I know, it has been a while. I've been a little under the weather and fighting a persistent cough for over a month now. I still have the cough but its time to get on with it!

Well, January is almost over. Is anyone else happy about that? I stopped by Big Creek Outdoor Supply earlier today and picked up my 2011 fishing license and a couple spools of braided nylon. The Iowa fishing license was printed on the same paper our deer tags are normally printed on. I'm still wondering if that is right. Anyway. I changed the lower unit grease on my outboard yesterday and I'm waiting for the spark plugs that I had to order from a local auto parts store. They usually don't carry them in stock but get them for me in just a couple work days. I did pull the spark plugs out of the engine just because I was curious and wanted to see what they looked like, (fouling, etc.) but put them right back, but only finger tight. Once I get the plugs in and get the fuel filter cleaned out the outboard will be ready for what I hope will be a good year of fishing. Last spring I found a couple cracks in the hull of my boat that had to be welded so I plan on checking the boat over. Hopefully there are no new cracks but if there are I want to get them taken care of early this year.

New Years Eve

No. I won't make it until midnight. Not even interested. We hung out at Deano's for about four hours this evening. They were closed but had a private party in the restaurant and believe it or not, I was invited. I know, it's hard to believe. It was a pretty good time. Nothing crazy, just hanging around, shooting the breeze. No catfish talk. There wasn't anybody else there that likes to chase catfish like I do.

Is it spring?

55 degrees today? Maybe 60 degrees in the next few days! Is it spring? No its not spring yet. This is just mother natures way of screwing with me. Cruel right? Not really. She can't help it. Thats just the way she is. I had lunch at Deano's in Rome, Iowa earlier today. The Skunk was still mostly froze over but the ice looked to be pretty slushy and wet on top. There were multiple snow mobile tracks on the ice. Hopefully they were made before the warm weather hit. No chance of trying a little ice fishing now.

I spent the morning browsing catfish websites, just being nosey. There are actually quite a few sites but many haven't been updated in several years. most of them require registration before you can use the site. I'm not the one doing all that. I just wanted to look around, not give them enough personal information to write my biography.

Other than that I am just enjoying my News Years break from work.

Work is done and its another four days off. The warm weather has stopped the ice fishing around here, I think. A fishing buddy is laid up with a bad back so I took a stack of magazines out to him so he would have something to read other than Louis L'Amour. Louis wasn't a fishermen, nor has he ever contributed to a fishing magzine! Maybe some of us need to pick our reading material a little more carefully! You know who you are!

Ice age

Took a drive down to the river just to see how things are. Mostly frozen above the dam, open from the dam down passed Faulkners. The Skunk is getting low and really clear. Too bad its not that clear during the summer. Checked out the no snagging zone from the down river end of the boat ramp(which would be the top of the ramp) up to the dam. If there are guys snagging on the south side rocks it might be almost impossble to get a boat above the ripples. We'll see in a couple months I guess.

Had to go back to work today. Didn't like that one bit. Long, slow, quiet day.

back to work

Just in case you didn't know, four days can go by really fast. In the days prior to Christmas I was looking forward to Christmas break and now it's over. The worst part is I didn't get much done, other than tying up a few hooks. There was plenty of fishing on TV but no catfishing. I haven't heard much from the guys who ice fish the local ponds but I did hear of one guy who put an ATV through the ice on a local creek. Not really sure how thick the ice is on the ponds.

Happy day after Christmas. Hopefully Santa brought you something good. Cabin fever is setting in in a big way. There are no catfishing shows on the outdoor channels. I came real close to putting a video in but went into "my room" and tied up some stainless 5/0 hooks instead. In the boundary waters of Iowa, like the Mississippi, you can run up to four trot lines with a total of 200 hooks. It does require a boundary water sport trot line license, $22.50. I might. I'm thinking about it. Even if I did it on a long weekend just to see what I can come up with.