Watery Weekend

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN!! I thought it was never going to stop. It altered our landscape in a couple of different ways. First of all, you can see from the pictures that it added a nice size pond in the front of our house. If you think that it's kind of nasty that I am swimming in this chocolate colored pond, I am not doing it for enjoyment. I had a mission in mind. You see, there is a drain pipe in our front yard to prevent flooding like this from happening, and my mission was to go down and remove a rock that was plugging that drain pipe. The water was about 5 ft. deep in the deepest spot, and I had to feel around with my feet to find this rock. Once I found the rock, I had to go completely under and move the rock by hand. After I moved the rock, the water was gone in 6 or 7 hours. The funny thing is that there is a garden underneath all that water that my mom and dad and I planted the day before. I think it got enough water. The second change we noticed was a small sink hole by our retaining wall. That will be a fun one to fix. And finally, my bridge that goes over the creek in the back yard has been shifted off its foundations. This is a heavy bridge that consists of three full size telephone poles. It was a pain in the but building it and I imagine its going to be just is bad to try and move it back in place. Once it is in place I will be anchoring it down so I don't have to do this a third time.

The good news is my basement was dry and nothing majorly bad happened. Especially in comparison to some of the damage I seen at other peoples houses and places of business. Plus, Hildee had a good time fetching the Frisbee in our temporary pond.

A Nice Day To Play On The River

Memorial day was a perfect day to get out and enjoy the Kalamazoo River. Katy and I crawled out of bed bright and early (not really) and we were on the river by 12:30. The Big Curve bait shop was closed but luckily we had about 4 night crawlers that were donated to us by our neighbor Ted before we left. Katy started the day out with a sun fish which actually ended up being used for Catfish bait. After I put a chuck of that sunfish on Katy's hook, I tried bouncing a jig off the bottom of the river and happened to catch a 16" walleye. Following all that excitement, Katy felt what she described as a "nibble" and gave her rod a nice jerk and ended up setting the hook into good size snapping turtle. That's right, I said snapping turtle. At first she thought it was a snag and then a fish and then we were both surprised to see a big ugly turtle at the end of her line. Needless to say, I cut the line. We figured the turtles were hungrier than the fish in that spot so we pulled up the anchor and moved to a new location. It wasn't long and Katy had a fish on, at least we were hoping it was a fish this time. It turned out to be a nice size catfish. I talked Katy into holding it for a photo op, as you can see in the above picture. She looks like a natural, don't you think?

All in all, it was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Not to mention, we caught a variety of fish and more.

Sucker Fishing Success

It was a great weekend for sucker fishing in the Black River. Not only were the fish biting but the weather was warm and the sun was shinning, and when you put those two things together you get a perfect day to sit next to the river, drink some beer, and spend some quality time with your buddies. It’s what makes spring such a great time of year. Now I know that sucker aren’t the most desired fish to catch (as you can see from the pic), but it’s not about what kind of fish that your catching; it’s about the fact that your catching fish and having a great time doing it. Shooter (the other guy I was fishing with) said it best when he said, “you know your doing well when your fish to beer ratio is equal”.

This has been a salute to spring time; the gateway to summer!

5K update

Just an update:

The first week of training has been tough, but I have been staying strong in my dedication to working out and running (thanks to Katy). I am hitting the gym every other day for strength training (low weight high reps) and I have been running 3 miles every other day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I ran three miles in 27 minutes and 30 seconds and then on Sunday I ran it in 26 minutes and 25 seconds. I have to thank Katy (Mic) for pushing me on Sunday; it resulted in shaving one minute off from my time.

One thing I do need to do is get my butt down to the shoe store and get me some new shoes. I have been running in my shoes from high school track. That means those puppies are more than 10 years old, and I can tell it from the pain I have in my knee. Its so bad that I was limping on Saturday and now I'm limping again today because of my other knee. Am I that old?

5K goal

I am setting a goal for myself for you all to read. I would like to be able to run a 5k this spring in a time of 24 minutes. This is a pretty tough goal for me espeacially since I am now an old man at the age of 28.

Take a look at my stats (below) from when I was just a young lad at the ripe age of 24.

Name	City	State	Zip
Kraker, Bryan	Holland	MI	49423
Overall Bib Final Time Class Age Gender 112 165 25:50 Males 20 to 24 24 M
class_place class_total gender_place pace ag_pct ag_place 4 4 78 8:20 N.A. N.A.

I intend to put myself on a pretty strict training schedule with the help of my trainer Mic (AKA my wife). On this schedule I plan to eat healthy, load up on plenty of proteins and carbs, and I will probably have to give up beer. I will also try to run at least three miles every morning and strength train in the gym at night for one month staight. Plus, there will be plenty Rocky theme music playing to keep me motivated.

Wish me luck!!!

Fishing the Kalamazoo River

I have been putting in my fair share of time on the Kalamazoo river and I am not having any luck. I have been trying Wiggle Worts, Hot n Tots, Spawn sacks, Spoons, and just about anything else you can think of that would catch steelhead. This is my first year. What am I doing wrong?

The only luck that I've had was this fall up by the Hamilton dam. You can see one of the many salmon I caught.