgetry. I say nonsense! To anybody out there who is as fed up with the nauseatingly stylized and commercialized industry of outdoor equipment & apparel, I want to encourage you to try making your own wherever possible!

My installment project is a very simple one. Simple but beautiful. I used 2" PVC to create this home made fishing rod tube. It's pretty self-explanatory, really. For those of you budding diy'ers who need a little more instruction, you can click here to see some other guy who did it, too. All the materials are available at your local hardware store for less than ten bucks. Mine cost an extra $2.50 because I added some extra components (See below).

What's different about mine is that I chose the the ever-more popular black PVC (I haven't let go of style completely yet). Mine needs to accommodate a two-piece fly rod that breaks down to two 50" sections, so it's pretty long. When you make yours, make it to the necessary length to accommodate your gear. If you look at the photo to the left (Click to enlarge) you will notice that I incorporated four couplers to create lash-down points. This way the tube can easily be attached to my backpack as shown. Yes, you too can look like a redneck ghostbuster! With the straps firmly set into the notches created by the couplers, the tube will not dislodge or slide around. The only issue I can see with this setup is that I am going to snag on any low-hanging trees. I will have to field test this to see how it goes.

It turns out that I am not the first person with this idea. In addition to probably many others who have done this and not written about it on the web, John Plozizka from San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico did the same thing on a grander scale, using 4" PVC to transport a larger quantity of rods. I like his idea of using the stickers to personalize his creation. Kind of like how we wore those dorky little buttons in the '80's, to show everyone that we were unique, just like everybody else. Create your own fashion statement, man!

In parting, I ask you to please make sure that you know what you're doing before you try this or any other DIY project. Read the instructions carefully on any adhesives or chemicals before using. And remember to always use PVC for good, never for evil ;-)

Until next time, stick it to the man!

In the cold distance

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

On Saturday 08/11/2007 I went on a road trip to Northern MN to flyfish for trout.
This is what I saw.

	Friday night to Saturday morning it stormed. I drove north through the aftermath with lightning crackling through the clouds above me as I drove. The river was going to be muddy and I knew it. But there was nothing else to be done. My fishing day was my fishing day, and I had to take it come rain or shine. I had several potential entry points circled on my map, and as I prowled the back country roads I happened across a whitetail family set up near the road. They gave me all the time in the world but by the time I had the presence of mind to dig out the camera and snap a photo, they were all but gone.
	After exploring several of the tributaries to the Nemadji River, I finally settled on an entrance point on the river proper, where Highway 23 passes over it. There was a nice parking area that was empty, except for a fellow who was scouting for grouse hunting spots. I wasn't much in the mood for company. It is hard enough to find a free day to depressurize once a quarter. Added to that I recently lost a cousin from complications involving a gall bladder removal. She was 43, died three days after my 39th birthday. She still is 43, and always going to be 43 from here on. I had been been easing into the mindset where I realistically know I could go at anytime, but now the 'easing' phase is officially over.
	The river was muddy as I suspected. I spent a long time along the banks, watching for activity. It looked pretty dead. Given the lack of surface activity I started out nymphing, using a black wooly bugger with a strike indicator. After only a few casts I had two separate hits on my strike indicator. I quickly switched over to a #12 wolf adams and promptly hooked this little baby through the nose.
	I worked the river for a few hours and that chubby little shiner was the only luck I had. I practiced my casting. I listened to the world around me, paying no mind to the occasional bridge noise in the distance. There was no sense to be made from my cousin's death. I hadn't seen her since my mother's funeral, had scarcely even spoken to her then as there were just too many people to talk to. I had no idea that she was even having the surgery. I was not a factor in her life, nor she in mine really. And that is what the sadness is about, the guilt. The feeling that yes, we played together as kids and that somehow that childhood friendship should have carried over into adulthood. Up to now I had been able to live with the idea that there was time to make that connection, that it was ok to put it off for now. Except that now there isn't any more time. I finally crawled up a muddy bank and set back to my truck for some lunch. There was no real trail to speak of so I bushwhacked through the forest, keeping the the river in earshot. I have humped through some tough brush in my day, and this was some of it. It was definitely not a friendly environment for a chubby guy lugging a flyrod. After I ate I broke out the camera and explored for some good shots. Several attempts netted me some local insect life. Insects live hard and die fast. They don't have complex emotions like guilt and angst. They just get on about their business and make way for the next generation. The local plant life echoed that sentiment, as the air hung thick and sweet with the smell of pollen and nectar. Every plant and tree was in the midst of a giant bender, drunk to the gills on the rainwater from the previous night. The cicadas trilled from the treetops, like an alarm to let us know that September is coming. And when it does the nights will turn cold, and no insect plant or tree will wonder why nobody told them that it was coming. I didn't have much heart to try the river again in the afternoon. I packed up the truck and made my way a few more miles up 23 to a scenic overlook. I have passed it a few times and never taken a picture there. Since I had the tripod with me I did a panoramic. After that I turned to the south and made my way back to my family like a homesick puppy.

Cybertaxidermy

Miskowic caught himself a pretty big walleye out on the pond a few weeks back. Right around that same time Chris was taking pictures of his thumb and Miskowic accidentally got into the background. It was my job to correct this injustice for all to see.

Another example of better living through Photoshop.

Never get out of the boat

"Never get out of the boat. Absolutely right. Unless you were goin' all the way.
Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole program. "
- Willard, Apocalypse Now

Another story about roaming the woods as a kid
(Briefer version originally entered as a comment in the previous post)

Near a place where we fished there was an abandoned resort, hosting a large cache of wild asparagus. In the heat of the day (When walleye fishing can get slow) my brother in law would beach our boat in the old harbor and we would go ashore. I was allowed to wander around while he harvested.

The entire place was blanketed under huge maples - even in broad daylight the place had a shady and sinister feel to it. As we entered the harbor I felt as though I could feel eyes upon me. The moment that I swung my leg over the side of the boat and set foot on that ground I had the uneasy feeling that comes with knowingly trespassing, the sensation that any second some pissed off landowner's hell hound was going to come charging out from the trees and maul me before I could retreat.

I remember rummaging through the junk that was strewn around, and peering in through the dirty windows of the cabins. The place had not been used for some time, maybe 20 years. I imagined the people who had stayed there, wondered where the former owners were now and why the resort had closed. Had there been a tragedy, or a terrible crime? My 10-year old mind had a flair for the dramatic and did not process concepts such as economic viability or bankruptcy. Death and or dismemberment seemed quite likely to me. In my mind's eye I could see the bleached bones of fishermen and 10 year old boys beneath the floorboards of those cabins.

It was the height of dog days and there was no relief from the heat, even in the shade. It only served to encourage the mosquitos, who bit fiercely, even in the middle of the day. I don't know if it was all the bloodletting or just the creepy feeling I got from trespassing in that place, but I was relieved when we retreated to the boat and departed for the evening bite.

We made three incursions that summer. Each time afterward our dinner consisted of fresh Walleye, baked potatoes and asparagus from that haunted place. At night I would go out into the dark woods near our cabin to relieve myself under the stars. Like Juvenal Urbino in the book Love in the Time of Cholera, I enjoyed the immediate pleasure of smelling a secret garden in my urine that had been purified by lukewarm asparagus. To this day the smell associated with asparagus will take me back to those woods where I felt my hair biting into my sunburned neck as I stood with my face pointed to heaven, gazing at the milky way and wondering where we all end up when we dump our junk and shutter up our cabins for good.

Ice Follies

I got to spend a few hours out on the ice this past sunday. It's been a couple of years since I ice fished at all, and the even that time it was in one of those grand hilton suites out on Milacs. This time it was just me and the elements - No shelter, just an old-school outing, like the old days. Daytime high was only 8 degrees, jack. This wasn't some balmy March day jigging for perch. In a previous life I used to get out 8 - 12 times a winter. It's not like that anymore. Comes with the turf when you have kids.

I picked a lake that I used to go to all the time, for three reasons:

1. Familiarity. I would know where to set up without having to move around (the terms of my work-release made time a constraining factor)
2. Good reports. This could be my only trip of the winter so I did my homework. I shot the breeze at a couple of bait shops during the week prior to the outing. I actually bought some stuff while I visited, so the information exchange was friendly and turned out to be quite honest. Never underestimate the value of greasing the palms of your informants.
   
3. The space-time continuum. Seriously. A signifigant deal of my thoughts (Or maybe a deal of my signifigant thoughts) in life made their maiden voyages through my skull during the times I spent sitting on a pail out on that lake. If I am truly going to recommit to my old fishing habit it only seemed logical to me to start up back where I left it off. Back to the well, to drink once more.

Any way.

The journey which used to take 1+ hours from my NE Minneapolis crack house now only takes about 45 minutes from my posh north suburban junior Mcmansion. Yeah, life's been good to me, as the song goes. That 45 minutes does not include the time to stop and pick up a couple of scoops of crappie minnows and a salted nut roll -- a true ice fishing necessity (The salted nut roll, not the minnows).

Out on the ice the first thing that I noticed was that there are a lot more people ice fishing these days. I couldn't get in to my old sweet spot where I would have been sitting in 20' of water (Unless I wanted to stand on one foot between a couple of tip-ups) so I was forced further out on the drop-off, in about 25 feet of water.

People may tell you that angling is an art form or a skill, either of which can be augmented by the inclusion of technology. To some extent that may be true but I submit to anyone who has stumbled across this blog that angling is nothing less than a priviledge. Think about it. There is a connection to nature that no form of food gathering or hunting can match. Even shooting fowl or beasts of the woods fails to approach the relationship that a man must establish with his foray if he hopes to eat. Yes, angling is a gift straight from God, and the overuse of technology difuses the signifigance of this gift.

Nobody fishes outside anymore. Everybody's got shacks. Cardboard shacks. Plywood shacks. Tin shacks. Robo-shacks that transform into trailers and who knows what else, possibly Jappanese arch-villans for all I know. A few old-timers here and there were in fold-up portables, which are what I grew up using. And then there were all those in-fisherman types with their Fish traps and portable sonars and underwater cameras, all pulled behind a snomobile or ATV.

Feh. Damned kids.

I'm probably just bitter because I had to clear the slush out of my holes about every two minutes, and slip bobbering was a joke. Even the rod & reel combo I brought out was useless, as it was so cold that I could barely get the crank to go around on the reel. It was outdoor bare hand-over-bare hand fishing, baby, a la jigsticks. Told you I was old-school. Did I mention that I was a phi beta kappa jig-sticker? Well I learned it from the best.

All told I spent maybe three hours out on the ice, including startup and takedown time, and within that period I iced six black crappies, four of which I kept. They made for a tasty after dinner snack which nourished my soul more than I can express. Fried crappie is like manna from my childhood.

River Hypnosis

The dharma bum posted a nice fly-fishing piece on his blog today. Just reading it left me with river hypnosis, that mild vertigo-like feeling that you get after you've stared at running water for too long. I first experienced it on the rum river in the 90's, skipping spinnerbaits under overhanging trees for smallies from a jonboat. More recently experienced these past two summers an streams in southern MN doing a lot of what the dharma bum described (Especially the part where he 'Indiana-Jonesed' an overhanging branch on a back cast).

His ending point, where he was at the end of his excursion, at the end of his fly fishing for the summer - that we cannot take it with us - Is a universal experience that I think all lovers of the outdoors can personally relate with. In the end, we are just visitors and eventually we have to go home. But the feeling is not unique to fishing - Everyone goes through the same thing at some level whenever they awaken from a particularly nice dream or a meaningful song comes to an end. Fisherman (& their partners) come and go with the seasons, but the land and the stream remain, and the fish that was released or spooked today will be back at his rock tomorrow and life will go on.

I choose to be encouraged by that thought rather than disappointed by it. Allthough that was not always the case.

In my younger years I foolishly considered any time spent on the water (or out in nature in general) to be my own personal experiences, with a beginning to be anticipated and an end to be dreaded. I never realized that my time was just a brief interval in a much larger experience, one that started eons before I was born and will end long after I am dead.

In the end, an "experience" may be the only way that we can rationally describe our finite interactions with things timeless and vast. It's no easy task to shift one's perspective of thinking of an experience as being anything more a minute unit of measurement, describing something that is still going on even now, minutes, days or years later. It's no easy task but it does make for interesting writing.

Music and dreams - Along with any other inspiration to the human spirit - flow like streams in our minds, just as surely as nature goes on around us with or without our participation. The rocks, the silt, the weeds and the fish are all still there, even when our lives take us elsewhere. That's what staring at moving water for hours at a time has taught me.

Bring on ice hole hypnosis!

I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow

"What'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest..."
-Bob Dylan

I went fishing this past Saturday and this is what I saw.
Click on photos to enlarge (Open in new windows)

My kind of sign.

Storm Clouds looming to the North...

...but balmy skies to the south.

The catch of the day.
I got this rainbow trout with a black Wooly Bugger.
Maybe keeping him wasn't the most sporting thing to do, but he sure tasted good cooked fresh, stuffed with herbs and blanched in butter & lemon juice.

The Big River.
Roadside photo, taken between Winona and Wabasha.

The sun, setting over a Farm.
Taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between
Red Wing and Miesville

A cool cloud formation.
Also taken from a moving vehicle somewhere between
Red Wing and Miesville.

The sun, setting over a corn field.
I pulled over to get this shot. Taken North of Miesville
(Home of the Miesville Mudhens).

The sun's last gasp.
Taken from a moving vehicle North of Cottage Grove.

Better Late than Never

I'm finally going fishing for the first time this summer.
It happens Saturday - come rain, shine, hell or high water.

Freewrite: Here and now

Disclaimer: This was written in one "take" over lunch.

The smell of dead leaves beneath my feet, the bite of the wind against my face as winter, still far off, begins to grow it's teeth. High spirits glide between the trees and my mind throbs in the silence of the forest, voices music and the sound of machinery still echoing in my skull. In their absence I am aware that my ears are ringing.

The wind thrashes the treetops high above, but on the forest floor it is like a conversation overheard in an adjacent room or a crowd as heard from outside a stadium. 100 feet between peace and torment. Somewhere nearby the same wind rips across the open waters of a lake and churns the bottom of a shallow bay, covering and uncovering the rocks in an endless cycle. Elsewhere it flattens the tall grass of a clearcut meadow and scatters the voles and rabbits into hiding. In the middle of a tamarak swamp deer take refuge, and the wind is hardly more than a suggestion that something is going on outside the walls of the compound.

All of these things I picture in my mind's eye as I stand on the path in the forest. There are more places than I can imagine, each alive and vibrant in this moment.
We break down where we are going and where we have been with units of measurement to indicate our movement. A mile down a path, a hundred feet up a tree, 12 feet deep in a lake, etc. But isn't each step of a journey from "Here" to "There" a new "Here?" With each footstep and branch the "Here" changes and is a little different than the previous or the next. Or would you entertain the thought that the entire planet is one giant "Here?" The Superior National Forest contains Three million acres of land, water, rock, and trees. That's more "Here's" than you could hope to visit in your lifetime. And it's just a speck on the map compared to the rest of the planet. Also consider this: Each "Here" has a history and a future. While it is important to study these, I wonder if we spend enough time studying the "Now."

As I listen to the wind I wonder what is happenening below the leaves in a thicket a half mile up the trail at this very moment. I wonder what is happening six inches under the muck in the eastern edge of a duck slough near what used to be my family's farm in western Minnesota. I wonder if anyone is freezing to death on the side of Mt. Everest right now. I wonder how many scorpions per square mile live in the Sahara desert.

I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.

I wonder about this world that God has given us, and how we march through it in such straight lines without ever taking the time to enjoy all three dimensions. I wonder about the time that each of us are given, and how we waste so much of our lives worrying over the future and dredging up our pasts. I wonder if any of us ever really learn to use history as a learning tool to prevent mistakes in the future, leaving us free to focus on the here and now.

27-year-old walleye found in Lake of the Woods

Read the story at the strib site.

That fish dates back to the Carter administration and the first Star Wars Movie! It never occurred to me to wonder how long these fish might live if they are not harvested or predated upon. Or Gill netted.


1:00 PM - I removed the photo of Mace Windu and the reference to 'Going out like some sucka." Not everyone might get the Samuel Jackson reference plus I don't want any trouble for linking to a SW.com photo.

Gone Fishing

OK, I had a boatload of work to do tonight - Another client meeting that goes right up to 5:00. It pretty much forced me to write work tickets for the changes from home, since I won't be in the office tomorrow and the work is time-sensitive.

No sense whining about it, the tickets are done. Now to catch a quick nap before we blast out of here in 4 hours.

The Dharma Bum & I hit on an interesting topic, that of why fishermen are reluctant to disclose where they fish. I maintain that it is about as natural as giving a buddy your girlfriend's telephone number. Selfish? Yeah. Insecure? Maybe a little. But it is what it is, dammit. I am really looking forward to not seeing anyone besides my friends for a couple of days and I don't want to jinx it by telling everyone from here to Thailand where I'll be. I may be irrational but my heart is in the right place.

Have a great weekend -