GOLF OR FLOG...YOUR CALL

Golf what a way to torture yourself, you swing funny shaped clubs at this white ball and then you chase it, Robin Williams version is funnier but you get the drift. I’ve had my ups and downs this year playing and the downs are winning, but just as I’m ready to find another past-time my game shows some promise. I will not at the moment say I can play round after round of good golf, I’m still working on hole after hole. Well to get on with the story I played in the Eagle Ridge playoffs this last weekend, my handicap got me into the second flight. I knew 5 of the players very well and they were all good players. I started with Al Burton who is on my golf league team and more times than not outscores me in league, but this was a match play tourney and total score means squat….How many holes did you win decides the match. I gave Al the first 2 holes and fought back to win the match 2 up.

Now my next opponent was John Robertson, a very good friend that I love to play with. Guess what? I lost the first 2 holes to John and fought our match back to even with 3 holes to go. So what does John do, he birdies the par 5 and I’m 1 down with 2 holes to play. John hits to the front fringe on a par 3 and I’m trying to give the hole away by going into the deep side bunker. My sand shot ended up a foot from the hole and John 3 putted so we’re tied going into the last hole. I hit 1 of my best drives of the day and end up about 110 yards from the green and John hooks a ball OB. Red stakes so he drops a ball at about 170 and hits 10 yards right of the green and he’s lying 3. I take out a 9 iron that should have ended up on the green and hit it 20 yards…I CHUBBY WHACKED IT!! I hit it to the green on my next shot and 2 putt for a bogey and John chips and 2 putts for a 6. I win the match, luckily but I did hit some nice shots along with some bad ones.

Final match was with Rick Anderson who was the class of the flight, a very steady player. I loose the first 2 holes again so I’m 2 down with 7 holes to go. I miss a putt on holes 3, 4, and 5 to win the holes and proceed to loose the 6th hole. I’m 3 down with 3 to play…dormie as the golf commentators would say. After the screw it attitude takes affect I win the next 3 holes and the match is tied and we go into sudden death playoff. I tried like hell to loose the next 3 holes by being in the woods, chunking a second shot and actually made a par to tie a hole. We’re on the 4th extra hole now and I hook a ball into the woods but John who is still with me said I saw it bounce toward the fairway…its close to the edge. Rick steps up to his ball and pushes his drive way into the woods on the right. I step up to hit a provisional ball and hook one further into the woods than my first ball. Mr. Consistency here, and Rick hits the middle of the fairway with his second shot. To end this thing I find my first ball in the woods and its in the open, I hit it to within 40 yards of the green and make a bogey. Rick has to play his second shot and is lying 3 and makes a double. I win the match….Congrats. Shitty win and I still may give up the game, but as bad as it sounds my game shows improvement.

Tomorrow I play Zach in league and he will probably kick my @ss, he won the club championship without too much trouble. Hopefully it will be a friendly @ss kicking. If you read all of this bullshit you are really too bored.

Enjoy your evening

Steelheader

A Wonderful Evening of Fishing With Rudy

I’ll apologize again for not taking the time to update my blog but when you have to create what is likely sh*t you have a tendency to let it slide. Its not that I haven’t been fishing, I have and I have been catching fish. In 3 trips to Big Sturgeon I’ve caught 25 crappies, I went to Ball Club Lake with Zak and he caught a nice walleye and we both caught too many pike to brag about, but the catching was the fun for the day. I finished staining my garage, now there’s enough excitement for the whole year in 2 weeks of sweat.

So I have had more than enough to write about, but I don’t think what I’m saying is going to thrill anyone who might read this. All of life is not a thrill a day, boring can and probably is the rule for most of us.

I do have a few pictures and a trip I do want to share with the family. I took Rudy out fishing and he did catch a very nice Large Mouth Bass, I would guess it was about 4 to 5 pounds and in his words I got to spend an evening on the lake instead of looking at the cards on the table. I hope you enjoy the pictures and I hope Jeff can find this quality of fish when he’s fishing his tourneys.

Till my exciting life picks it up a notch….ENJOY yours,

Steelheader

I caught this one...much smaller than rudies...May have been 21/2 -3 pounds. I thought better of Rudy taking my picture with the fish.....HMMM! 

Here's Rudy with his big bass.....we really didn't weigh or measure it but it was 4-5 pounds......Trust us!! hehehe.... 

We found 1 nice walleye on a windy afternoon. I'll say we had to wade through about 15 snakes for this walleye. 

Fun Times on the Lakes

I’m on vacation and the golfing has been frustrating so I guess fishing is the alternative. This time of the year it is a hit or miss proposition but there are still some biters out there if you’re not too fussy about size or type of fish you catch. Saturday I went up Big Sturgeon and met John Valentini to do some crappie fishing. I started out in a spot I have fished before and caught about 8 small hand sized fish, not bad action for about 2 hours. Then it was off to find John to see how he was doing on the other side of the lake. They had 2 boats out and were working the weeds near a hump in the middle of the lake. I joined in and at dark caught 6 crappies large enough to clean, but small. They had caught 1 between them.

Last night I went out scouting another small lake. It was a great evening after the wind died down a little and I caught a large mouth bass that I took a picture of, hope you enjoy it. The lake I was on is supposed to have crappies in it and I may go there one night and try for them because I found a few nice areas that may hold fish. Thankfully it cooled down enough that spending time on a lake feels good right now and I may do more fishing.

Later all,

Steelheader

Nice looking 3 1/2 pound bass. He put up a real battle, I can see how you could get into bass fishing. 

An Excuse Me - Morning Catch

It was like this yesterday, I was damn bored after golfing so I think I’ll fish tomorrow morning. I called Mickey about 6 PM yesterday and found out he had the morning off so a morning fishing trip was set.

When we left town at 6:30 it was cold and I was glad I dressed with a jacket and a long sleeved shirt because it felt like a fall day had arrived. The lake was calm for about 20 minutes after we got there and we were fighting the wind all morning, But we caught fish. In fact Mickey may have caught his life time walleye. The event kind of sounded like this….Dave I’ve got a snag we have to back, so I reel up and am following his line back to the snag. We get there and all of a sudden his snag starts to swim away from the boat, hey it’s a fish and a big one. The miracle in this whole scenario was that his knot held and the walleye was 29”.

Congrats Mickey it was a beautiful fish and a great release, you should have been there Junior. The pictures below are the proof and to think I almost forgot my camera this morning.

Catch a biter if you can,

Steelheader

That is the 29" walleye that was released. Nice fish. 

Now that's a nice catch Mickey!! WTG bud. 

I also caught a nice walleye. Here's a 21" fish about to become dinner. 

Yo and Beaker Send Off...A Fun Day on the Lake

I’ve been golfing so poorly that I opted out of the club senior club championship. Instead I went on the lab boating outing for the summer students Yo and Beaker. Steve, Andrea, D2, Casey and myself made up the noon trip on Vermillion. Entertainment was provided by the Karaoke machine manned by Yo and later by Beaker, BTW they better stay in school because singing isn’t going to earn them a living anytime soon. The afternoon trip was a little cool but when we ate the sun warmed us all up so it was off to the races again…..cruising speed with D2’s boat was about 35 MPH and it was a smooth ride….nice boat. I think we stopped in the middle of Big Bay and the swimmers cooled off. The pictures below recorded the fun.

When Steve and Andrea left at about 4PM we called Pat to see when he was coming, he and Katie arrived at about 5pm and off for another ride we went. To the Bayview we went for a very nice bite to eat and local entertainment ( not Yo and Beaker).

All in all a very pleasant day of fun and games. Thank-you Dave for the boat ride and I think a great send off for Yo and Beaker. We wish them well in their next year and years of school. Thank-you both for the help you provided this summer.

Enjoy the pictures,

Steelheader ;-))

Here's the Boss....oops....Captain of this S.S. Minnow mission 

Off from the landing we go. As you'll see in the later pictures Casey needed more sleep.....or something. 

Fun for all. Dave was trying to re-enact guess what happened to the cat stories that were flying around. Some funnier and longerrrrrrrrrr than others. 

Yo laughing as Casey goes after Beaker. 

Here's Casey....AGAIN!! 

Casey kept the girls moving. 

I'll stick my neck out here even with my boss. Here's a real case of like Father-like Son. You choose the better looking of the two.HEHE 

The Loch Ness monster was sighted. We couldn't chase it down though. 

Beaker wondering where Casey is. 

Yo resting after being chased by Casey. 

Chilling while waiting for Pat, it was a great day to be on the lake. 

There were also food fights this was the peanut throwing contest. The pizza fight was missed by the camera.

He may be sleeping, but the Killian's and and the Rolling Rock caps really do something for him. 

D2 trying to act casual. Nice boat. 

While waiting for Pat and Katie. Casey was either bored or he had a burst of intelligence. The picture speaks for itself. 

A Campout With Great Company...Thanks Tom

Tom Kemp what a fun guy and now one you can count on, although I always knew that. Earlier this summer we talked about going camping for an evening for some fishing, some drinking, and some music. Since Tom is the operations VR our schedules don’t mesh that often. He got to sub for Ginzu when Mark went to Alaska so we picked a day, 95 degree dead calm day. Can we pick a day or what, but we made the best of it.

I got to Tom’s with my topper and boat half filled with what I need for camping , and as I pulled up to Tom’s house and saw what he had for a ONE nighter I almost SH*T. Needless to say we filled the boat and topper with gear, I now remember why I don't get real excited about tenting.

On the drive up to Jeanette we scrapped the idea of camping out on an island, we were praying for a site open in the Campground. The LORD was looking after us we got one of the prime sites and were out fishing by about 1 in the afternoon.

Did I mentioned earlier it was HOT, but the BEER was cold and you know what, being the good campers we are we brought enough beer. Out on the water I thought I was fishing with the Coppertone sunbathing team, Tom had so much sunscreen on I smelled coconuts all day long, You truly are a gem Tom. Yes we didn’t want you to get the top of your head sunburned. Even with the heat we caught plenty of small walleyes and enough filletable fish for Tom to bring home some fresh fish.

That evening we listened to Skynard( GO FIGURE), cooked brats on a nice campfire and drank more beer, BTW we didn’t run out, how about that for good planning.

I hope we can get together again Tom and do another overnight campout, and maybe we can bring the 2 that should have been with us. I have some pictures that you may enjoy, the fish were way too small to record for all to see……sorry. The bright sun also raise heck with my cheap digital camera so some pictures were too dark to correct on the computer.

Till next time,

Steelheader

Lake Jeanette is a pretty lake that usually doesn't get too much pressure. A great place to spend some quiet time. 

A tough day on the lake and Tom is pounding it hard. His Gophers hat and a Busch Lite, it doesn't get any better than this. I wonder when the UMD hat gets broken in....SOON? 

Tom set up his own tent, he was considerate because he said I snore alot. I'll have to agree, I heard him in my tent 50 feet away...HEHE.