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.

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.

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.

Stings of Vengeance

The dharma bum's dog had a run-in with some ground hornets recently and it reminded me of a childhood experience of my own where I learned first hand the woes of provoking those vicious little critters.

When I was a kid my family had a cabin on Leech lake in northern MN and I spent many family vacations there. I spent countless hours exploring the woods in the vacant lots nearby - Back in a time when there were still vacant lots on the shorelines of lakes. One particular year I discovered an abandoned cedar strip boat near the shore. I made this discovery in the spring in mid-may. After a brief period of jubilation, thinking that I could possibly resurrect this craft for my own use, a more thorough investigation revealed that years of unprotected weathering and rot had consumed through portions of the hull. So my dreams of being the youngest boat owner on the lake were dashed, leaving me just a young boy in the woods once more. But I did find solace in hitting and poking around the deteriorated portions of the hull with a stick, knocking out the rotten portions with the relish of an overzealous dentist, working like a madman to save a 12-foot long tooth.

Fast forward to our family vacation in July of that same year. Somewhere toward the middle of the week I found myself again wandering the woods. Once more I happened across the abandoned boat. I resumed my game, discovering that a majority of the truly rotten material had been knocked loose in my previous game that spring. To continue the game would require a more aggressive use of force. I found a stick about the size and weight of a hockey stick; Swinging it back over my shoulders in an extreme lumberjack cut, I brought it down soundly on the keel.

The resulting sound was not unlike a stock car going around the far corner of a racetrack. Hornets began pouring out of every nook, cranny and crevice of the boat. I cried out and bolted through the woods. In retrospect the smarter move would have been to dive into the lake and follow the shoreline back to our property. I think I read in the Art of War that an army thrown into chaos will almost always choose to retreat in the same direction that it came from. I was in much chaos. I flew through the woods, a few stings landing here and there on my back and arms as I ran. The inevitable came when I tripped over the tongue of a boat trailer concealed in the underbrush, allowing the main pursuit group to catch up with me. They attacked me as mercilessly as I had attacked their home.

Fortunately for me my reaction was mild, considering the number of stings to my scalp, face, neck, back and arms (Either my jeans kept them from getting to my legs or they didn't bother with them, as they had unrestricted access to my head). I do not recall how many times in all I was stung. I did learn from the experience though, and I am now cautious around rotten wood or infrequently used structures encountered in the forest.

Oh yeah, and I also learned to have an escape route planned a priori to ever hitting anything with a stick.

Down the Drain?

I woke up this morning to a mostly empty nest:

There's still a couple of eggs in the nest which could be either late bloomers or duds. When I looked down the street I saw the mother marching down the sidewalk with a bunch of little fuzzballs in pursuit. I did not get a picture of that but did take my camera along when we left the house to go to work. We circled around the block and discoverd the mother wandering around in the street. When I got out of the car with my camera she started quacking at me and tried to lead me away from some tall grass.

Even the drake showed up and got in on the act:

It turned out that it wasn't the tall grass that the hen was trying to draw me away from after all. To my shock I could hear the duckling's voices, coming from this storm drain:

That storm drain leads to an outlet into a nearby lake (Maybe a 30-50 yard run). To my thinking that hen is either a genius or a fool. Whatever happens to those ducklings, I'm pretty sure that a predator won't get them. The thing is that there's no way that the ducklings can get out the way that they went in, and I'm not so sure that the hen can get to them, either. Regardless of whether this is a brilliant environmental adaptation or yet another mallard mishap that I have been in some way involved in, what I am certain of is that this is not how God intended for ducks to come into the world.

Anybody out there ever hear of ducks using a storm drain like this to raise their young, or are these guys pretty much screwed?

Out & About

The Mallard was AWOL for a while last night:

It turns out she was just playing in traffic:

So I went along the side of the house to look at my flowers:

While I was gone the mallard came back:

Here is another video
(Listen for her huffing and puffing toward the end):

Close Encounters

That Mallard is still nesting in our planter. I've been afraid to mow our lawn lest I should upset her or somehow usurp nature's balance with an internal combustion engine. Our house was starting to look like one of those garbage houses that you hear about on the news, where the water has been shut off for the past 6 months and the people inside have been pooping into garbage bags.

I couldn't stand it yesterday so I finally mowed the lawn. Much to my amazement the girl was as cool as a cucumber and allowed me to do my thing. I got about my business as fast as I could and now we are no longer an aesthetic blight on suburbia. Except of course that we still cannot plant anything in our planter, because there's a duck already planted there. Squatters, I tell ya!

Here are some pictures I took this morning.
I'm not bashful anymore.
I just opened the front door and leaned out and took these.

I shot a video too:

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.

One Minute of Silence

Pictures and a post about my saturday fishing trip are still forthcoming. In the meantime, please enjoy my version of a show about nothing:

With Both Hands

Preamble (10:00 AM):
Today will be my first attempt to angle for trout by fly. I have had most of the gear for years and I have never used it. I want to go fishing and there is no boat in my near future, thus today I will combine the traditional joys of fishing with the new challenge of fly casting, framed by a setting of solitude, hiking and QUIET. Well, not exactly quiet - There will be all those sounds that have been there in the background that I have conditioned myself to ignore and/or tune out: The sound of moving water, birds, bugs buzzing around my head, wind blowing through trees, even the sound of my own heartbeat. In the hustle, bustle, hurry and rush of life we lose those things. Well today I am going to grab on to them with both hands and take them back. That is what this day is all about.

Destination:
I am going to focus my efforts on exploring a branch of a large river system in Winona county. There is a lot of bank there for the walking, and hopefully I will be able to avoid the crowds.



Summary (11:00 PM)

Incidents & Encounters
The drive down south was not uneventful; as I made my way through the cities a rather large thunderstorm system fell upon me. Torrential rain and high winds did their best to stop me and did in fact slow me down considerably. Once out of the city and traffic, my journey was smooth. as paved roads gave way to gravel, my spirits began to rise as the reality that my time (for this afternoon at least) was my own. Lost in my thoughts I was barely able to slow down in time when a doe crossed the road in broad daylight. I rolled slowly past where she had come out of and sure enough I saw a confused fawn hiding in the trees. If I hadn't slowed down he might have tried to follow his mother and gotten creamed.

On the water - At last
With my late departure and storm delays, I did not reach my entry point until almost 2 PM. I had chosen a little county road where the bridge had been taken out, leaving a nice little dead-end. As I pulled in my heart sank as I saw three fellows sitting on the tailgate of their truck, eating sandwiches and chatting quietly. After determining that they were on their way out and not in, I geared up and headed down to the bank.

With no prior experience or mentorship with another trout fisherman, I really had no idea what I was doing. But I committed to doing it, whatever "it" turned out to be. I slowly made my way downstream, trying not to make a ruckus. The weeds were thick and almost as tall as me. in chestwaders I advanced with little fear of itchweed or ticks, leaving and rejoining the overgrown trail whenever it suited me. About 75 yards in I found a good-sized pool, about the size of a baseball diamond.

I was standing at home plate, and directly down stream on the opposite bank was second base, a small creek inlet. Third base was an outlet from the pool, a riffle where the river continued on it's way. First base, slightly downstream on the opposing bank, was a large tree with exposed roots hanging into the water. Directly in the center of the stream bed, lying at a right angle to the first base line, was a fallen tree, marking the entrance of the pool like a large exclamation point.

I stood there at home plate and took this all in. That's when I began to notice the risings. Small ones along the third base line, but the largest and most frequent over at first base by that big tree. At last, the game was afoot. I eased my way into the stream and cautiously made my way up the first base line. I stopped on my side of the fallen tree and as I did I noticed a handful of little trout scatter for the safety of the opposing bank. Fair enough. I waitied. I stood there quietly, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Blend in with the woodwork, be part of the stream. Maybe not a welcomed part of it, but at least an accepted one. In time, the surfacings at first base resumed. So I am still in the game, I thought to myself. With my manueverings, first base was in easy reach.

My casting was terrible, a real mess. I started with a 14 Adams and over the course of 45 minutes or so I started to get the hang of things. Eventually I was able to get get the fly to land where I wanted it, without the tippet and the line crashing down on top of it and creating a terrible ruckus. Well, generally speaking, I guess. Finally I was able to serve one up right down the middle - The fly drifted lazily past first base and out toward second. Out of nowhere there was a small surge and my fly was gone. My reaction was too imediate and too powerful. I set the hook like I was after a dogfish and I jerked the fly right out of the fish's mouth. I repeated the cast precisely, and this time I did not miss. Unfortunately the fish was only on for about 5 seconds before the tippet snapped.

My only other Adams was a 12 and I quickly tied it on. A few minutes later and another solid hit. I was more careful and this time the fish stayed on for 10 seconds before the tippet snapped. As I stared at the stream in disbelief a brown trout jumped straight up into the air, arced about 3 feet above the water and gracefully swooped back into the water, nose first. I may not have been meant to catch that fish, but I was meant to see him and I could live with that. He never jumped again so I assume that he was able to disgorge my barbless hook.

Out of Adams of any size, I tried a couple of imposters with no luck. Remember, I basically had no idea what I was doing. I switched to a black Wooly bugger and afer a couple of casts my luck changed. The bugger was out of site when the strike occurred, but I could see the strike just fine by watching the end of my line. I set the hook carefully, mindful not to horse it too much. After a brief struggle I landed my first trout, a nine inch rainbow. He was hooked up into the eye socket, luckily with no apparent damage to the eye. The barbless hook came out easily.

As I let him go he took a quick barrel roll to the bottom of the stream, landing belly up. I was able to get a hold of him again and I gently cradled him, facing upstream so that the water flowed through his gills. After what seemed like a long time a puff of air came out of first his right gill and then his left. Then he seemed to perk up. His head started to move side to side and his tail started moving. At last he swam away slowly, off toward the dugouts. The game was over for him today. Not long after I caught another rainbow, this one smaller. he went straight back into the rotation with no troubles.

Not too long after that I wrapped my bugger around a high tree branch and that was the end of it. I tied on another and moved up to the pitchers mound to try my luck with second and third base, but they weren't buying what I was selling. Considering myself well ahead in the game, I wrapped it up and made my way back to the truck for some lunch on the tailgate.

Homeward Bound
Afterwards I tried other spots but I was unable to repeat my performance in the baseball diamond. When the shadows started getting long I packed up and headed back up to the city. I was content with the knowledge that for a few hours at least my worries had been pushed to the back of my mind. I had gone into the world and experienced the sensations that I had forgotten about - Sights and smells, not just sounds. Maybe most importantly I had heard the sound of my own heart beating once again.

A new Angle

I remember a time in my life when July was the funnest month of the year. This month has been anything but. My mom is still laid up in the hospital. At work I have several projects coming due at the same time. At home I have doors that won't latch and a steady stream of water coming out of the bottom of my furnace due to some central-air problem. And last friday the fuel pump on my truck went out, preventing me from taking a personal day on saturday to go fishing. It almost sounds like a country song of some kind. If my dog up and died on me I would be all set.

Then I watched a PBS documentary on Beslan this evening. There are many words that can describe the horror and the anguish that those families experienced last September, but I will not go into them here because I feel that by and large they have already been spoken and really it is not my place to weigh in when the people themselves did so very well. As a parent I was more focused on the faces, the voices and even the physical environment of the town of Beslan itself. I saw hard-working people, thin but not malnourished, living in a concrete and all-right angles sort of working class town. No sign of the flabby opulence that we Americans enshroud ourselves with.

If the 9/11 attacks could be summarized as an attack upon America's way of life, then Beslan could be summarized as an attack on the Russian people themselves. The men, women and children who were brutally murdered, the families which were shattered, all of these people were the salt of the earth, as far away from the cause of the Chechnyan conflict as you could ever hope to get. And my heart went out to them, because they were me, their children the same as my own child, just as innocent, just as precious, their lives just as valuable.

In short my viewing experience led to a paradigm shift for me, in terms of my perspective: My mom is getting first-rate health care. I have a secure job at a company with more work than it can handle. I own a home that can be cooled on my whim. In my household we not only own two vehicles so that we are never really stranded if one breaks down, but we also own them free and clear.

In short I got no complaints.