Monday, December 29, 2008

Next Year's Water


December 2008 snowfall in Wisconsin
Record breaking December snowfall in Madison,
for the second year in a row.



This marks the last entry in this blog for 2008. Being an optimist, I'm trying to take the lemons (HUGE snowfall) that have come my way and turn them into lemonade (next year's water). December 07 set a snowfall record for southern Wisconsin that I thought would not be broken. Turns out that December 08 was even bigger and snowier! In the immortal words of Greg Brown, "who woulda thunk it?" Every shovelful that I threw up on the pile next to the mailbox, I tried to imagine as water in a lake in a few months. I also tried to block out the buzz of snowblowers that surrounded me as I use a shovel to move the snow, unlike all of my neighbors. The top of the mailbox is about four feet above the curb. Thankfully, I finished the driveway before I ran out of space to throw the snow. The next few months look to be fairly quiet here in Wisconsin as there is no "boatable" water to speak of. Canoecopia looks to be the next big thing. Should be another fun event and a great way to usher in a new spring!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

An Amazing Photo




An incredible image by
John Van Den Brandt


This is one of the best photographs I have ever seen. Besides the fact that an egret is fairly rare to begin with, I am left wondering how John managed to be in the right spot at the right time to get the bird striking this pose.

John Van Den Brandt is the owner of Wild Wind Images. He appears in our most recent movie talking about wildlife photography, which is where I got to know him a bit. If you click on the picture, you will see a larger image on John's website. The egret is the June 2009 image from a calendar full of amazing shots that John took.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Season ending musky from Hayward Fly Fishing


52-inch musky caught on a fly rod by Hayward Fly Fishing CompanyThe big one that didn't get away
Larry and Wendy, our guide friends from Hayward Fly Fishing Company, sent us this today. It is their season ending musky. 52+ inches, 35+ pounds, on a fly, out of a drift boat, on the same stretch of the Chippewa River that we floated this summer making our movie. 5 degrees when they left their shop, 20 degrees at the put-in. I suspect the adrenaline they ingested catching this fish more than made up for the temperature!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Poling remains at the top of the list

Poling occupies the #1 spot on my list of most interesting things to do in a boat. I keep coming back to a wonderful 12 minute online movie about poling, featuring an Old Town canoe and an East Coast river that Life on Terra has produced. Very watchable.


This podcast, as it is called, is one in a long running series to which I keep returning. It looks like the podcast series is part of the program at Montana State,in Bozeman, Montana. It's the first program I have come across that looks to specialize in the sort of nicely produced outdoor-oriented content that I enjoy watching as well as producing. This series also spends time on the people and personalities behind the content rather than just the content itself.

Good stuff.