An Introduction

I'm a bit out of place.  Not because I'm a fisherman in Michigan.  West Michigan is a great place to live if you love to fish.  I'm out of place because I live in Michigan and I'm not quite whole unless I'm sitting in a boat in the middle of the pitch dark river begging any of my 3 rods to dip towards the black water with the weight of a big flathead catfish.  I am a fisherman, but first and foremost, I am a flathead fisherman.  There are so many states that are better suited for a flathead fisherman.  In fact, I imagine that some would be surprised that we even have them up here in our yankee state.  We don't have the 50+ pounders, but we have them.  For that, I consider myself fortunate.  To add to my good fortune, I live within minutes of the Grand, a lazy old river that has a pretty good stock of them.

I'll get into my love of the river, of flatties, and of my passion for all kinds of fishing in future entries.  For now, I should inform the reader of my general intentions for this blog.  Like most guys who love the water, I get out maybe twice a week in the spring, summer, and fall.  I get out maybe once every week or two in the winter when the ice is good.  The rest of the time, I'm either thinking about fishing, reading up on fishing, watching a video about fishing, or getting ready for fishing.  I have a one track mind and those closest to me, even fellow fishermen, tend to go glass eyed when I inevitably turn the conversation to exactly what hook I like to use for some specific application.  To spare them, I decided that I'd better find another outlet for this need to spew all things angling.  This is my forum.

I look forward to next spring when I can share fresh experiences as they occur.  Until then, I'll dig into some of my best and maybe worst memories and share them with you.  I'll talk tactics and share some general observations that I have about what is going on in the fishing world around us.  Hopefully people out there who share my obsession will find some value or at least some entertainment in my ramblings.  I'm spending New Year's Eve on the ice with my brother-in-law and nephew.  Time to go start getting ready.