This weekend my family and I made a journey a few hours south to celebrate my daughter's upcoming birthday with family at their place by Castle Rock Lake.  To mitigate the possibility of forgetting key kayak or fishing equipment, I prepared the kayak the night before.  My rods, net, stakeout pole, hawg trough, TourneyTag , KBF identifiers, anchors, and PFDs were nestled in the front hatch of my FeelFree Lure ready for a long ride. The next morning I connected the trailer to the Jeep and verified the straps were ready for the journey.  Next, I was tasked with putting the puzzle of bags, totes, toys, blankets, and other necessities to support myself, my wife, and two kids for the weekend. After successfully completing the puzzle, we were off.  Upon arrival, we stopped at Shipwreck Bay in Mauston, Wisconsin for a delicious late lunch.  We spent the evening with family and nervously checking the weather, calling for rain and storms the next day.  We were planning a day at the bea

I typically write about my fishing shenanigans, good and bad.  I wanted to take a break from the topic to pause and thank my audience.  Your support, kindness, and acceptance are humbling. I started this adventure in blogging and social media 2 months ago.  Never did I think it would turn into a great following with such support.  I am not one to gloat, but wanted to share the milestones reached in the last two months as a "shout out" and thank you to the people and organizations that have supported the sharing of the shenanigans that escape my head, through my fingers, via the keyboard onto the Internet. The "mothership" of my shenanigans is my blog,  In the first two months, I have received over 12,700 hits.  My last post received 1,300 hits in under 12 hours and is about to surpass 1,500 overall.  My Facebook page  had over 1,000 likes in 2 weeks.  To-date it is over 1,100 likes.   My Twitter account was over 1,200 follows in 2 weeks.  To-date I am over 1,6

It has been a great holiday weekend thus far.  My family surprised me with an early Fathers Day/birthday present which included Keen Uneek sandals for kayaking, some lures, and a Garmin VIRB XE (check out my YouTube channel for upcoming videos). Yesterday I spent the day fatbiking with a family member .  I was also honored to have Garmin publish one of my past articles .  As the month wraps up, I was eager to hit my local reservoir in hopes to claim a higher position on the May  Kayak Bass Fishing North Central Great Lakes tournament hosted by TourneyX . When arriving at my local reservoir before sunrise, I notice the heavy fog.  Visibility is nearly zero.  After performing my unloading/rigging ritual I hit the water.  The fog is so dense I turn on my 360 light for safety.  With visibility so poor, I cannot see shore.  I use my Garmin Striker 4's GPS to navigate to the first location I plan to fish. Upon arrival, I toss my go-to lures: hollow body frog and buzz bait.  Not

The end-of-May is near.  Children are looking forward to their last day of school, high school and college seniors are celebrating graduations, and we are looking forward to Memorial Day weekend.  This weekend, the kickoff to summer, is spent enjoying various activities while remembering the service members who died to protect our freedom.  For me, the end of May marks the end of my first fishing tournament, the push to crawl up the leader board. I started out strong in the KBF North Central Great Lakes tournament .  I had a successful Wisconsin bass opene r that put me near the top of the leader board.  As the month has gone on, I have moved down/up/down on the leader board, which I love.   TourneyX's real-time tournament management is a great catalyst for a lively competition.  Holding at 7th place, determined to move up on the board, I left my FeelFree Lure and tackle loaded.  I was poised to hit the water after my day job.   Last night the stars aligned and I was able

Saturday was a long, but beautiful, day on the water.  After many miles of paddling, and towing a boat with my kayak , I was sore.  My surprise fishing partner and I had every intention of waking up earlier to get on the water earlier the next day. After a nice night hanging out with our neighborhood friends Saturday night, I hit the bed and quickly fell into dreams of catching more bass.  Frog season is officially in full swing with the Wisconsin temperatures staying steady. After going to bed too late, my alarm woke me at 4:30 AM on Sunday as planned.  I immediately notice a significant soreness in my upper body.  I dismount the bed with the grace of a newborn giraffe and stumble to the living room.  My fishing partner isn't up yet.  I spend a few minutes checking my blogs social media accounts then fall asleep in the recliner. Awaking a few minutes later, I take it as a sign that this was not my fishing day.  After a restful sleep, I awake to my family and learn my fishin

Last night I learned of a surprise fishing partner for today's fishing expedition.  I pulled my FeelFree Lure off my car, and mounted it atop my Jon Boat that my partner would be using. Before getting my kayak, the Jon Boat was my primary fishing vessel.  It took me to places a large boat could not, and was much lower maintenance.  Well, I have since purchased a FeelFree Lure in Camo Orange.  Camo orange is my new olive green. Boats still have their place in fishing.  However, my Lure proved its worth as my primary fishing vessel today.  I was able to take it places the Jon Boat was stuck.  But no worries, I was able to tie it to the back of my FeelFree Lure and drag it under the power of my Bending Branches Angler Pro with very little extra effort.  We event tied together to explore a creek that fed the river/reservoir we were fishing.  An impractical feat until I had this versatile fishing machine.

My participation in the KBF Great Lakes May fishing tournament is my first in my fishing tournament career.  It has been great.   TourneyX provides an easy-to-use, fair, and well-managed platform to submit and track progress in the catch-photo-release tournament.  I was previously in 3rd place in the tournament, then bumped to 5th.  Today I was then bumped to 7th and was determined to climb the leader board. This morning I launched the Jon Boat (captained by a fishing partner) and my FeelFree Lure .  I was determined to move my way back into the top three. The day started at a bitter 39 degrees, but the forecast was promising.  Temperatures were to be in the 80s with little-to-no wind.  Perfect small craft fishing conditions.  Shortly after launching, my fishing partner landed a nice 16"+ bass on his second cast (the first was a snag I helped retrieve).  We agreed it was going to be a great day. The Wisconsin spring has made for tough fishing.  The temperatures have fluctu