Addition to the Family

After a long holiday weekend, we have an addition to the family. She came to us at 8:30 am on Memorial day weighing in at about 5 pounds and 25.5 inches (scale length). Man is she beautiful I can't keep my eyes off her.

Introducing the newest member of the Family........

Fishing with the old man

My Dad taught me how to fish at my grandparents place up in Spooner Wisconsin. We would take several trips each summer and fish on Matthews Lake, a small couple hundred acre lake that had Musky, Pike, Walleye, Bass and a variety of pan fish. I think my Dad hated fishing with me because I was a 20 minute fisherman, and would spend most of the day running me back a forth from the dock. I didn't become a hard core fisherman until after I graduated from college. After my Grandfather passed away, my Grandmother moved back local and we started taking trips to Hayward Wisconsin, the Musky Capital of the World, or at least that is what the Hayward Chamber of Commerce would have you believe. After getting married, Momma Musky, the little Muskies, my Parents and my Brother would take an annual week trip to Northland Lodge on Lost Land Lake. This went on for about 10 years. When scheduling the next trip, Momma Musky indicated that maybe we ought to think about going someplace else on vacation. She also indicated that she really hated going up north fishing. 10 years she put up with it, but didn't say a word, what could I say? After that the annual family fishing trips ended. Over this 10 year period my father never caught a Musky over 30 inches. During this time, I have caught many up to 46 inches.

After my parents retired to Phoenix, it became difficult for us to get out fishing, maybe one day per year and only for a couple of hours. I took last Friday off from work as my parents were in town and figured we could get a few hours of fishing in. My Dad is now the short time fisherman, about 2 hours is all he can handle. So I went out at 6 am and he planned on meeting me at the landing at 9:00. The morning was perfect for Musky fishing. Overcast, Humid with a bit of a wind out of the west. Before the old man showed up I lost three Musky, including one that I had right up to the boat but when I reached for the net it got away.

So my Dad showed up right at 9am and off we went. I had spoken to a buddy who was also out fishing. My buddy is a guide on the local lake and was out with two clients. I like to share information with him on the water, if I can help him get his clients on the fish I know he will also let me know what he is seeing or what is working. He mentioned that one of his clients had a Musky follow a Pacemaker to the boat but wouldn't eat, so I figured this would be a good lure for my Dad to start with. We pulled into our first spot, a small bay on the southern end of lake and I positioned the boat in about 7 feet of water right on the weed edge. Usually we will cast to the weed edge but I had a feeling that fishing over the tops of the weeds would be more productive as it would follow the same pattern I had used earlier in the day.

We started working down the shoreline and I let my Dad know that this was one of my favorite spots and that I had caught and seen many big fish in the area over the last few years. It took a few casts for my dad to get back in the grove and about 15 minutes after we started down the shore, I heard he say, "there is one.". Musky love to follow your lure to the boat. Sometimes they eat and sometimes they just show themselves and swim away. Just as I looked over, I saw the fish smash his Pacemaker right at the side of the boat. It was a great strike, one that is really cool to watch. The fish came up behind the bait and just as my Dad started to change the direction of the bait at boat side it struck. After thrashing around the side of the boat and making a few short runs, I was able to slide the net under her and put her in the bag.

It wasn't a monster fish, measuring 34", but it was the biggest one my Dad has ever caught. I think I was more excited than he was, I immediately called all of my Musky fishing friends to let them know. We took a few photos and released her back into the lake. Minutes later the clouds broke and the sun came out. We didn't see another Musky for the remainder of our time on the water.

I miss fishing with the old man, and really enjoy the time we can spend together on the water. Even if it's only a couple of hours each year. It was also a great thrill to be able put him onto his first Musky over 30". Next will be to put the Kids on their first.

Substitute Teacher

So I went to my guitar lesson and my normal teacher was out and they brought in a sub. Well this sort of pissed me off. I would have preferred some advance notice and probably would have skipped it if I'd have know. After taking lessons from the same guy for almost a year, it's pretty much a waste of time to bring in a new guy for one lesson because the Sub spends most of the time trying to figure out where you stand. By the time he gets to the point that he can make any useful assessment time is up.I am by no means a great guitarist, I'm probably not even an average guitarist but everything this guy tried to show me I already knew. The sub was pretty impressive when he played. He is going to Depaul and is a Jazz major. So after talking for a few minutes about where my current struggles are and telling him I already knew his tips we decided to just jam for a bit. We decided on a blues jam in A minor with him playing rhythm and me soloing away.ruh roe, the dog is loose.Ok back now. So anyway Mr. Sub was pretty impressed and to tell you the truth I was also impressed with my playing. I came out of the "lesson" with a whole new level of confidence and I have been jamming away in the basement for the last couple of days.If I could only eliminate the latency issue I am having with my recording software as I would like to record some stuff and compare it to where I am six months from now.On another note I've been reading "Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal" Very enjoyable stuff, brings back a lot of memories from High School as the book covers the "hair metal" era in pretty good detail. Certainly interesting reading for any Heavy Metal fan.

What I've Been Listening too.....

My guitar teacher turned me on to an awesome guitar player....Andy Timmons. I borrowed his most recent cd and all I can say is wow. The whole CD is instrumental no, singing. I have probably listened to it 5 or 6 times since I got it last Thursday. I will probably have to go buy his other CD's now.

My son turned me onto the new Coheed and Cambria CD and that one is pretty good also. I then went out and got their previous two CD's....not so good. I guess the deal with these guys is that their lead singer writes comic books and then the music for the CD's matches the story of the comics. At least that is what the guy at the music store says. He is apparently a huge Coheed fan. The lead signer also has a fairly strange voice that takes a little getting used to. On their new CD they have three great tunes, Welcome Home, The Suffering and 10 Speed of God's Blood and Burial. The rest of the CD is fantastic, but those three are the best in my mind. I actually learned the suffering on my Guitar. Lots of fun to play.

The car also has some of my favorites from Triumph and Rainbow. You can never go wroing with Rik Emmett or Ritchie Blackmore.


My guitar teacher has suggested that I learn some Santana next, so I guess I will have to pick up some new music there as my collection is light on his work. Looks like I will be learning something off of Abraxas..Oye Como Va. Neat tune. I wouldn't have come up with it, but he strongly suggested it. We are also working on my solo's. I want to be able to shred, but I can't play fast at all so we are working on that.

Picked up a new amp Friday. A Vox 15ADT. I love my Peavey 5150, but it's just to loud for the house. I generally can't turn it up past setting 1 when anybodys home so I need something a little smaller. The Vox amp is incredible, 10+ effects, plus it's a modelling amp for I can get the sound of 10 other amps out of it. Was messing with it a bit today what great tone. Of course Momma Musky seems to think I have too much stuff, I don't buy it. Here is the list:

Guitars:
2004 Gibson Explorer
2005 Gibson Faded Flying V
2002 Ibanez G10
1983 Kramer Focus 3000
2001 Ibanez Acoustic

Amps:
Peavey 5150
Vox 15Adt
Crate 15 watt piece of crap

Pedals:
Grunge Distortion

Amp Modeller/recording:
M-Audio Black Box with Ableton Live Lite 4
As soon as I can get the latency issue resolved when recording a second track, I will record a couple of songs that I've been working on.

Southern Wisconsin Opener

Well last weekend was the Southern Wisconsin Musky Season Opener so we travelled up to our normal opening spot. Normally we do pretty well and this weekend was no exception. We had four boats hitting the water (8 guys) and well the weather was far from good. At least far from fishing good. Cloudless skies with 70 degree temps and very little wind. My fishing partner and I ended up catching 4 Musky. Largest being 39 inches. We lost 4 others and saw a couple that easily would have measured about 45 inches. High skies and no wind are tough fishing conditions for Musky, and nobody else in the group caught any. Many were sighted and many were hooked but none caught by the other boats.

OK, now I have to get back into the metal. Need a good tune to learn and....my new amp should show up this week. Woo Hoo.

Practice Practice

The Metal has taken a back seat to the Muskies lately. I usually try to play about 1 hour a night if I can, but with work, Wife and Kids it isn't always that easy, especially when I don't get home most nights until after 7PM. So lately all I've been able to practice is some scale patterns and a few other things. I have been trying to learn this Jazz tune, that I have been told is a guarantee to loosen up the Wife's pants, but with limited practice time coupled with the fact that I can't read music very well it has turned into a disaster. I am used to playing the standard Major and Minor Chords and Metal 5ths, so some of these Jazz Chords are a pain in the ass. My fingers don't like to stretch that way. So tomorrow at my lesson I'm going to get a lot of shit from my teacher. Then I'm leaving Thursday night to do some Friday crappie fishing and then Muskys - Wisconsin's southern Musky season opens on Saturday. So that means no practice Thursday through Sunday. After that I've got to knuckle down and get back to it. It really is rough having too many hobbies, it's a damn good thing I have a great wife or I would either be a dead man or be looking for the hand cream.