My brush with Dr. Phil

Last Saturday, while at the Mall of America, Dr. Phil and his wife Robin walked within 5 feet of me. I had my camera ready (or so I thought...remember it's a new one and I'm slightly handicapped). When they got right up to me I thought I was taking a picture, turned out I was shooting video. So I didn't get the photo I wanted and this one of them on stage is crappy, but I did get to say "Hi Dr. Phil" and he said "Hi" right on back to me. They were there promoting Robin's new book. I thought the name of it was "My Thoughts on all Kinds of Shit" but ends up it's called "Inside My Heart".

Got my computer back

I'm back in business. I got my computer back this afternoon.

I also got a new camera recently (after sinking my old one in the boat). I loved my old one but I'll get used to the new one. At least I can take photo's again!

I'll be back in Brainerd late tomorrow night (10 pm) and on the water Sunday. It looks like Sunday is going to be fairly warm (75 degrees) and windy (up to 25 miles per hour).

This and That

I won't have a computer for a few days. The IT guys here in Reedsport have it. They are installing some new software, cleaning up the hard drive and increasing the memory. So I won't have internet in the evening until further notice.

I went to a Little Feat concert last night. That was fun. They still got it!

Sunday I'll fish a small impromptu bass tourney on Hammel Lake in Aitkin.

Monday is my big 43rd.

Took Kyle to Minneapolis

This past weekend, before traveling to the West coast, we took my grandson Kyle on an adventure to Minneapolis. One of our first stops was at Joes Crab Shack (Kyle called it Joe's Crab Snack) in Maple Grove for dinner Friday night. A weird man, making balloon animals asked Kyle what animal he would like and he said a zebra. Who would say a zebra? Kyle. Anyway he got a zebra.Then we went to Bloomington to stay the night at the Embassy Suites. Well we weren't there 10 minutes and had to go swimming.
After swimming around for a while we went back to the room where the adults partook in some adult beverages. We gave the kid all the rootbeer he wanted.

Then in the morning, first thing, we had to go swimming again. Then it was off to the Mall of America, where there's an amusement park. The crazy bugger took me on the Log Shoot.
You might see the terror in my face. I'm not one for rides. Especially ones that go straight down.

Traveling to the West Coast

Mount Rainier from my seat yesterday as I fly into Seattle. I stayed the night in Seattle and then this morning flew to Eugene Oregon and drove down to Reedsport.



This was taken from Charleston Oregon, where I went and saw the seals (I don't know if you can see them too well but they are all over these rocks). There was also a whale out there in the ocean playing around. It was very nice here (about 78 degrees).

Fishing the Minnesota State TOC

Brainerd Lakes Bassmasters 2006 state team. Pictured here is Dan Doughty, myself, Jim Eide, Keith Tuma, Chad Invalson and Troy Bruns.
Me and my boat wave day #1.

It's taken me awhile to write about this because it wasn't one of my best experiences. A couple weeks ago I suited up and headed for Gull Lake for the two day Minnesota B.A.S.S. State Tournament of Champions. What an experience. I totally bombed but learned a lot. The first thing I learned was there are some really nice guys out there. The second thing I learned is, they aren't all nice.

The first day I fished with a nice guy. John Murphy from Lake Elmo. He wasn't the most competitive guy, he didn't know Gull Lake much at all and he didn't want to run to the north end of the lake to fish my spots. We were in his boat and so I let him call the shots. All in all we had a pretty good day on the water. It was sunny and hot. My friend Ellie, Makita, Jessi, Mike and the kids came to watch me weigh in.Me and John at Day #1 weigh-in

The second day wasn't such a good day. I fished with a local guy. He was very competitive and did know the lake like the back of his hand. You would think this would be a better day for me. Not so. This guy was unbelievable. I've never fished with such an ass. We went into Round lake, with a push pole (that's right...we pushed our way into another lake with a pole). When we drew names for our partners for that day, he (Dennis...hey if you miss spell his name Denis it looks very close to what his name should be, except for with a P) was very relieved I wasn't 300 pounds so we could get the boat through literally inches of water between Gull and Round. In his words "you'll do just fine". It was very cold and windy that day. I never took my Gortex off. I fished very poorly and hated every minute I was there.

So all in all...I got that out of my system. I don't think I'll be jumping in to fish State anymore.

Me weighing in the second day. As you can see I was bundled up.

Makita and the Stanley Cup

Recently Makita had the opportunity to meet Bret Hedican, from the Carolina Hurricanes, 2006 Stanley Cup Champions, when Bret brought the Stanley Cup to Zorba's in Lake Shore during his "cup day". You can read all about Bret's day at http://www.nhl.com/cup/scj06/scj20.html. Pictured here is Makita, Bret, Lake Shore Police Chief Steve Sundstrom and the owner of Zorba's.
For those of you that don't know, Bret is married to gold medalist figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi. They have a home on Gull Lake that they visit whenever they get a chance.

Grand Cayman Island

A fun location for lunch. We were the only people there in business dress. Everyone else was in swimwear.
A walk down the beach after work....
A bunch of cruise ships came in yesterday. The island was crazy with people. When the ships aren't here it's pretty quiet around here.
View from my hotel room

Day five Sunday August 20, 2006

Well it was up early, pack up and get going. It was foggy but the sun was burning it off pretty fast. We reversed our path that brought us in and did the same eight portages and several lakes backwards. We didn't see one person for about half the trip. There wasn't even any campers on the sites that had been full just a few days before. We thought the place had been evacuated and no one told us. The trip out took us about 5 hours.

Day four Saturday August 19, 2006

Another perfect day. Fishing was good, everyone took a bath, the fish fry was awesome and the cocktails by the fire was very relaxing.


Tomorrow we pack up and head out.

Day three Friday August 18, 2006

Today Mike and I got up and did some bobber fishing from our "rock dock". I caught one walleye and Mike caught a smallmouth bass. Then for lunch Ellie made us a couple pizza's over the fire. They were nummy! Then we hit the water for more fishing.
We ended up fishing for only an hour or so because we had more than enough walleye to eat by then.
Then it was bath time....
It was another enjoyable day and evening.

Day two Thursday August 17, 2006

During the night it stormed really hard. There was a lot of lightning and wind and lots of rain. Not much you can do but stay in your sleeping bag and hope for the best. All of us, except Mike, came out of it just fine. Mike, who had put his tent out in the woods, had one really flooded tent. His sleeping bag and mat were soaked. So they moved him out of the woods, out by the lake, next to the rest of us.

We were anxious to set out fishing, so we rigged our canoes and set off to catch the all illusive walleye. Well it turned out to be a good day of fishing.

So ended our day with some chores of cleaning fish,
and getting firewood
and filtering water
and hanging the bear bag (which was about the funniest thing I've seen in a long long time)
and frying the fish
It was another great day!

Day one Wednesday August 16, 2006

We started out by leaving Deerwood at 5:30am. We stopped a couple times on the way, once at a truck stop to buy lighters. What can I say, that place has a ton of cool lighters. Then we stopped in Hibbing at Walmart so Mike could buy a pair of needle nose pliers because he forgot his Gerber. Then we drove to Ely to the Wolf Center to get our permit. Once we watched the required movie and got our permit we drove to Chainsaw Sisters, unloaded our gear and had a nice picnic lunch that Ellie had packed for us.

By the time we set off on our first portage it was 11:30am. Our plans were to paddle several lakes and take seven portages to Gun lake.

But when we arrived there it was full. Every camp site was occupied and there where canoes of people looking for a place to camp. We overheard a Ranger tell a group of canoeist that she thought possibly that there were open sites in the next lake, Gull lake. So we paddled on over to that portage, our eighth and entered Gull lake. This ended up to be a blessing. Gull lake had a super perfect campsite for us and we virtually had the lake to ourselves our entire stay.

We set up camp, made supper and baked a giant peanut butter cookie in our reflector oven. It was a great day.