Blog Archive for September, 2009

September 29, 2009

I hope you had a chance to watch the coverage of the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year Title chase. ESPN2 had the three hours of coverage Sunday from four to seven pm. If you missed it, I am guessing that on the Bassmaster website you can log on, if you are a Bass Insider member, and watch it like you can with the other Bassmaster shows. It was a fast three hours.

I am always hoping for great fish catching shots on those shows, but having ridden as a Marshal in an Elite event, with camera at the ready, it's tough to catch that exact moment of the strike and then be able to also pan and shoot the fish coming in to the boat. It's not like setting a tripod up and making one adjustment and filming a football or basketball game. I've videotaped those before and they are much easier to do in the sense that you get all the beginning to end footage. Put twelve anglers on the water and have them be able to be miles and miles apart and then try and put all that together in a TV show is no simple task.

The Chase had some of my favorite anglers spotlighted. KVD has always been high on my angling heroes list. Mike Iaconelli is another one of the guys I really like to see do well. I am also really getting to like the Gman, Gerald Swindle. Then there was Tommy Biffle, who I rode with a day and a quarter down on Wheeler in Decatur, Alabama this past spring.

Watching the show, knowing already who finished where, was a little anticlimactic. It was definitely more exciting watching the live weigh-in on the internet than on TV. However, you don't get to see hardly any of the on the water footage on the net. In any case, having watched the event has me fired up and ready to head down to Guntersville and Pickwick at the end of April to take part in those Elite events. If you have a chance, sign up to Marshal an Elite event. It's a great time. A big adventure that will leave you filled with tons of memories.

My good friend John "Big Daddy" Baker came over last night with his wife and had some apple pie and coffee with us. He also brought me some pictures of his weekend trip up to Lake Charlevoix. John is a board member for the West Michigan Walleye Club , and they had a Cabela's National Team Championship qualifier on Charlevoix this past weekend that he officiated at. Here's some pictures of the top finishers.

Finishing First with 20.06 lbs Caleb Taylor and Brian Erler

Second Place with 14.12 lbs. Chet Babcock and Jim Graff

Third place at Charlevoix with 12.65 lbs. Al and Jim Dood

Albeit, I'm not a walleye angler, but I have caught a number of nice walleye through the ice. I have a beautiful stringer mount of walleye with the smallest being eight pounds and the largest ten pounds. I love to eat walleye and catch most of mine when I'm throwing spinnerbaits, believe it or not.

In a bass tournament, on Saginaw Bay, we got in to a school of walleye. They tore our spinnerbaits up to the point where we had to leave. As we did, we tossed some live bait walleye guys our spinnerbaits because they weren't getting bit and couldn't believe we were hammerin' them like we were.

John, as I mentioned, is on the board of the West Michigan Walleye Club and they are without a doubt the largest fishing club on this side of the state and maybe the largest single club in the whole state. I've been to several of their meetings, and it is always a good time and quite informative. If your interested in walleye fishing and are near Grand Rapids check them out.

The Walleye guys used the ramp near the Ironton Ferry

We have had several bass tournaments and several B.A.S.S. Federation Nation State Championships on Charlevoix. It's a pretty piece of water and a place where you may run into the man himself, KVD. He's known ply the waters of Charlevoix frequently.

If you get a chance to get up there to fish bass or walleye you won't be disappointed. It is a beautiful area. Just a trip around the lake looking at the homes can be interesting. Here is a picture John just took of one of the weekend places on the lake.

The boat house door on this weekend place is 65 feet tall.

Another beautiful place near Charlevoix that we happened across when we were looking for accomodations for one of the State Championships was the Horton Creek Inn Bed and Breakfast . It's nestled back in the woods surrounded by forest noises. It has a pool, hot tub, and the place is a real show place. Each bedroom is decorated around an outdoor theme. Each night they have warm pie or cake in their lounge area. Their breakfast was very good and they got up considerably early to make sure all us fisherman had our morning sustenance even though it was hours before their normal breakfast time. It certainly garners a five star recommendation from me. Take your wife there, and she will most cetainly not begrudge you some fishing time.

I got an email from a youngster today wanting to know some good baits to use in the Fall. I know here in Michigan it's crankbait time. I had mentioned the other day that I thought the B.A.S.S. Northern Open guys would do some damage cranking, and sure enough in the early reports that I have read on Jonathan Van Dam's victory, it came via the crankbait.

I have said it before and I will say it again, that if you want some big smallies in the Fall, you better be tossing a Koppers Live Target crank. The one that opens up on the home page is hard to beat. If you're not a believer then buy one and you'll find that the old adage seeing is believing will certainly be the case.

Well, I have my walking shoes on and have four to five miles ahead of me, so it's time for the parting cast of the day. Today's quote comes from "The" big man himself, Shaquille O'Neal. "I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok." May not be motivational, but Shaq knows how to make you laugh. Take care and make sure you take time out of your work day to do something that puts a smile on someone else's face.

September 26, 2009

Going back to back today with the blog. How's that for a recovery. The wife and I had dinner last night in Newaygo with the Cement Man and his wife. We needed to meet, so I could deliver the computer my son repaired for his daughter. We ate at Cronk's and had their AUCE Friday fish fry. It was very good, although I should know better than to get an all you can eat entre. I have no will power, and as I usually do in those situations, I overate. We had a good time though.

I received an email a couple of days ago from Lynn at Xtremeglove.com . Xtreme glove had contacted me before through the contacts we had made through B.A.S.S., namely Ray Scott, and Don Corkran. They had heard that Dandy Don Fowler and I were coming down to fish with Ray and Don at Ray's place in Pintlala. (By the way I just read where you can go down to Ray's for a fee and fish on the ponds that Don and I fished on. Check out the reference to this offer in Bass Fans Dock Talk entitled Ray's Lakes Will Open .) Any way, Xtreme gloves sent Don and I gloves to try. You may recall seeing some pictures in previous blog articles that I took of Don that showed him wearing the gloves. You may have also seen Trip Weldon, the B.A.S.S. weighmaster wearing them as he usually does at the B.A.S.S. weigh-ins. I keep mine in my boat hanging from my steering wheel so it's handy.

Lynn contacted me to let me know that she was the new contact person and also to let me know of a new glove they now have out. It's called the "Sun Glove." It's made, as the name implies, to keep your hands protected from the sun. We all need to be taking precautions out on the water to protect our skin from too much sun. Don can attest to that. He has been diagnosed with skin cancer, and has had to have several surgeries. He's been told point blank to stay out of the sun and if he is in it to use sun screen and wear long sleeves and long pants. My son has to also be careful because he gets an allergic reaction to the sun and he burns very easily. Lynn is going to be sending me some of the gloves to try, and I am going to be very interested in the fit and feel. Here is a picture of the new sun glove.

Xtreme Gloves new "Sun Glove"

Up here in the North Country we are going to be seeing less and less of the sun and our days on the water are numbered, but I plan to give the gloves a try yet this season and look forward to the added sun protection that they will provide next summer. They will be in my travel bag to be sure when I head down to Guntersville and Pickwick this coming Spring. I'll keep you posted on the fit and how they feel while fishing as soon as I get them.

Speaking of new items, Tom at Koppers Live Target sent me an email as well, telling me that he was sending out some new additions to their fantastic line of crankbaits and jerkbaits.

If you scroll down a few entries, you will see a display of Koppers Live Target baits that I showed you from Pilgrim's Village in Cadillac. This is especially the time of year that crankbaits turn on, and I'm here to tell you that you need to try them. At least look at one closely. Take it out of the box and look at the detail in the design and paint job. Check out the quality of the hooks. In my opinion, they are the best out there. They are realatively new to the market, but are catching on fast. Last year, in the BFL's I fished, they were the shhhhh bait. People were showing their buddies, but in shhhh voices. They wanted to have that edge that a hot new bait can give you.

I noticed that Steve still had Koppers left on the display, but there were only a few left in several of the styles. Buy a couple and get out on those flats for those Fall feeding smallmouth. You'll have a ball.

I have a ton of things I have to do today so I'm going to be ending this blog soon, but before I do make sure you hire a babysitter, call your bass fishing buddies, and plan a rendezvous for 4:00 PM tomorrow, Sunday. On ESPN2, they are going to be airing three hours of coverage of the race for the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year title . I know I have an alarm set on my phone to remind me of where I need to be tomorrow. I really don't think I'll need the reminder because I have really been anxiously waiting to see the coverage of this event. It has some of my very favorite anglers, and knowing what I already do of how things went down, there should be some real drama and excitement. I am going to have my beverages and snacks ready, and I plan to settle in for three hours of great fishing. Besides, tomorrow's football lineup doesn't have any match ups to even tempt me to channel surf.

The final cast for today comes from J.G.Holland. He once said, "The secret to a person's success in the world resides in their insight into the moods of others and their tact in dealing with them." Take care and enjoy your weekend.

September 25, 2009

A six day no blog hiatus, but I do have excuses. My son visited this past weekend and had my computer in pieces, laying in piles on the kitchen table. He bought me a new hard drive. I've had an 80 gig hard drive and now have a 320 gig drive. He also is revving up the machine with more RAM. I now have a gig of RAM that will really help when I'm pursuing one of my iMovie projects.

After doing the hardware installs, we then had to update the system files and make sure everything got copied back onto the new drive. He also installed a remote desktop program so that he can work on my machine from his. We were on the phone working last night until 1:30 am tweaking a few things and updating others. It appears everything is working correctly, and my files are intact, so I'm a happy camper.

Speaking of iMovie, I have been procrastinating on a project that I had 90% completed. It was some stills and video from the 2006 B.A.S.S. Federation Nation State Championship and the 2007 Northern Regional in Vermillion. My fishing buddy, Dandy Don Fowler, won the Northern Regional that year and led it wire to wire. We went down for the final day weigh-in, and I was able to film it and take some pictures.

I like to take pictures, always have, however, when I take pictures at tournaments that I fish, I can't always be where I'd like to be taking pictures because I'm in line with fish or taking the boat out, etc. Consequently, the subsequent iMovie that sometimes eventuates isn't as orderly as I would like it to be. If you are filming the event you really need to devote your whole effort to it and have another person shooting pictures as well. In any case, I have that compilation of pictures and video on a DVD and ready to view.

I just got a frustrated update from Dandy Don who has had a bad couple of fishing days. He was suppose to be fishing the third leg and final leg of the B.A.S.S. Northern Regional on Lake Erie as we speak. However, the event started yesterday without him. He went down a week early to prefish, and the first day he put his boat in he had problems. It is a recurring problem that was supposed to have been fixed. He called Bombardier and told them of his difficulties and got the name of what they felt was the best mechanic around and. Don took his boat there and then prefished a day with a buddy.

When Don explained the motor issues to the mechanic, he just shook his head and asked who had been working on his engine. I won't mention any names, but it had been at two shops that both handle a lot of bass boats. To make a long story short, the boat couldn't be fixed in time and Don didn't feel comfortable borrowing a boat to fish on Erie. Erie can be hard on a boat, and he didn't want to take a chance on damaging someone's rig. He called B.A.S.S. to try and get his thousand dollar entry fee back and or applied to another tournament, and they said no. So,... Don's not a happy camper. Can't say that I blame him.

On a little more happier note, I got my confirmation for the B.A.S.S. Elite Series events on Lakes Guntersville and Pickwick. These are two fabled bass fisheries that Rick "The Cement Man" Skinner and I have signed up to Marshall at come next April. They are back to back tournaments on the Elite schedule that we'll be going down to participate in. There will be three days between events with nothing on the schedule, so we'll be fishing Wheeler in Decatur, where this year's Dixie Duel was at that we Marshalled. (If you haven't read or looked at the pictures from that event they are archived at the top of this blog. Just click on the link.) After riding with three different pros, we have a very good idea of where to go to catch fish now on Wheeler. Can't wait for that trip.

As I said earlier the Northern Open is taking place as I type. Day One was yesterday, and here are the standings from Day One of the B.A.S.S. Northern Regional . Day Two was to be today, but B.A.S.S. Officials cancelled today's action due to high winds. Waves were forecasted to be six to seven footers!

Pete Gluszek is in first with around 23-13 pounds and KVD's nephew Jonathon Van Dam is in eighth with 22-6. Mike Iaconelli, who is currently second in points in the Northern Opens, decided not to fish this event. He put his effort into the Champions Week down in Alabama and did very well I might add. He's already qualified for the Classic, so fishing for one of the two qualifying spots in the Northern Open was not a necessity for him.

Well, I have to get off the computer for a while and take care of a few things. I may be meeting up with the "Cement Man" Mr. Skinner to drop off his daughter's computer to him. My son also fixed that computer while he was here this past weekend, and she's anxious to get it back. Probably misses reading my blog!

The last cast of the day is a quote from the great Groucho Marx. He once said, "Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." Take care and make sure you take some time out of your work day today to do something that puts a smile on your face.

September 19, 2009

Stop the presses and fire up the internet pages! KVD pulls out his fifth angler of the year title in an exciting come from behind fourth quarter victory on the Alabama River! Here's a picture of the 2009 B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year with Rick "The Cementman" Skinner taken this past June when KVD came to film a DVD at a lake Rick has access to.

The 2009 B.A.S.S. AOY and his bowling buddy Rick "The Cementman" Skinner

The Kalamazoo Kid pulled of a miraculous come from behind victory yesterday! The first half of the Toyota Truck Championship Week KVD had a tough first quarter losing several key fish. His finish in the first half, on Lake Jordan left him looking up at the leaders, and had Skeet looked like a shoe in for the title. For Kevin to win, he needed to win the Alabama River leg of the race, and have Skeet finish lower than fourth. Well, that's exactly what happened.

Skeet, had a poor practice and the only bite he flet confident about was way up river near the dam. The area is known for holding big spotted bass, especially when Alabama Power is pulling water out of Lake Jordan. Skeet was the the only angler of the twelve finalist that ran north to the dam on Day 1. Van Dam ran with the pack down south, but ran further than any other competitor. In fact he ran forty miles south.

Skeet caught a decent limit of around ten and a half pounds on the first day, but Van Dam's spot gave up a little over fourteen pounds. Van Dam found a sand bar pattern that he ran and milked with a Strike King Series 1 and 6 crankbait and a soft plastic jerk bait, the Caffeine Shad .

Reese stuck with his up north dam pattern and KVD worked his sand bars the second day. Van Dam, after Day 1, had a solid three pound lead whereas Skeet sat in third, but was in close proximity to several other anglers. Van Dam smoked the field with 16 pounds on the second day, but still needed to have Reese finish lower than fourth place to win the crown. When the dust settled, the middle of the pack anglers behind Skeet, had good days, and when Reese missed a couple of hook ups his dream of bookending his Classic win with an AOY Crown was over.

The confetti fell, and the fireworks went off, and Van Dam was once again on stage pumping his fist and putting an exclamation mark on a stellar career that cemented his spot as the best angler on the planet. Did we mention he was a Michigan boy? Way to go KVD, and our heartiest congratulations on another fantastic season!

There are a couple of early reports that are out on the net covering the past two days worth of competition. One is an article from Bass Fan entitled "Van Dam Slams 16-03, Wins AOY By 6 Points" , and the other is a piece from ESPN Bassmater.com called, A Squeaker For Van Dam . If you click on the ESPN link, you will also have a connection to photos from the event as well.

What a boon this AOY Championship Week will be for ESPN. It provided the excitement and the drama that should bring a lot of attention to the sport. Attention means money and with the economy being what it is, maybe this will bring the sponsorships back and ESPN will reinstate some of those tournament venues that have been cut from the Elite season. We'll see. Make sure you mark your calendar for September 27th at 4:00 pm. ESPN2 will be airing 3 hours of Championship Week coverage that Sunday.

Rick and I had a blast down in Decatur at the Dixie Duel event where Rick drew KVD and rode with him for a day and a morning. It lead to KVD coming to Rick's place for a day and filming on his lake. What an opportunity! We are signed up for two B.A.S.S. Elite events in Alabama next spring. Can't wait, and I know Rick is really looking forward to the trip as well. Maybe one of us will get another ride with the Kalamazoo Kid.

Rick and I went back out fishing last Thursday night for about three hours just before dark. We had a great outing and caught at least ten nice keepers, and Rick once again, was on a big fish bite. Here's a picture of the smallie he caught on his KVD Strike King Ocho.

Another great northwest corner smallie by the Cementman.

We had a very productive three hours and I even started to catch some fish this time. We had Rick's nice four plus pounder and nine others that were nice quality fish.

This was a nice representative of the class of fish we were catching.

Rick and I had a great time. It was one of those outings with a buddy that you know you will revisit fondly during the long Michigan winter. It was a beautiful day weather wise, and the fish cooperated and kept us busy. Just another idyllic northwest corner day that was polished off by a spectacular sunset.

It just doesn't get any better than this!

One of the reasons that I kept up in the fish count with the Cementman this time out was that I picked up those new Gamakatsu wacky rig hooks that really give some great movement to the Ochos we were using. Rick was using them the last trip out where he waxed me, putting seven nice fish to my one in the boat. I had picked them up at Pilgrim's Village along with a few secret baits. The secret really is those Live Target crankbaits and jerkbaits. That crankbait bite really starts to get hot this time of year. In fact, I know several BFL anglers that are fishing as I type out of Elizabeth Park on the Detroit River that are using them. I noticed that Pilgrim's Village supply was starting to get pretty low, but they still have a few left in stock.

Pilgrim's Village Bait and Tackle shop on the shore of Lake Mitchell in Cadillac off 115 right across the street from the entrance to the State Park.

If you haven't looked at a Live Target crankbait you are missing the boat!

I'm looking forward to spending the day today with my number 2 son who is visiting for the weekend. He's making us some deep dish Chicago style pizza and is also going to install a 320 gig hard drive in my computer that he bought for me. Yahoo! We're also going to juice up the RAM in the old Apple desktop as well. Should help with the making of the videos that I soon hope to be posting on the webpage.

That's it for today. The last cast comes in the form of a quote from Tim McGraw. He is quoted as having this to day about friendship: "We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere." Take care and have a great rest of the weekend. Some great football on tap. That State, Notre Dame game should be a good one, and GVSU is playing Ferris in Big Rapids.

September 17, 2009

The days are growing shorter, and I fear my extended stay at the cabin is also nearing its end. My son is coming to visit this weekend, and we have things that need tending at home, so today or tomorrow we will be heading that way. I was up with the sun this morning still looking for an opportunity for a bobcat picture, but it wasn't to be. However, the morning is one of those great Northwest corner picture postcard events. Here's a picture from the hot tub. It felt good to soak in the 103 degree water with an air temp this morning of 43 degrees.

A view from the hot tub, and no Don, it wasn't a Cialis moment.

Yesterday, we had to drive in to Cadillac to an eye appointment. You may remember me mentioning that I stepped on my glasses and broke them. I haven't had an eye exam in three years, so I guess it's time to donate some money and have the exam and get new glasses.

The last time we left early in the morning to drive in to Cadillac, we saw the piebald deer. As luck would have it, we again saw the two does with their two normal looking fawns. We were in a hurry because of the eye appointment, so I couldn't take the time to sit and wait for a good photo. I shot these three from the driver's seat through the passenger window. I tried to do a little enhancing to make them as clear as possible, but as they say, you'll get the picture.

This is the larger of the two does.

The eyes show the flash that went off, because I took the picture from the driver's side out the passenger window.

This deer appears to be smaller than the other doe leading me to thing this pair is a mother daughter.

We made the eye exam in time and afterwards we called Cadillac native, Dandy Don Fowler, and met him for breakfast at the Frosty Cup Restaurant . The Frosty Cup has a "Number 5" special every day. It's two eggs, hash browns, choice of meat, toast, and coffee for $3.99. Pretty hard to beat that price for a good sized breakfast cooked to order.

As we were eating, Don got a call from an outfitter friend up in Ontario. He called to talk Don into coming up to take a bear on film. He claimed that he has a six to seven hundred pound bear coming in.

Don has taken a couple of Michigan bear already with his bow, and wasn't too eager to make the trip, until he heard that this was a good chance at a Boone and Crockett bear. I think he's going bear hunting. I'll keep you posted.

While we were at the eye doctor for me, my wife decided to take an appointment time for later in the day. They had a cancellation, and we were already in town, so we opted to stay. There's plenty to do in Cadillac, and one of the first things on my list was to go to Pilgrim's Village .

The best tackle shop in Michigan's Northwest Corner!

I was on a mision to pick up some new Gamakatsu Wacky Head Hooks . Rick "The Cement Man" Skinner has been wackying me with them this year, and I finally had to make the drive to Pilgrim's Village to pick some up. They only had two sizes left in stock, and not very many of those. I bought a package of each size they had. I'll tell you what though, Gamakatsu is proud of that new hook. $5.39 for a package of four of them! If you are a wacky rigging Senko or Ocho fan you may want to give these a try. The flat head on the hook causes these heads to really give the bait extra action as it falls.

It's 10:29 am and I just got up to get a cup of coffee and there are four deer on the edge of the yard. All does from what I can tell and the leader of the pack is chasing off one young deer. The others, I would guess, are part of her extended family and this intruder is not going to get around any of the browse that this mature doe has laid claim to. Bambi doesn't get to eat till the mature does do. They will literally kick the smaller deer away. I have found wads of deer hair in the yard.

It looks like they may be coming in to check out the acorns that have been falling like mad in the yard around the cabin. I think the deer prefer to eat them in the grass, rather than having to search for them in the leaves.

I don't know if you have a lot of acorns around you this year, but up here at the cabin the acorns are large and plentiful. The same is true at home. In fact, I can't park in my driveway because I have some massive oaks that have acorns that put dents in our vehicles.

Well back to Pilgrim's Village. As I said, I bought the new wacky rig hooks and shopped around for a few other secret baits. Steve, the owner, has stocked his shop with a bunch of top fishing tackle. It's not Walmart standard fair, he has the baits that serious anglers are using. He is also as knowledgeable as they come about Lakes Cadillac and Mitchell, so if you're after tackle or fishing information stop by. They are right next to the State Park ramp on Lake Mitchell, right across the street from the Burger King. In fact, their dock is handy if you are fishing Mitchell and want to quick tie up and run across the street to get a whopper for lunch. I've done it many a time.

If you are following the Toyota Trucks Championship Week , the twelve contenders are on the Alabama River this morning starting the third leg of four in the Championsiop Series. The boats started at 6:15 am this morning and they weigh in today at 4:00 pm. You can follow the action on the Bassmaster Blog . Right now Skeet is the only angler of the twelve to head north on the river. All the others went south and KVD has went 40 miles south. He's gambling and has to let it all out. If he is going to win the title, he has to win this two day event. I am rooting for KVD and Iaconelli. Mike has a couple in the boat and Skeet is reported to have four in the livewell for around eight pounds. Skeet doesn't need to win this last two day event. He just has to finish up near the top. It looks like he is well on his way to doing that.

It's time for me to get off the keyboard a while. I'll be surfing to see how the guys are doing during the day and will be watching the weigh in. I may also tune in to their new Bass Cam which is some live video footage of the day.

The last cast of the day is a quote by David Letterman about the Fall. Looking out my window here in the great northwest corner of Michigan provides me with some beautiful scenery. A treasure that many never get a chance to admire. Letterman said of LA's Fall, "Fall is my favorite season here in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees." I guess the smog is getting bad out there! Take care and make sure you take some time out of your work day today to do something that puts a smile on your face.



September 15, 2009

"By the dawn's early light," as Francis once said, I'm sitting here by the window typing and hoping to see my bobcat . Yesterday morning, I got up and while I was admiring the day out walks the long legged beauty. I watched it stroll along the edge of the lake where it stopped a moment, by my dock, to mark its territory. I leave the camera out and handy for photo ops, but as luck would have it, when I turned the little digital on the "Change battery pack" display lit up. I scrambled to find my digital video camera, but there wasn't enough time, and the rabbit lover was on the move, and he wasn't waiting for a picture. So, I'm up extra early in hopes the felis lynx rufus , which has an average range of 5-50 miles will come by again.

I did a little surfing to check whether the cat I saw might be a lynx rather than a bobcat. According to the sources I found, it was probably a bobcat. Lynx typically have a more northernly range and feed almost exclusively on snowshoe hares. One of the major differences between the two cats is their tails. A bobcat has a slightly longer tail that is banded with some black at the tip. A lynx does not have the bands and has a solid black tipped tail. The bobcat and lynx have spotted fur. The spots on a bobcat are more pronounced. The lynx also tends to be bigger with longer legs and much larger paws. The animal I saw was long legged and didn't appear spotted. Hopefully I'll get another look. I've seen it twice now, but would love a chance for a longer viewing opportunity to check it out and to get some pictures.

Well, you probably have checked out who won the first of two legs for the Toyota Trucks AOY Chase. Mike Iaconelli won down on Lake Jordan, but the big news is that Skeet Reese came in second and KVD finished up in sixth. This gives Reese a 16 point lead going into the next event which starts this Thursday and concludes on Friday on the Alabama River.

As you can read in the article, Reese's finish mathematically eliminates half of the 12 person field. It will be Reese's tournament to lose, because for him not to win he has to bottom out in the Thursday" and Friday's competition. If he finishes near the top, he wins and becomes only the second angler ever to win both the Bassmaster Classic and the Angler of the Year race in one season. Not slighting the others' chances, I do think it would be appropriate for him to win the title since he did end the regular season with the point lead. This will just solidify matters and eliminate some contentiousness concerning the new format. It is what it is, however, and who knows what will happen in the next few days. Ike may whack them again and put a whoppin' on the field. And, maybe our Michigan angler, KVD, will come from behind and steal the thunder. Here are the standings from the Lake Jordan Chase Event . If your interested in another article on the Lake Jordan contest here is an article from Bassmaster talking about the AOY race.

If you're interested in reading about how Ike won the event with a dock pattern and a deep water tube bite just click on the hot link.

Don't forget to set an event alarm in your cell phone calendars for Sunday, September 27. From 4:00 pm till 7:00 pm ET, ESPN2 will be televising the AOY Alabama Chase. Three hours of coverage ought to provide a good look at the new AOY end of season competition.

Sunday, the wife and I decided to drive in to Ludington to pick up a few things and we also stopped by the Ice Mountain Tear Drop Tournament Trail Host Tournament. Each year the Tear Drop puts together a flyer in which they sell ads to get money for their end of season Classic. The top ten angler,s and one wild card draw, then compete for a pretty good chunk of cash. The ads in the flyer sell for $100 and $200. The $200 ads are placed together on the back page and are dubbed the "Host" ads. At some point in the summer, the "Hosts" meet and are paired with a Tear Drop angler, who then takes them out for a half day fishing trip. Whichever host comes back with the most fish wins their $200 back. Not only do they get money and a great day of fishing, the whole group also is treated to a lunch. This year the lunch was at Lincoln Hills Golf Club . Dennis invited my wife and I to accompany the group, and we accepted, and had a very good lunch. I usually do a better job with the food and get some pictures of the entrees, but I got caught up in the chit chat and neglected to take any pictures. I had a chicken breast on focaccia bread with fries. It was excellent!

Lincoln Hills just completed a large renovation project, and the course and the new club house are beautiful. It is a public course, but members get preferential tee times, but if there is an opening, you can play as a nonmember. Here are a couple of pictures, and I apologize to Dennis because these shots really don't reflect how nice this golf course truly is.

The clubhouse at Lincoln Hills Golf Course in Ludington.

A view of the course from inside the clubhouse.

The hosts that participated with their Tear Drop guides all came in on Sunday with limits. The winners were from the Na-Tah-Ka . Craig "Back Up and Dump" Stumbrie fished with Rick "The Cement Man" Skinner and they brought in a bag of fish that weighed ten and a half pounds. Here are some pictures from that day.

Mike Meysar and Bob from Pere Marquette Sports Center

Jeff Brauneck and his host from Brian's Seal Coating

Rick and Craig with their winning catch.

Larry Bender, from the Na-Tah-Ka, receiving his $200 Host Tournament check.

The parting shot or final cast, I've not decided if I should use one byline versus the other, comes today from Michael Jordan. he once said, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I?ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Take care and make sure you take some time out of your work day to do something, if only for a few minutes, puts a smile on your face.

September 13, 2009

As I type this morning, I'm sitting at the table overlooking a placid Big Bass Lake. There is a skim of vapor doing its best to escape the warm water, but it gets caught in the cool morning air and condenses in a shimmering early morning dance. The sun is filtering through the trees, and it looks like another beautiful day in Michigan's great northwest corner.

I got up fairly early to try and get a blog entry in and maybe see the nice little buck that has been coming into the yard to eat acorns. No buck, or any deer this morning. We did see the piebalds yesterday, and I did have my camera.

I had stepped on my glasses and broke them, so we needed to take them to Cadillac to get a replacement pair. We wanted to get there soon after Dr. Meyer's Office opened. We left around 8:00 am and lo and behold the deer were near the road where we often see them. I didn't have much time to wait for them to move into a good photo position, so I had to shoot what I could get. Here's a picture.

Two piebald does that have been providing photo ops for several years now.

There have been some other photos emanating from the Irons area, and they are garnering national attention. They are the photos of Tom Healy's new state record brown trout . Now I don't know if Tom is related at all to the Healy that teaches in Jension, but he is from Rockford, so I'll have to see if there is any connection when I get back to town.

Tom's fish was 41.45 lbs. and was 43 and 3/4 inches long. It was caught in the Big Manistee River on a Rapala shad rap. The fish is a new state record for sure, and it may very well become the next world record. Tom will have to go through the rigamarole of applying with the International Game Fish Association, IGFA, before that can become official. The old record is held by a fish caught in Arkansas which weighed 40 pounds and four ounces.

They will have to send in a skin sample to determine the fish's sex. They said it had the body shape of a female, but also had some characteristics of a male. They also said that when a fish gets that big it has directed its energy resources toward growth rather than reproduction, thus causing the difficulty with sexing it. The DNR will also be doing some testing to see if it was a planted fish or from a wild strain.

It was not surprising on the one hand to catch a big brown in the Manistee. The river is known to give up some monster browns. What was surprising was to find a big fish like this in the river so early. Brown's don't normally spawn until November. They are known to travel with the Chinooks and the Coho though, so it probably followed them up river.

Tom was fishing with Pier Pressure Fishing . Here is a short CNN video of Tom being interviewed.

Some pretty exciting local news to be sure, and there is more national fishing news being made down in Alabama with the Toyota Bass Championship Week. The Week started yesterday with the twelve B.A.S.S. contenders fishing on Lake Jordan. Tommy Biffle came away as the Day One Leader with fifteen pounds of fish. Tommy is a bank pounding flipper that hit the shoreline structure and docks to catch a good limit of spotted bass. Normally you would think a flipper would be limiting out on largemouth, but Tom's bag was all spots. The deep bite never materialized on Jordan. The Alabama Power Company did not pull water as they were scheduled to, so that didn't help the bite as it could have.

KVD finished seventh with 10-14 and Skeet finished fifth with 12-6. That put Skeet in first in the AOY race, six points ahead of Van Dam. Biffle, with his Day One sack, moved up three spots from his end of year placement to tie Van Dam with 230 points. Biffle and Van Dam are currently tied for second with 230 points apiece. My other favorite angler Mike "Never Give Up" Iaconelli came in second yesterday and moved up seven spots and is in fourth overall with 220 points. Ike's on a roll, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see him kick some butt yet.

You can get the skinny on how the day's unfolding today at Bassmaster.com . There's all kinds of live coverage, and as I type, I'm checking the ongoing blog that they are doing of the live action, and Ike is the first to have a limit. It puts him in the overall lead at the moment.

You can watch the weighin live or get a Real time Leaderboard as they weigh in at 3:00 pm today. Don't miss looking at the ESPN's camera crews' pictures of the event. As I have said before, they take some of the best photos and are always fun to look at.

Speaking of having some fun, the wife and I went over to Pentwater a couple of days ago and used one of our Restaurant.com coupons at Gull Landing . It's right downtown Pentwater. Their outside deck overlooks the water and with the weather we've been having eating outside, something I usually prefer not to do, was very pleasant. I had perch which was excellent. I had the option of getting acorn squash instead of potato with my perch, and I did. It was a good decision. My wife had a 12 oz. piece of prime rib. Her meat wasn't a very good cut, way too fatty. Her salad, that she ordered ala carte, was very good. We also got an order of onion rings as an appetizer. They were good. Not great, but good.

The sandwiches that we saw coming out of the kitchen, especially the reuben, looked very tasty. The pasta dishes looked interesting as well. I would definitely go back again, but I don't think my wife would get the prime rib.

The Restaurant.com coupons are a great deal and we have used a number of them. Right now you can buy a $25 coupon for a $1. You have to spend $35 but get $25 off with the coupon. A real deal!

After we left the restaurant, we drove around town and then went just a few blocks from main street to Mears State Park . It's a beautiful spot nestled in the dunes. They have a bunch of benches that the campers and the locals meander over to, to watch the sunsets. We got lucky and were there just at sunset, so we decided to wait a few minutes and celebrate it's passing with the crowd that had gathered. It was spectacular! Here are a couple of pictures. They really don't do it justice, however.

The stub piers at Pentwater.

A beautiful view from the sunset coast in Michigan's Great Northwest Corner.

Well, I think we are going to mosey over to Wilson Hill Park on Hamlin Lake and take some pictures of the weighin at the Host Tournament. So here is the last cast for today. It is a quote from Helen Keller: "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend, even if Michigan State did loose to Central.

September 10, 2009

September continues to coddle some great late summer early Fall weather. Here at the cabin, it has been almost dead nuts perfect. Nights are cool and the days sunny and warm with light breezes. The cool nights have made for some great sleeping, and the hot tub has been a nice early morning respite for this old stiff body of mine.

Yesterday though, Rick "The Cement Man" Skinner got me out of bed before dark to fish. We met and headed out in his Ranger which meant I had to pack a bag. I don't know about you, but when you have your own boat, but then go and fish out of another, it is tough to feel confident about what you have in one gear tote. I took four or five rods, but really could have gotten by with probably three quite nicely. I do have boxes set up that I used when I was a coangler in the Michigan BFLs last year, but those boxes for St. Clair and Erie. So, I pulled out a hodge podge of bags and lures and tossed them in the bag. Fishing with a friend is a no pressure event and a time to try some new things.

We got to our little slice of heaven in Michigan's Great Nortwest Corner, about 8:00 am, and we ran to a weed bed that Rick had fished earlier in the summer. We both know the lake well and would alternate going to each of our favorite spots. On the first weed bed, I tossed out a tube, threw a spinnerbait and a crankbait, but couldn't coax a bite. Rick was throwing one of his KVD ocho's and caught two small largemouth. The action was slow, so we pulled the trolling motor and made a move. It didn't take too long and Rick, while talking on his cell phone's bluetooth device, stuck a pretty good fish. I asked him if he wanted the net out, and he said he did, and that he thought that he had on a pretty nice fish. I positioned myself with the net, and when the fish came up, I could see that it was a dandy smallmouth.

After a mighty find net job, Rick took the little circle hook out of the fish's mouth and started digging for the scale to see what this mama weighed. It settled on the scale at 5.3 lbs. A beautiful smallmouth! The fish was over twenty inches long. Couldn't be sure just how long because Rick's delier wasn't long enough to measure it. Here are a couple of pictures of Rick's fish.

The "Cement Man" hoists one of his better smallmouth catches.

Now that's a nice Northwest Corner bass!

One of the best buys that I feel I've made a few years ago were some miniature weigh in bags that I use when I want to cull or weigh a particular fish. Trying to weigh a nice bass is tough. First you have to stick it with the scale hook which stresses and provides potential harm to the fish, and then you have to contend with the fish flopping and falling off. All that bouncing affects your scale, and it's hard to get an accurate weight. I have done away with all that with Bag-Ems bass bags. As I said, they are miniature weigh-in bags. They are black and have grommets at the top of the bag that your scale hook slides in to. Once you put your fish in the dark bag it rarely flops and never falls out to flop around on the deck. With two bags you can easily use a balance beam to cull your fish. Saving time culling, means more time fishing. These bags are inexpensive, and if you don't have them you need to try at least one, but I recommend two. No kick back endorsements here, they are just one of those simple products that makes life easier, and protects your bass from over handling. That said comma, back to the Cement Man's day on the water.

I say the Cement Man's day because it certainly wasn't mine. I did all the netting while Rick kept putting fish after fish in the boat. Had it been a tournament, I would have certainly deferred to his hot bait and technique, but I kept experimenting to see if they would bite something else. They didn't!

Here are some more of Rick's fish. I would think that, with no help from me, he had around 18 pounds of fish. Two of the smallmouth were over twenty inches.

Rick's second 20 incher of the day!

Not a twenty incher, but a good un.

Just to show his versatility he had me net a largemouth.

We had a great day on the water and despite not much to speak of from me, I still had a great time. Once off the water we stopped at Rick's favorite eatery, Wendy's! The boy can fish and... he can match the best power eaters when it comes to packing away a hamburger, that is, if it doesn't have cheese!

If you love to fish smallies as much as I do you will be interested in what the "Smallmouth Guru" Stephen Headrick has to say about "Keeping Up With Your Bass" . Steve has a lot of good reading in his smallmouth blog he does for Bassmaster's.

If you are a deer hunter, remember that today you can buy left over antlerless deer tags in areas that have extra licenses available. Just an F.Y.I.

Speaking of deer, this morning as I went out the back door of the cabin to jump in the hot tub a deer blew. I just caught a glimpes of the back end of it as it hopped back into the trees. I stood still and scanned the woods and saw several other deer. They looked like they wanted to come in to the yard to eat acorns. I eased my way back in to the cabin and took a seat next to the window and noticed at least two of the deer were bucks. One was a spike, but the other was at least a six or maybe an eight point. They didn't appear to be spooked, so I hoped they would walk back to the yard so I could get a picture, but they didn't.

We've been seeing a pair of piebald does that are almost entirely white. We've seen them at least three times this summer and either didn't have a camera with us or it was after dark. I would like to get a picture of them. These piebalds have been around the area for several years. They have two normal looking fawns with them this year. Many of the folks in the area have gotten pictures of them, and I want one too. Have camera will travel.

The B.A.S.S. Toyota Trucks Championship Week starts this weekend and TV coverage will be on Sunday, September 27th at 2:00 pm. If you have a half hour, and want to listen to a pretty good run down of the event, there is a streamed radio program that you can listen to called The Bass Reporters . Just click the hot link and you're in business. I listened to it and found it to be very interesting.

Well, I've got an agenda today that moves me to get off the computer to get some things done. The parting cast of the day is a quote by Mary Anne Radmacher-Hershey. She said, "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, "I'll try again tomorrow." Take care and make sure you take time out of your day today to do something that puts a smile on your face.

September 8, 2009

What a beautiful weeks worth of weather! And then to culminate it with one of the best stretches of Labor Day sunshine and blue cloudless skies we've had in years made for some good end of summer fun!

I have been up at the cabin for almost a week and it has been great. On our way up to the cabin we stopped and saw Jean Skinner, who was having some problems with blood clots finding their way to her lungs. She is home now, and from what I know now, she is on the mend. That's good news!

We have enjoyed several days this past weekends with family. We are fortunate to have a close knit bunch, and we enjoy each others company and always have a good time at our get togethers.

The only wet blanket these past few days is that I have been having trouble with the well pump. At first we thought it was the pressure switch. This switch sits astride the shallow well pump and has a set of points that sometimes gets worn and pitted causing the pump to run continuously. I replaced the pressure switch and bingo things went well. We were in the water business once again. However, after a day of running fine it starting acting up again. The pump seemed to be losing its prime.

We then surmised that the check valve could be leaking water. The well, is an inch and a quarter hand drilled well, and where the pipe comes out of the ground there is a ninety degree and the pipe heads over to the well pump. In that stretch of pipe, there is a brass check valve. Its purpose is to not let water go back down the well pipe when the pump stops pumping. I replaced that last night and then tried to prime the pump.

Of course, there hasn't been a wrench on the whole thing for about twenty plus years so things are corroded up a bit and the plug on the top of the pump wouldn't budge. There is a plug on a T that comes off the upright fill tube to the pump, and it is part of a piece of piping that goes into the pressure tank. I tried to use it to fill the pump to prime it, but I either didn't get enough water in the pump or something else is wrong. I am going to try this morning to apply some heat to the plug that won't budge and use a longer pipe wrench to see if I can get it to move. I would like to be sure that I'm filling that pump and affording it every opportunity to prime. If I can do that, then I guess the only other possibility would be that the well point screen is clogged which would mean hand driving a new well.

My dad and I drove this current well about 25 years ago. About 20 years ago the pump froze, and we replaced it and replumbed it to sit down in a pit. The pit is small and is tough to work in.

I just don't think the well is the problem because when we were getting water, before the pump seem to loose its prime, we were getting good pressure and plenty of water. Oh well, I'm going to try and get the prime plug out and after that I'll probably "tread water" a few days to query any and all as to what they think my next move should be, knowing it is probably drilling the new well. Any ideas or suggestions are welcomed. If you have any well pump expertise, please email me with what you think about this well pump quandary.

I did actually get out fishing a day this weekend. You would think that being right on a lake would allow for more than one fishing opportunity. It could, but it doesn't always.

My brother-in-law, and X fishing partner Neal "Power Set" Schoen accompanied me to Hamlin Lake. As we were getting the boat ready to launch, I hit the lift switch on the big motor to take the tote off, and the starting battery was deader than a wedge. At about the time the air was clearing around the boat, the Braunecks, Fred and Jeff, arrived at the ramp. They were headed out for some fishing and helped us with a jump. From boat starting battery to starting battery, there wasn't enough juice. We thanked them for their efforts and told them to launch. We would head to Walmart for a new battery.

We decided, however, to give it one more go and put the boat in the water. We swapped out a trolling motor battery with the starting battery, and it started right up. We reversed the swap so the starting battery might take a charge while we motored around the lake, but despite leaving the boat running while we fished, it never did take enough of a charge to start the boat again. Having to mess with the batteries, significantly cut in to our fishing time and focus. We did managed to catch some fish, but not the numbers or the size that we are accustomed to getting on Hamlin. Here is a two pictures of Neal and I with a couple of largemouth that found their way into our boat.

Neal "Power Set" Schoen with a Labor Day largemouth.

Despite battery issues we did coax a few largemouth to bite.

It's getting closer and closer to the Toyota Tundra Bass Championship Week down in Alabama. Bass Fan featured a story about the odds on favorite to win the event, none other than Michigan's Champion, Kevin "The Kalamazoo Kid" Van Dam. Here's the link to the article.

I read an interesting article on the Bassmaster site about Colt McCoy and his favorite receiver Jordan Shipley. They spent the day on the water with Alton Jones and then set up a photo op afterwards where Alton drove the bass boat on plane twenty yards off shore at 40 plus miles per hour and Colt, who was college football's most accurate passer last year, would try to hit Shipley in the numbers. This Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley link has an article and a short video of their passing attempt. It's a good article and a fun little video to watch.

Fall is upon us and college football swung in to high gear this past weekend. My alma mater, GVSU , is rated number one in the nation again and opened its season down in Texas against top rated West Texas A&M. They beat Texas, and this past Saturday, defeated Indianapolis as well. Their home opener is next week against Saginaw Valley. If you have time to spare on a Saturday, Grand Valley has an offense that is a lot of fun to watch. It's well worth the price of admission. Get their early though, because they usually have a good crowd.

That's going to be it for today. The parting shot, or maybe I should be calling these the last cast, is a quote by Saint Francis de Sales. He said, "Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them -- every day begin the task anew." Take care and make sure you take time out of your work day today to do something that puts a smile on your face.

September 3, 2009

First of all today I want to wish a very speedy recovery and send my prayers along to my good friend Rick "The Cementman" Skinner's wife Jean who is in the hospital with blood clots on both lungs. We want to see her up and about soon.

Secondly, I want to be sure to wish son number 3 a very happy birthday!

Thirdly, as you can see, I broke the blog and have archived it above.

I watched the coverage Sunday of the Forest Wood Cup on Versus. I guess I would have to say I was disappointed in the coverage. I know what has to happen to put a show like that together, but they have had about a month to prepare and it was just another FLW event. It didn't have the feel of the richest tournament available to bass anglers.

Speaking of richest tournaments, part of the pot is an incentive by Ranger for $500,000. Combine that with the FLW check of another $500K and you get a million dollars. Greg Hackney won it this year in a Triton and consequently didn't get the Ranger incentive. Listening to Ultimate Bass Radio interviewing Hackney he didn't seem too bummed about losing out on the incentive money. He also said that it is not an up front award, but rather a sum that is paid out over ten years. I didn't know that. It would still be nice to have a $50,000 check coming in for ten years, but I always thought that the amount was a total cash award.

In any case, I was not energized by the coverage and felt the live webcast had a lot more excitement and drama. I hope ESPN's coverage of the Dash for Cash coming up in September holds that drama and makes for good TV. The sport needs to build that fan base and TV coverage can do that. I don't want to slight FLW in any way though because what they have done with their Fantasy Fishing has, in my opinion, drummed up a huge of tournament fans and in a real participation format.

If you still are a bit in the dark about the end of season AOY race on the B.A.S.S. side of the pro fishing venue, here is an aticle from Western Bass that covers it quite well.

I haven't purused Western Bass's site in a while and was drawn back because of the aforementioned Ultimate Bass Radio program. I listened to one of their hour long programs last night on my four mile walk. It contained some good information and was interesting even though its focus is on the West Coast. Using the link above, you can access their list of archived shows and listen to them on your computer. If you have an MP3 player you can subscribe to their show via iTunes and have all of their shows sent to your iTunes folder where they can sync with your iPod or other MP3 player. I have about five different bass fishing radio shows that I have sent to mine and I then can listen to them any time on my iPod while I walk or travel in the truck. There is a lot of good information to be garnered from this media. You may want to check it out.

I have posted instructions as to how to download podcasts through iTunes and if I have time this week I think I'll try and set up a link that contains all the instructions so it becomes a permanent user link in the blog.

I read today that Direct TV is at odds with the Versus Network and will be dropping Versus from its TV offerings. Anybody with Direct TV now is left without some very good outdoor programming. FLW Outdoors, Hank Parker 3D, Babe Winkleman Outdoor Secrets, Lindner's Angling Edge, Bill Dance Outdoors, City Limits Fishing, BoatUS Collegiate Bass Championship, One More Cast with Shaw Grigsby, and some others.

I remember when the Big Ten Network was in contract wrangling with the Cable companies a year or so ago. It was a pain in the neck and left me scrambling to watch Izzo's Spartans. I hope they work things out at Direct TV soon.

Came up to the cabin and found that Craig "Back Up and Dump" Stumbrie was in with his truck and tractor and did some road repair and grading for me. Man, he did a great job! Thanks Craig! Don't hesitate to give Craig a call at 231-266-5224 for any of your excavating needs. Craigs ad with all the services he provides is on the Tear Drop flyer Page 5 on the main page of my website, under the "Tear Drop Flier" button.

That's going to be it for today. Actually, I started this yesterday morning and I'm just getting it done tonight. The parting shot for today is a quote from Greenville Kleisser, he once said "Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment."

Take care and make sure you take time out of your work day to do something that puts a smile on your face. Kleisser says so!