Weekend Fishing Report

So I decided if I was going to go fishing this weekend, it was going to have to be early. I woke up at 5:00 Saturday morning. This was extremely difficult to do. I always tell myself I am going to wake up early and go fishing, but then usually by the time I get up and get moving it's 8, 9, or 10:00 and I miss the good period in the early morning. I wake up, get dressed, and give Foxy a good bye kiss, she rolls over and says "have fun Crazy," and promptly fell back asleep. As I am making my drive to Lake Monona, I see the sun suddenly beam brightly over the tree line and I think to myself, this should be fun and I am crazy. Much to my surprise there is quite a pack of boats already on the lake and at the boat launch. It's still relatively cold and by this time is probably about 5:45. The quiet is suddenly broken as a large ski boat PULLING A SKIER drives by. Another guy looks at me and says, "now that's crazy," I agreed. I launched the boat and made a short run to the Squaw Bay south shoreline. I hit a new record on the GPS miles per hour at 28.8mph. The lake was calm, almost no wind. The water was very clear and hovering around 57 degrees. Bass were hitting the surface all around me, so I decided to put the chatterbait down and throw a buzzbait. No luck. I put tied the chatterbait back on, and landed a small one. After about a 45 minutes, I tied a white/chartreuse spinnerbait on. No Luck. I tied a white/red 1/4oz chatterbait on, landed one dink. I switched back to the blue/black after about an hour. Shad were busting the surface all around, the whole time I am slowly working my way towards Turville bay. I am probably a long cast from the shoreline, and as far as I could tell I had opportunities to cast either towards shore or away. Over the next couple hours I landed another dink and one keeper on the blue/black cb. I had probably 2-3 bass just slap it, but miss the hook or I missed the hookset. I saw three muskies in the 30-35" range. I saw a lot of bass, some good sized, sitting on beds. I don't think spawn has really started by any stretch of the word on Monona yet. This week of warmer weather should really get things in motion. I did enjoy fishing early, the lake is quiet, only fishermen for the most part on the water, and the fishing was decent. The downfall is a I pretty much fell asleep at 9:00 only to have boo, slap me on the stomach and yell "TICKLE TICKLE" in my face. It was probably funny to foxy, but to me it was terrifying...lol. On a side note, I got a couple bass in Monona bay during the week last week, all on a blue/black chatterbait, all in the keeper range. Will be out this week as well. Tight Lines to all!!!!!

CD Review

I've picked up a couple albums in the past few weeks. So here are my impressions of some newly acquired sonic pleasure.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
If you drop the crap songs and take the good ones and just make one best of Stadium Arcadium disc it's a little easier to listen too. Many of the songs sound the same, which I suppose after 20 albums is bound to happen. There are some tracks that take some influence from the Mother's Milk days, but mostly it's soft melodic radio crap. Dani California is definitely one of the heavier more up beat tracks on the whole album. In the end I will probably keep some and toss some. It's a Chili's disc nothing more nothing less, with an emphasize on slow melodic ballads with some upbeat funkidelics added in here and there.

Tool - 10,000 Days
If you remove the 4 tracks without words and the two 11 minute tracks you actually have yourself a pretty good Tool album. One thing I find interesting is that every past Tool album has a different sound, an evolved sound maybe, whatever it's usually has some difference. This album sounds like disc two of Lateralus, being a single disc album you get the idea. Either way you get what you get with Tool and that is a fairly decent EP with some "interesting" tracks thrown in between to qualify as an LP.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
A pretty good album especially if you are any kind of fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I saw them on some late show one time and acquired they're first album. It's definitely worth the listen, I do think they would be a great live band. I also really like this album much more then the last. It's much more structured musically, versus just distorted distortion and feedback. Gold Lion, the first single is currently in the top 5 list on the Charter Cable Alternative Music channel.

The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Probably what I would have liked the last Stripes album to sound like. It's basically a blues based garage rock band headed by Jack White of the White Stripes. It's pretty good stuff. It's noise created by talented indie musicians in a constructive manner. Isn't that what all good albums are, or maybe what they should be. If you like blues, rock, or both together you will like Broken Boy Soldiers.

Elefant - The Black Magic Show
To be honest I haven't given this a just listen, but from what I can tell it's not bad. Elefant really takes a lot of influence from Interpol or Death Cab. The are a straight up indie outfit with relatable songs, catchy riffs, and love story lyrics. Fans of the lighter side of indie pop will like this album.

Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Since the demise of 96.3 the only Alternative station in Madison, I have gone back to listening to basically 94.1 (metal) and 101.5 (classic rock), when I listen to the radio. So interestingly enough I heard Wolfmother's Woman on 94.1, however by all rights it should probably be on 101.5 as it takes influence from the greats like Sabbath, Zepplin, Deep Purple. You name a late 60's early 70's hard rock outfit and you can hear it in Wolfmother. I'm not sure what they are putting in the water right now in Austrailia, but this young outfit are growing up in the wrong decade, and I love it. It's rock at it's finest. Nothing new or over the top, but straight up rock, complete with windmill guitar strums, bell bottom pants, and mid song feedback. You can hear teenage Ozzy's wail from Iron man or paranoid, the time changing facemelting squeels of Jimmy Page's guitar riffs, the hard pounding heart stopping bass lines of Deep Purple, the gut wrenching sophisticated drumming of Kieth Moon, lastly add a touch of Iron Butterfly Organ, and thats just the first three songs. By far my favorite score in the past couple weeks, Wolfmother is one of those bands that only sound better the louder you can turn it up. So crank it up and enjoy!!!

05/08/2006 Fishing Report

Went fishing with Charlie on Waubesa, we launched at 10:30ish and fished the north shoreline same as 05/07. Between the two of us we boated 10-12 bass. I threw a blue/black Chatterbait and Charlie threw a red/white twin blade spinnerbait. My largest was a 4+ pounder, Charlie's largest was a 3+. We tried fishing Mud lake, but the weeds and wind got the best of us. We decided to move back to Waubesa, but the boat wouldn't start. Apparently my batteries are dead and I need new ones. Seeing how this happened the day before I decided it was a good idea to throw my jump starter kit in the boat. We made it back ok, and took off around 2:30. I decided I had taken the day off to go fishing so I headed over the Pheasent Branch creek (my secret spot), I caught two right away on a Green YUM dinger. I walked back to the marsh where I got anther nice 3+ on a buzzbait. After fishing that out, it wasn't raining so I headed to Mendota county park where I threw the fly rod around for some pannies. I got a couple nice blue gills, and a crappie. All in all I would say it was a really fun day, other than the boat thing. I am very tired today and very soar. Guess I have to get my fishing muscles toned some more.

Fishing Rules!!!

After we got Foxy to the airport and Boo to her grandparents I took the boat out for a little C&R (catch and release). I hit Waubesa at around 2:30, the wind was a bit stronger than I had thought it would be, but thats cool. I did pretty well boated 7 LM bass between 1-3 pounds. My investment in the much hyped Chatterbait paid off as 5 of the fish came on a blue/black cb, one came on spinnerbait on my third cast of the day, and the other on a buzzbait just for fun. I absolutely love this chatterbait, it does a pretty good job of cutting through the thick weeds, it vibrates like crazy, and you can fish it hard and fast. Two hit the cb immediately after it hit the water. I've decided to throw the cb on my St.Croix rod, I figure it's pretty much a jig anyway so what the heck. The vibration is insane, you can definately feel it and the crazy thing is it shakes the line like so it almost looks like electrical waves, it's nuts. I'm going again tomorrow with Charlie and the Chatterbait will probably be the first and last thing I throw.

Opening Day Fishing Report

Foxy was wonderfull and let me go fishing for a couple hours today. I decided my best chance to get a fish was to go to my secret spot. My decision paid off, I got two LM bass. My first bass of the season came on a blue/black chatterbait. My second bass and the bigger of the two came on a reverse t-rigged Fat Ika. I figured there was probably some sort of superstition about not fishing on opening day, but whatever, I scored so I am happy. THANK YOU FOXY!!!!

Chatterbaits, Chatterbaits whose got the Chatterbaits!!!

Every year (especially in bass fishing) there are new trends, new "hot" baits, and new fishing techniques. Are these just ploys by bait companies to con you into spending your child's educational funds on new fishing tackle? Probably. Am I guilty of falling into this trap? Aside from spending Boo's nonexistent educational fund, yes. Last year it was the Rapala X-rap that got me and the Zoom Horney Toads (which seem to be REALLY popular this year). Actually I haven't been too bad, as I am still really learning the tried and true fishing techniques. Well this year seems to be extraordinary, there seem to be a lot of "hot" baits. So called hot bass baits tend to develop at the pro level and work they're way down to the amateur. This years top bait is the Chatterbait. It's a cross between a spinnerbait and a swim jig (which I'll get to), has lots of action, and just happened to perform very well at this year's Bassmaster Classic. Due to the large audience, between BASS and FLW, demand for the chatterbait has exploded. The company has not been able to keep up with the orders, not too mention the big box stores have gotten involved, which are chewing up individuals orders. I ordered two and it took about 5 weeks for them to get here. Well, I just found out that Dick's Sporting Goods was carrying them. So this morning I called the two locations here in Madison, sure enough they are in stock. Well, FGAW was totally geeked about it and we nearly ran out the door for an emergency lure run. I got another two FGAW bought 8! Personally I think these baits are just something the fish haven't seen, fish get used to the same 'ole lures. Thus creating this years new "HOT" bait. The other bait that has sucked me into the trap are swim jigs. The concept has been around for a long time, but has recently been revisited by fishermen and perfected by bait companies. So, of course, I have picked up a couple swim jigs. Although, it occurred to me that the Chatterbait is really just a glorified swim jig. So this year in 3 days I will have my Chatterbait tied on, probably going to be the first thing I throw. Hopefully Saturday Night I will get a call or email from FGAW raving about how he absolutely slammed them on his brand new hot bait, the CHATTERBAIT!!!! Oh well if they don't work, they are going for $20 a piece on Ebay.