This is my niece Halle and Charlie the Dog making snow angels. I hope you all had a holiday filled with as much joy as this.

…Mike

Almost as soon as I got back from Alaska, it was time for the annual retreat into the wilderness of Kenora for a week of fishing. And other stuff. But mostly fishing.

Warning: fishing geek stuff ahead.

It was actually a banner year for me, fishing-wise. I caught one of almost every­thing the river has to offer: small­mouth, large­mouth, pike and walleye…even a perch on a lure just a bit smaller that he was, all within about 6′ of the surface if you can believe that. I was concerned because the water was really low this year and all of my go-to spots were too shallow. So I struck new ground and tried some new things.

Specifically, Mepps. I have never caught anything on a Mepps. I have always hated them because they never worked for me. I have Mepps that are at least 15 years old, and they all sucked. But when my Dad was in town he made me promise that I would try the one he gave me (he is a rabid fish­erman). So I said I would, and for kicks I threw in one of my really big old ones.

Well, I am converted.

Between the big red Mepps which the pike loved, the little blue Mepps that the pike also loved (and that I lost when it snagged some rocks but found the next day when I went back for it) it was (to steal from tennis) Advantage: Mike.

Add in the lure that Al (Christine’s brother) discovered, and it was good times all around. Casting these babies against the rocky shores resulted in a ton of quality fish. To whit (and these are all different fish FTR):

That’s the gold and red Mepps hanging out of his mouth there.

This was a total shocker. Usually these babies are really deep, but I managed to get into a bunch of em at the right time of the evening. This one was 18″, and the one below was 23″.

This is the baracuda: the 32″ pike that attacked my Berkley Frenzy. That lure is like magic. One single hook landed this baby, and on a barbless hook to boot!

And on the last day, a large­mouth attacked it as well…he was 16″ (yes, my hands are really big). Now, no fishing trip would be complete without “the one that got away” story. So here it is.

On the last evening I walked down to the dock, and started casting the frenzy around. I quickly got a small­mouth (no photo, sadly) and worked my way down the rocky shore. And then what felt like a freight train hit the lure and just…left. I had 80′ of braided line with 100′ of mono backing, and it took almost all of it with the drag set as high as I dared. I managed to drag it back within about 30′ of the shore, and it took off again. By this time I knew I’ve got some­thing bigger than I’ve ever seen in real life…it would have to be: even the 32″ pike I caught earlier fought for only 5–6 minutes before he was beside the boat, and I was into 10 minutes with this thing and he was on his way out again.

So I yell for Christine to get the camera, and she comes down with it. And so I haul it back within 30 feet of the shore, and there is a huge swirl…and he spits the lure (I use barbless hooks so that is always a risk). I nearly wept.

I have no idea what it was. Christine’s Dad thinks it was a sturgeon. All I know is that I angered the fish gods by calling for a camera too soon. They further punished me by snagging my trusty Frenzy some­where in the rocks, and despite my snor­keling I couldn’t find it again. Christine doesn’t under­stand the bond between a fish­erman and a lure that catches fish…I have jitterbugs that I got from my Mom when I was 15 that I would jump in after in a heartbeat (and I have, in fact, done just that in Rice Lake).

This is it, after one night of being savaged by various and sundry pike and walleye. RIP.

Yes those are teeth marks.

Anyway, lots of fishing excitement. Oh, and we saw other stuff too.

I hope I can make it back next year.

…Mike

I scooted off to Alaska last week to hang out with my friend Melissa and her family (she is also a photog­rapher). It’s always fun to watch another photog­rapher working in their own back yard, and we did some shooting, and some touristing, and I generally had a great time. Mike (Melissa’s better half) was smoking the salmon he had caught a few days earlier. I wanted to do some fishing too, but once I compared the fantasy of fishing for salmon in Alaska with the reality, I wasn’t so sure:

The locals call this “combat fishing.” These are all tourists. Doesn’t look like much fun. Mike said that when the main fishing season is open, it is literally shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists. When the locals go fishing, they go to their secret spot. No, I don’t know where that is. But I do know that the filets that their neighbor who so kindly gave me were 18 inches long.

While we were driving to an fro I managed to get a few neat-o photos, despite the fact that the sun was visible for about 5 seconds in the entire week I was there. And the sun never even really sets this time of year, so I was double bitter. But I digress.

First off, water­falls. If you spend any time at all looking through my blog, you’ll know that if there is a waterfall around, I’ll sniff it out. This one was easier than most to sniff, due to the huge sign on the side of the road that said “Thunderbird Falls” and the nicely groomed trail leading right to it. The way I tell it though, it was a battle.

See those friendly-looking maple-tree-like things on the lower right side? They are not friendly. They are thorny and if you get stung by one, it gets all red and rashy. The maple tree bush things in Alaska are tough.

We messed around in the moun­tains at bit too, at a spot called Hatcher Pass. In this one, you can see the little hillocks formed as the soil grad­ually slides down the side of the mountain (for scale, each one is about two feet across):

The geog­raphy major in me was fasci­nated by the U-shaped valley and cirques common of glacier erosion. The place is thick with glaciers BTW.

See that road? A few days later we drove from Talkeetna back to Wasilla along that road, during which we scared a moose:

Speaking of: Talkeetna!

This is the furthest north I have ever been BTW.

Most of the drive looked like a typical northern tundra scene:

The fireweed broke up all the greens:

It was a great trip! Thanks Mike for the hospi­tality and the salmon jerky! Thanks Ben and Bek for the full-contact Age of Empires matches! And thanks Melissa for shut­tling me around for a week

…Mike

While I was up visiting my pal Melissa in Alaska, she invited me to come along to shoot with her. Being the guy that I am, of course I said yes Seriously: how could I refuse the oppor­tunity to photo­graph a wedding with Alaska’s première photog­rapher (and a great friend) at a scenic resort in Alaska?

See that building way at the top there? Once the ceremony was over, that’s where we went

And then we came back down again. Fun!

While on the way down in the tram, I took a bit of time to be a tourist and got a few images of the glaciers.

I already can’t wait to get back

…Mike

You may have noticed that I haven’t done too many weddings this spring…well, there’s a reason for that I decided to take the spring off to do some things around the house, specif­i­cally build a new 16×16 deck to replace our old rickety 7×13 one. The Inlaws were in town for a week to help out and we got the main part of the deck done despite the ridiculous amount of rain we have had.

During the building, I set up a camera to take a photo every 30 seconds, and then strung them all together into a stop-motion video that you can see below. I still have to finish the handrails, benches and planters (I’ll show that stuff in a second video) but for now, enjoy!