Blog The Road

There’s something about driving across the U.P. that cleanses the soul. I am in Gaylord, MI for the annual Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers conference. Mapquest pegged the trip at about 7 1/2 hours, 400+ miles around the top. It was either that or take the Badger from Manitowoc to Ludington. I decided the cost of the ferry was not worth it for a couple hours and a half  tank of gas saved, so I drove. There was no way I was going to go around the southern end of the lake, even though driving through Chicago on Sunday is about as benign as it ever gets.

Miles of straight road, little traffic and nothing but woods in between a few small towns and Escanaba, the only city of note on HWY 2. It’s pretty clear the tourism season is over – shops were closed, towns empty. Hard to say what these folks live on half the year, but the U.P. has not changed significantly since I used to cross it regularly back in the ’70s on my way to Buffalo from Ashland, in an earlier life. One welcome change: passing lanes every 10 miles or so, which means the crazy Michiganders are not crawling up your back all the time. Kept cruise at 61 and enjoyed the trip.

When I pulled into Treetops Resort tonight at about 10:00 EDT, Chris Young and Bob Groene were just heading out to a local pub. Bob wants to get in a round of golf in the morning before the conference gets rolling. I think I can swing that, no pun intended. Haven’t played all year, but this is not the first time I dust off the clubs in September. Summers are busy for me!

More from the conference as it happens!

Later…

As anyone who has bothered to check my blog lately knows, I have been neglecting it. Been busy, is my excuse, but we’re all busy. I intend to get back to posting regularly, starting right now.

Most of my time has been spent producing my radio and TV shows. In the TV department, I’ve been to Madison to record a segment on IronClad soft baits, developed by inventor and entrepreneur Ben Hobbins. Ben’s revolutionary soft baits were named one of the Top Ten Inventions of the year by Popular Science magazine. We talked to Ben and to professor Tim Osswald, who heads up the Plastics lab at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Engineering. Osswald and his graduate students helped Ben develop the prototypes for his lures, which are now on the market.

Just this week, I fished Crystal Lake with Ben and pro angler Chuck Pohlmann for largemouth bass. We used IronClads exclusively and caught a few nice bass, despite the cold front that blew through the area that day.

I also taped two charter fishing trips with Capt. Angelo Trentadue, of Fishing Bug Charters of Racine. We caught a mixed bag of salmon and trout on an afternoon charter with Wally and Shirley Schuster, their son Terry and daughter-in-law Becky. Then a week later, we went out again on a morning charter with Ken Balestrieri, his dad, Tony, and his kids, 12-year-old Alex and 9-year-old Jessica. Ken and the kids have fished with us at least a half-dozen times and each time has been an adventure. On this trip, the action started slowly, but we ended up with some nice kings, a lake trout and a coho. Both of those trips were live auction items at the Outdoor Wisconsin banquet. Ken bought his trip last year, but bad weather forced us to cancel it, so we booked both trips for this season. Shirley bought her trip at this year’s banquet.

In the radio department, Jeff Kelm and I have been interviewing some great guests. Check out our recent shows on Lake-Link, where you’ll find every show archived, with a summary that lists guests and topics. Jeff and I had fun on this week’s show talking with Jody Narantic, who blogs as “The Hunter’s Wife.” Jody has lots of followers, many of them mainstream hunters and anglers who just want to see what she is up to. She told us that a lot of her readers check her blog for their morning read, looking for a good chuckle.

I will now be linking to her blog, and she will be linking to mine. She’s a sassy gal and a lot of fun both to talk to and to read. I’m not sure how good she would be in a duck blind, as she herself confesses she has worn “borrowed” camo, which clashed with her nail polish. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody markets camo nail polish pretty soon, if they are not already doing it!

In addition to blogging the road again, I am hitting the road Sunday for Gaylord, Michigan to attend the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers annual conference at Treetops Resort. I promise to blog from there, as I’m sure I’ll have some news to share and will no doubt meet some interesting folks to talk about.

Later…

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