Leap Day Blizzard

Here's a little phone video I shot to show this blizzard to my parents who are living it up down in AZ.  Just a quick 30 seconds or so to show the folks what they're missing...

Hope you two are having a good time, hello to Joy & John too!

Lake Superior Charter, September 2011

We had a half-dozen of us take a Lake Superior Charter out of Bayfield, WI.  Our crew consisted of my dad, brother, and nephew, Ferch, Keegan, and myself.  The charter captain was Ken Nourse on the Blackhawk II. A nice big boat, but Keegan got seasick and didn't want to reel in a fish on his turn.

  We did a half day charter and managed to catch 3 measly lake trout.  It was my nephew's first time, as well as Ferch and Keegan, so there was the newness factor for those guys. Here's my nephew's fish:

Here's Ferch and his whopper, you know come to think about it that's the smallest fish I've ever seen him photographed with!

And last but not least here's mine:

Ferch was up from Owatonna, MN and was staying at my house, so we cooked up some fresh lake trout on the grill for supper that night, that was some tasty trout!  We might have to try it again next year, can't have 2 bad seasons in a row out there can they?

More Wildlife Photos

Well, I looked at the previous "Glacier Wildlife" post and I realized that we saw more that what I posted there were buffalo, deer, pronghorn, big horn sheep...well, lets see what photos I can dig up! This isn't just Glacier, but the trip all the way out there as well.

Just got to Custer State Park and got welcomed by this big fella by the side of the road!

Pronghorn ahoy!  Also in Custer St. Park.

Then we drove through a whole herd of buffalo:

We spent so much time looking up high for these darn big horn sheep and they were hiding down in the ditch!

Cute baby skunk outside Kalispell, MT

Prarie doggin'

This little buck was more interested in eating than getting out of the road!

I think that about covers the critters I was able to get photos of.  Its fun to look back at this trip and all the awesome scenery.  I would recommend a trip to Glacier National Park to anyone who asks!

Back to Rose Lake

I thought I'd share some photos from last years trip to Rose lake and compare them to our 2007 trip.  We stayed at the same camp site, but had very different weather and fishing results.  Not to mention I was rocking a pretty mean fu manchu back in '07!

Here's the camp site last year:

Here's '07s setup:

You'll notice that there's no fire going in the '07 photo...because we were under a fire ban. Surprisingly enough we didn't miss the fire.

Above is the Rose Lake Falls 2007, notice how its just a trickle compared to last years deluge:

And finally here's me rockin this bad ass fu manchu showing off how awesome the smallies were biting back in '07:

And last years shot of me with a nice full chin hairs and no fish:

Both of these trips were awesome, but I have gone up and down this stairway enough for one lifetime:

A nice flat trip will be fine next time....

Yay! New Gibby Day!!

What a good morning!  I just finished breakfast and the Fedex dude knocked on the door and dropped off this little gem.  I finally put it down...this thing is the best sounding guitar I've ever played.  Plus all new Gibsons come with a fitted hard side case with authentic cookie monster fur lining!

Seattle 2010; Mom's Camera:

I forgot I had saved my mom's photos from the Seattle trip on my computer as well so here's a few of her shots:

After the train split in half (back half went to Portland) Mom went to the back and got a pretty cool shot out the back of the train:

Then she snapped one of this handsome dude:

You can see Mt. Rainier off in the distance, we were there for almost a week and we couldn't see it often:

Mom does ok taking pics!

New Member of the Family...

So yesterday I get an urgent text from my friend Brian:  "I just sent you an email. About guitars.  It is important.  Read it now."  So I open the email, turns out Zzounds.com is having a 0% 12 month financing special on Gibson acoustic guitars.  He was right, very important.  I've been considering the addition of a new Gibby acoustic for some time and really didn't want to drop the $$ at one time, but this financing deal is awesome!  So I ordered this little fella right here:

Its a Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Studio EC Acoustic Electric guitar...Welcome to the family, I can't wait to meet you!  Should be here on the 25th!!

Well off to catch some more crappies...

Musky Pics

I decided to post a bunch of musky photos first is one is a 38.5" :

Here's my cousin Dan with a nice one:

Here's another that same day:

Another dandy:

Musky fishing is a real blast!  Everyone should have the chance to catch one of these bad boys...

Seattle Landmarks

I really enjoyed downtown Seattle and took a lot of photos.  There seems to be a high priority of an asthetic quality to the architecture.  Of course there's the famous Pikes Market, while its nothing special in its physical form it's fame comes from its character.  There's hundreds of stalls where you can find anything from leather works to blown glass works.  I bought a couple of watercolor prints from an old Chinese artist.

Here's downtown Seattle from one of the vacant piers on the waterfront:

Here's the hardest working man in Seattle, outside the art museum is a mechanical sculpture of this blacksmith figure that just keeps on swinging his hammer 'round the clock:

On to the Boundary Waters...

In today's update I'll be taking a look back at last years trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  We went to Rose Lake and fished the opener hoping for some lake trout and ended up with a few small mouth bass, before the wind picked up to the point where we weren't comfortable out on the lake...Here's the one I managed to land:

This is a view straight up amongst the birch trees:

Andy and Timmy all loaded up heading back towards civilization:

Tomy Big Loader Playset

I was at my folks house and my niece found this old play set in one of the cubby holes where my mom stow old crap.  We put a new battery in it and had hours of fun just watching this thing go around...and around...and around...and around...

I don't know if anyone else had one of these but I remember playing with this thing for weeks when I was in kindergarten or first grade...awesome!

Back to Glacier

I'm taking us back to Glacier National Park for this update with a couple of on the water photos.  First we have the Lake McDonald boat tour:

One of the few shots that has all four of us:

And here's the photo of our group on the whitewater rafting trip:

Crappies Were Biting

We did well fishing crappies this evening! We caught 40 or so and ended up cleaning 31 plus a walleye...

Wildlife in Glacier Park

Last July, while travelling down the Going to the Sun Road I had a couple of neat opportunities to photograph some wildlife. I had a mountain goat at eye level looking right in the truck:

Then as we're going around one of the many hair-pin curves there was a marmot perched right up on some rocks, again right out the window!

It's always great to see wildlife, especially wildlife that doesn't live where I do, but being able to get some great photos of the animals is really a treat!

Montana Hunt Photos

I spent a week last October hunting elk in Montana.  It is some beautiful, rugged country.  I didn't shoot anything but one of our group shot a cow, man those critters are huge!  I intend to go back next year and get that bull I was looking for.

Beaver Creek:

Here's the cow that Mike shot:

And here's the little hunting shack we stayed at:

See why I want to go back?

Devils Tower and the Space Needle

So last summer on the way to Montana, we went through the Black Hills and stopped by Devil's Tower as well.  Devil's Tower is a very impressive rock formation, its cool in a photo but breathtaking in person:

While on a trip to Seattle for my cousin Greg's wedding I got the opportunity to snap several photos of the Space Needle.  Here's one with me in it:

Here's a night time shot:

A Couple More Photos from the Archive

So I thought I'd share a couple more pics from the files first is a shot of me with a couple of nice coho salmon we caught on Lake Superior a couple years ago

and here's me with my first real tom turkey:

I sure hope to add to the turkey photos this spring!