They don't read the damn book

I have already whined that Musky don't read the book. Well Saturday was a perfect example. Went out with a guy from my fishing club. We have known each other for about 7-8 years and have been on the Board together for about 6 years.

We hit the water at 5:00 am, expecting cloud cover and a coming cold front, at least that was the weather report. So of course when the sun came up, it was sunny and no sign of the coming front. Fished a couple of spots and my buddy JT caught a Catfish on a dead sticked homewrecker bait. I couldn't stop laughing. The only thing funnier than a Musky fisherman catching a Catfish is one that catches a carp.

About 8:00 the clouds started to roll in and the wind picked up, things were looking up. But still nothing. 4 hours of nothing. Finally we moved up onto a weed flat that I usually fish the outer edge of, this time we decided to drift over the center. Within a few minutes we had a nice 38" Muskie in the bag that hit my Orange/Black Mepps. After a quick release we moved on to another lake and started fishing along the shoreline. Usually we will hit the outside weed edges on this lake, but decided to stay in 4-5 ft of water and cast up to the bank or under the docks. Couple hours later, I had another 38" Muskie in the bag. Not bad for a day on the Chain.

JT was not catching Muskies so he moved up front to work the trolling motor. Not realizing that my trolling motor turns 360 degrees unlike the Motorguide he has on his boat it wasn't more than 20 minutes before he spun the motor around and cut all the cables, so we ended up finishing the day splicing and tapping the wires while on the water.

So after 12 hours on teh water I got two 38 inchers.......What a great day.

Got out for 2.5 hours on Sunday, was able to move a few fish but wasn't able to catch any. Can't wait for next weekend.

Gotta find some time for the Metal though. Spent about 30 minutes today messing around with Cat Scratch Fever. Great tune, although Nuge has always been a bit over-rated in my mind.

So much easier now (guitar not fishing)

Saturday night got to bed a 2:00 am (I guess that would be Sunday morning) and I got up at 4:00 am to go fishing. Again fishing sucked, but I did get to test out my new color GPS/Fish finder. What an awesome piece of equipment. I almost smashed into another boat as I was driving around on the lake looking at it.

Things are weird on the Chain these days.....almost every weed bed is gone and it's almost like fishing the dead sea. I spoke with 6 or 7 guys who were also fishing Musky and nobody was moving anything. Of course I will be heading out this weekend to give it another go.

As for Guitar playing, my guitar teacher turned me onto a CD of backing tracks. They are just as you would expect, Rhythm Guitar, Bass and Drums. The CD has about 10 tracks ranging from blues, rock, heavy metal etc., some of the tracks in the style of Led Zep, Metallica. The tracks are in different keys. They are a blast to play along with. I almost sound good jamming to them.

It got me thinking about all the tools that are available to young learning guitarists these days. Back in the mid 80's when I was first learning you had limited choices. But now you have affordable home recording, computerized drum machines, more guitar tab free on the internet than you could ever want, devices that slow down a CD but keep the pitch the same so you can learn songs slowly and work them up to speed.

Guitar lessons back in the 80's for me consisted of sitting with my teacher, watching him listen to whatever song I wanted to learn and writing it down in my lesson book. This would take the majority of the 30 minutes, so there wasn't much in terms of "lessons." If you couldn't figure songs out on your own listening to the album or tape, you had to hope that one of the guitar magazines would print the music or have your teacher figure it out for you. Now if you are learing a song, you bring the tab in, pop in the CD and start working on the techniques required. So you spend the entire 30 minutes working not listening.

With a decent computer and a device like the M-Audio Black Box you can record on your computer, with various drum beats, using various simulated amps and effects. I remember jamming with my buddies, trying to remember some of the "awesome" riffs we came up with (at least we thought they were awesome) but not being able to remember them the next day. No all you have to do is flip on the computer and record it for future use.

I look through the Musician's Friend magazine and I amazed at what is available these days. My wish list is long and expensive.

ugggghhhhh

In the immortal words of Pete Maina................MUSKIES SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally a day off

I know that nobody is sorry for me. Most people are working pretty hard. Today was my first day off in three or four weeks so I decided to get out for some fishing. Water temps on Le Bowl De Toilet (also known as the chain) were ranging between 80-82 degrees which is high for Musky fishing. I probably shouldn't have been out as catching Musky when the water temps are that high put a lot of stress on the fish......of course you have to catch them first to really have to worry about it.

No need to worry today. I did have two middle 30 inch Muskies try to dive bomb a jackpot. One came out of the water about three feet from the boat. Scared the shit out of me. I also had the hardest strike I have ever had Musky fishing. The fish Damn near ripped the rod right out of my hands, but after a few head shakes she was gone. I never got to see her but it had to be a pretty big fish. Then the lighting and thunder came and I pretty much got washed off the lake when the rains came. My boat needed a wash anyway.

Came home and after a good three hour nap, headed downstairs for a little guitar playing. Usually I work on something specific but today I decided to put the amp on the clean channel, crank up the reverb and just jam away. Mostly in A minor, jamming through all the modes of the scale. I pretty much just closed my eyes and let the music (I use the word lightly as I'm not sure you can call what I do music) flow through me for an hour or so.

But back to work tomorrow for three days of hell. Wednesday at 4:30 the pressure will be off as our quarterly filing will be done, then Thursday night I head for the northwoods for a weekend of fishing......can't wait.