Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff
Hello all. Well here we are mid February. Winter is waning here in Utah, with temperatures are climbing into the 50’s and all of the snow almost gone. Here is where I have issues with winter.
Dogs in Grange Park, Toronto, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now, I don’t mind the cold, or the snow, what I mind is the pending spring, and all of the mud and gunk that goes with it. Continue reading
I feel like singing that old Tom Lehrer song, “Spring is here, Spring is here…” Oh here, just watch it.
While there may not be many pigeons meeting their demise at my hands, I can’t say the same for the fish. The ice is melting, the sun is shining, the fish are hungry and so am I. I just recently cleaned out my garage and nicely stacked my fishing gear near the door. I am almost ready to put them permanently in the car for the summer.
I just love to fish. I like to teach people how to fish. I like to read about fishing so that I can be better at fishing. This summer I will be fishing less and less, thanks to the money grubbing (insert your own insulting adjective here) people who sell gas and are making it hit $4 per gallon. I can’t afford to go fishing; very often.
I will still manage a few trips to the over fished community ponds, and maybe I will take a long hike to a couple of lakes, but that will probably be it. I am not even going to register my boat this year, I don’t know that it will get used. But I will still have my fishing license. A side story on that, I was buying a little pistol last year for my birthday and I neglected to take in 2 current forms of address verification. I only had one utility bill, but they were able to accept my fishing license as proof of address because it was issued by the state. Second best thing I have ever used my license for.
Anyhow, most of you know that we are headed to Florida this year for my daughters Make A Wish. No, I don’t think I will have any great deep sea fishing moments, and Disney only lets you fish in a couple of the lakes if you are a guest of the resort, but the place we are staying for the first part of the trip is made just for kids getting their wish granted. They have all sorts of things geared to kids of all abilities and restrictions, including a fishing pond. I do believe that I am going to volunteer to help these kids fish.
Some of them will never have had the opportunity to fish and I can only hope that they will get into the sport. Some will only ever be able to fish there. How could I not help? Well, if they will let me. I am going to try though.
For a long time I thought fishing was the best thing ever. Now, after teaching my kids to fish, I find that bringing in new people is awesome. My kids were asking me yesterday when we were going to go fishing. They have the bug. My 11 year old wants to learn to fly fish. That may as well be Christmas morning to me.
So, for now, I will clean my gear, respool my reels, and hope that I can get out soon. What about you all? Do you fish? Do you want to fish? Are you willing to split gas so we can go together? I would go with my friend Bob but Georgia is even further away than the mountains here. Let me know what you all think down there in the comments.
Have a great day.
-Justin
Good February everyone! I can’t believe January is over already. It is moderately cold here in Utah right now but not snowing. I am not sure if I like that or not. It seems like winter should either get with it and snow for more than 15 minutes (like it has the past couple of nights) or turn into spring already. I got the spring yard clean up/landscaping bug this weekend while watching some home improvement shows on HGTV. I can’t wait for the ground to thaw!
I keep hearing about this Alexa thing that apparently is important to be on the high side, in the top 100,000. So I decided to look up where my site is. On Saturday Jan. 30, I was at 12,829,290. All I could do was laugh. This morning, February 1, I was almost shocked to see I had DROPPED to 12,850,206. I dropped nearly 21000 spots in 2 days. I am not sure what this means but I will keep looking at it. At least it is better than the other website that I run with my wife Brendasquiltshop.com. That site doesn’t even have a ranking so 12,850,206 must be ok. What does it mean? I need to get out there more and not worry too much until I get some more incoming traffic.
And finally I so want to go fishing. Not ice fishing which should just be called “freeze your butt off while sitting on the ice” fishing but real fishing. From the bank, from the boat, standing in the stream I don’t care. Winter gets long some days and my gear calls to me.
Last fall our family went to Kidney Kamp. It is sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation and the Great Salt Lake Truck Show and it lets families of people with kidney disease and or kidney transplants a chance to go to camp. I am glad my 3 year old is in the latter category now. For 2 years that was the only camp we could do because they had facilities to do dialysis.
I digress yet again. This camp has a very small pond that they stock with fish and let the kids check out poles to fish with. Me, I keep a travel fly rod in the car and wanted to practice. But they only want kids to fish so I recruited my 9 year old and told her it was her first training session. We didn’t catch anything that day, the fish were more interested in the gummy bears that the kid across the pond was using for bait than a natural looking fly. Hmm, that is another post idea, Seeking out the flash we want instead of the stuff we need.
The lesson here is I will try to find a way to fish anywhere I can, even if it requires my kids to do it. I just want to fish. Anyone want to come with? My wife will be having our 4th child this July so I know my fishing outings will be limited, but I will still go some. Not actually going fishing will leave me time to work on my e-book about beginning fly fishing. I am reworking and updating a website I made in one of my college writing classes to work as a book. I should take pre-orders to force me to finish by my St. Patrick’s Day deadline.
Anyhow, Life is Great when you are satisfied with it. If you are reading this, You Are Awesome. Thanks for your support.
Justin
I had somewhat of a horror movie moment the other day. I took my 4 year old and the baby to the Wal Mart to get the essentials, you know diapers, milk, screws etc. I am, if you haven’t read about it by now, somewhat of a fishing nut. I always want to go fishing, even if I don’t get the chance. So when at Wal Mart, I cant help but walk through the sporting goods section.
It was there that trouble shocked my brain. Now, Amelia, my 4 year old decided to break her foot last weekend so she had to ride in the cart while Tristan, the baby rode in his car seat in the upper deck of the cart. Amelia started talking about how she wanted to go fishing with her pink fishing pole and how she was going to catch a big fish with Daddy. I was so proud. Up until now we give her a bit of line tied to a butterfly plug that she could thrash around with.
I started thinking, her birthday is in 2 months, she will be 5 and she could go fishing for real….hmmm. Let’s get her a tackle box and some hooks and we can go to town. It was at that point she piped up and said how much fun it would be if she could fish with Tristan. I said OK, and then she said she wanted to teach him how to cast. All I could think of then was her tossing back a real live hook and catching the baby. More than once. My daydream vision had multiple hooks in his body and Amelia tossing him into the lake, car seat and all.
Maybe she isn’t ready for a set of real hooks all to herself. I think we can wait another year to jump off of that bridge. I still bought her a pink tackle box and some pink power bait to go in it. We are still going fishing.
Thoughts? Questions? Criticism? Misguided attempts at humor? The comment section is waiting for your fingers to fill it with wisdom.
Have a great weekend.
Justin
PS- any ideas for podcasts let me know! I want to talk about what you want to talk about!
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