The celebrated white bass run on the Wolf River ends with a full cooler, a sunburn, cold beer and a fish fry.
Competing with the big boys on a Boston newsstand.
Newsstand photo and cover photo by tessrouseyphoto.com.
Down in Ozarks and throughout the country, people are finding thong trees. They are crooked and bent-back trees formed by cinching down a sapling to the earth with a leather thong. As it grows in that bent shape for a few decades, it becomes a marker that points the way to a trail, a spring, or a mountain pass. Various tribes of Native Americans created thong trees and some folks believe they are still out there in the woods. My story about them in the Spring 2013 issue of Earth Island Journal.
Cruised into Madison to talk to Michael Feldman on his public radio program, “Whad’ya Know?” We had a great chat about my story in the Times about anti-doping tests in competitive ice fishing. Listen to the program here, with my interview about halfway through the clip.
We hunted along the Ice Age Trail on some DNR land. When the Wisconsin glaciation ended, the retreating ice sheet left behind weird landforms and millions of boulders. The first settlers had to clear their fields of these rocks and if you look closely along the edges of old meadows, you will notice many deposits of boulders that the farmers had to hump out of the way.
Now the boulders are covered in a tangle of briars and are nearly impervious shelters against predators and home to lots of cottontail rabbits. As the spaniel hunted the boulder brush, one rabbit squeezed out from behind us and dove into a hole in the rocks before I could shoulder the shotgun. On the other side of the boulder pile, the dog flushed another rabbit that was not so wascally.
Anglers from eleven countries converged on the Big Eau Pleine in central Wisconsin for the 10th World Ice Fishing Championship. On the final day during the weigh-in that would determine the winners, it was announced that there would be random drug tests.
Dope Tests in Ice Fishing? No, Beer Doesn’t Count
The New York Times, February 24, 2013, A1.
Accompanying online slideshow by Darren Hauck.
Snowy woods. Cold air. Exercise. The cure for cabin fever.
The first month of 2013: developed a taste for eating pickled herring on Ritz crackers and washed down with Leinenkugel’s. Just seems good at this time of year. Free time spent ice fishing and letting the spaniel run through snow up to his belly. Teaching my son how to cross-country ski. Ate some lutefisk at a local Norwegian festival. Not as bad as rumored. But not good, either. Discovered a fugitive relic population of ring-necked pheasants in a place where they should not exist. See if they make it through the winter. Deer pass through the woods around my house every morning and their natural ability to survive in the savage cold amazes me to no end. Gave a lecture at a local Trout Unlimited meeting (Frank Hornberg chapter, named after the old-time Wisconsin game warden that invented the brilliant fly named after him) about my old days as a fly fishing guide. Joined an indoor .22 target pistol league to keep my marksmanship sharp and the errant holes punched into the paper do not lie about my abilities. Quit caring about football once the Packers were bumped in the playoffs. Cans of beer now freeze solid in my garage and happiness is a freshly shoveled driveway.
Spent a week in Vegas at the Flamingo. Some things do not change:
“Our room was in one of the farthest wings of the Flamingo. The place is far more than a hotel: It is a sort of huge underfinanced Playboy Club in the middle of the desert. Something like nine separate wings, with interconnecting causeways and pools—a vast complex, sliced up by a maze of car-ramps and driveways. It took me about twenty minutes to wander from the desk to the distant wing we’d be assigned to.” HST from F&L in LV
A long time ago I heard Phish perform this song in concert and it’s just as wonderful to hear it rendered like this.
