noah caught his first wisconsin fish this evening. the plover veteran’s memorial pond is two miles from our home we found out that there are a decent number of little largemouth bass in it. adam almost caught a monster cat.
you’re yellow
perhaps the best street name ever.
brookies
i finally got the chance to do a little bit of wisconsin trout fishing. i didn’t have much time today but i wanted to spend a little of that time on the tomorrow river, thankfully the tomorrow is only about 15 minutes away from our home. so i went there and spent a little time looking over the river (which is gorgeous) and immediately saw a few small brookies. i love brookies. i know they aren’t ever really big but they are very pretty little fish who really pop a dry fly. therefore, i was pretty excited when i saw them. i tied on an elks hair caddis and cast to the nearest brookie. BAM. he popped it. he wasn’t very big, about 8 inches, but he was still my first wisconsin trout and that was exciting. oh brookies are so much fun. i started wading up the creek and ran into a school of HUGE brookies. huge for a brook trout is anything over a pound and several of these fish where probably pushing two pounds. i tried casting a few different nymphs to them. after a few trial and error casts (they were in a very tight spot) and several false raises, one of the large brookies rose to the nymph i was fishing with. i was ready for a huge fight. it was going to be great. so i quickly lifted my rod to set the hook and my leader broke off. snap. the fish and my leader, the only one i had with me, were out of my life. it wasn’t very exciting after all.
still, it was fun and i now know where they are.
SIDE NOTE – on a lark i decided to search for fly fishing and wisconsin fishing podcasts. i found quite a few that i went ahead and subscribed too. my favorite thus far is the fly fishing rabbi. he talks about fly fishing and faith. ironically enough he picked up fly fishing after watching a river runs through it. i say “ironically” because it was reading the book that inspired me to learn how to fly fish. i really liked the first of the rabbi’s podcasts that i have listened to. he is right on target when he describes fly fishing as a spiritual moment. for me it’s not so much a way that i connect to GOD through fly fishing, as it is that the concentration and focusing skills that are a part of fly fishing also relate well to the spiritual nature of our existence. learning how to perceive fish in a stream has truly helped me learn how to perceive the works of GOD.
my run for the day
distance – 9.0 miles
time – 1:39:56
pace – 11:07/mile
weather – 70º
pregnancy pact
i saw this on kottke a little earlier.
a group of teen girls in a massachusetts city made a pack to get pregnant and raise their children together. right now there are 17 girls, most of whom are below the age of 16, that apparently became pregnant on purpose. in desperation one of the girls found a 24 year old homeless man to get her pregnant. the school authorities and parents are trying to figure out how to handle this. i love one student’s answer to the school doctor and nurse’s decision to giving out contraceptives as a means of preventing this (which i don’t personally have an issue with but that’s for a different post). the student said “that won’t do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant.”
in my opinion, the one of the saddest things from the article is the reasons the girls are getting pregnant. one of the teen mom’s said “they’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally” but then went on to explain “it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.” first it’s sad that these girls feel that they’ve never been loved unconditionally. secondly, it’s sad that they want to have a child just to meet their own needs for love. anybody whose had kids knows that they are inherently selfish. having a child is no something from which you receive a ton of unconditional love, instead its a situation where hopefully you learn to love someone else as unconditionally as possible. you learn to love a child when he is screaming at you, or throwing a tantrum, or being rebellious. hopefully you learn to express this love in a manner that reminds the child that she is loved but at the same time teaches her that your love wants to push her into becoming a better human.
these girls are probably in for a rude awakening.
goodbye friend
after nearly 17 years keebler has passed away. keebs was the first addition to the terrell household and therefore thought pam and i a little of what to expect when we had human additions. he was also the first cat i ever liked, let alone loved (the jury is still out on oreo). he’s been sick for awhile and he finally just reached the point that it was simply too much for him. i never thought that i would miss a cat but i will miss keebs (of course, i think part of that is because he had much of the personality of a dog). pam has expressed her thoughts on this much better than i ever could. you should probably read her thoughts.
we have a place
for those of you keep track of the the birth of tapestry i thought you would like to know that we now officially have a spot. our request has been approved and we will be holding services at washington elementary school. now we just have to begin those services. 3 more months.
it’s better than a good day in the office
i spent some time with andy, the intervarsity campus minister, today and as usually happens he took me fishing (which is a great thing). i had two firsts today: 1) i have never caught a catfish on a crankbait before (i’ve always caught cats on live bait or stink bait) and 2) i’ve never caught a white bass before (they supposedly taste quite good but i wasn’t too impressed with their fight). both of those happened today. in addition i caught a great deal of other fish and thanks to andy i now know a great spot for small mouth bass which i love catching. i can hardly wait for the water level to go down so i can wade this area and fly fish it. i am willing to bet money that catching a smallmouth bass on a fly rod is a life changing experience.
i can’t believe i have gone my whole life without access to a constant stream of smallmouth bass.
of course, i have to get a canoe to reach this spot but that’s going to work out eventually.
i have to go by the tomorrow river thursdy and saturday and i’m definitely going to take at least one of those days to try out a little trout fishing on it. i’ve missed trout fishing so much.
things i have learned from my dad (thus far)
just a quick list of things i have learned from my dad thus far:
- fishing is better than hunting because it doesn’t do much good to practice “catch and release” with an animal you have just shot.
- if you work at it you can have an enjoyable conversation with most anybody.
- outside of abuse and the complete disregard of the promises made within marriage divorce is NEVER an option, though murder might be. 🙂
- you can fix every problem in the world with 4 things: a band-aid, a pocket knife, a pen, and a quarter (the new list changes the quarter to a cell phone or calling card)
- you should never pay someone to do what you can do around your own home unless they do it much better – i.e. fix and build everything you can and you’ll have a sense of pride about it
- you’re never to old to learn something new (i.e. picking up computers when you’re in your mid-40s and becoming an expert on them or learning and practicing moped repair when your in your mid-60s)
- always call your mother
- if your oldest son accidentally looses 4 anchors in one day you should NEVER EVER let him forget it. 🙂
- if you are going to spend time grilling a good piece of meat then you should do so over charcoal.
- shorts and suspenders may look awful but they work well (i may have learned this but i’m not practicing it).
- treat everyone fairly.
- despite the fact that there are some people who give the profession a bad name, being a sales person is an honorable profession.
there are many more things that i could post but that list will do for now. happy father’s day dad.
SIDE NOTE – my father’s day present from pam and the boys was an eye-fi card. woohoo!
we’re not superstitious, we’re just a little stitious
for the fun of it the family and i decided to make my mom’s day and take some friday the 13th photos. you see my mom is just a tiny bit superstitious. 😉
anyhow, here they are:
google docs
i’ve mentioned it several times in the past but i’ll say it again … i love google docs. i just spent the past 30 minutes editing our project mayhem document with mike. he’s at his home and i’m at mine but we are both typing away on the document over the web. it’s great.