In Celebration of a Better Work Schedule

With my recent relocation and work adjustment, I have been able to work on a "Flex Schedule" for the first time.  This gives me every other Monday "off" in return for slightly longer work days for the rest of the pay period.  I'm working the same amount, but now my work days have been reduced by 10%, while my "off" days have increased by about 25%.  I've tried to make the most of this situation; I am certainly getting used to it!  

But before such an arrangement seems normal or mundane, I'd like to take the opportunity to celebrate what this time has allowed me to do.  Here are some pictures, in chronological order, of each of my "Flex" days so far:

A Monday on Lake St. Clair; Check This Out!   The Premiere Flex Day featured a 6-pound smallmouth bass, a large and scrappy catfish, and bonus white bass and walleyes!

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Who can argue with Fun Family Fishing for panfish at Kensington Metropark?  For details -  go here!

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A day on Traverse Bay is always rewarding; details are here!

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An entire week of Maine Fireworks!

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Reeds Lake comfort and fun is discussed here!

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M with her first bass in a while!  What details there are... are Here!

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A week of work in Baltimore, a family week of travel and a Sesquicentennial Striper; it's mostly a blur, but certainly included a sanctioned Flex Day in there, somewhere!  Read all about it! - Here!

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The bass fishing wasn't great, but this fine pike was a welcome by-catch of my Lake St. Clair offshore drop-shotting efforts.  For a summary of another weekday crack at this fishery, Look Here!

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OK, I'm cheating little bit here.  I'm not sure which day was the official "Flex Day", but when combined with a couple of vacation days and a trip North, good things happen every day!  Here's the Summary!

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Each day has been filled with adventure (big or small), and each has produced noteworthy fish and/or experience.  What a gift!

Road Trip - Including Maine Fun 2017.02

The second half of August, 2017 was a whirlwind of life on the road. A combination of work, opportunity and family had me in Baltimore, Charlottesville, Boston, Portland and Providence before I could start heading home.  I managed to enjoy each stop; I had a fine couple of weeks.  Here are a few pictures capturing some aspects of the trip.

I stepped off the light rail train at Camden Yards in Baltimore.  Of course, the O's were in Texas, but it was still nice to see this beautiful park in person.  Plus, the official keepers of the National Lampoon "Vacation" series of movies "liked" this pic when I hash-tagged "Clark Griswold", having arrived to a closed attraction.

I expected Eutaw Street, between Camden's right field fence and the Oriole's office, to be bustling on a beautiful weeknight.  But, without the O's in town, it was pretty much deserted.

Each Major League home run that finds Eutaw Street is commemorated with a plaque.  I looked for, and found, Red Sox' Jackie Bradley, Jr.'s marker for a blast he hit (and that I witnessed on MLB.tv) earlier this season; I believe it was No. 49 to reach Eutaw Street in the 25-year history of Camden Yards.  Here's his temporary mark, right where I thought it would be!  Based on a couple of nearby, permanent markers, the ball travelled about 413 feet.

Camden Yards from Eutaw Street; I am about 410 feet from home plate, and I'm elevated at least 25 feet from the playing surface.  There's a smattering of plaques behind me, too, including David Ortiz at 416 and 420 feet; and Ken Griffey, Jr. at over 440 feet and off the wall of the building across the street.  Wow!

Walking around Baltimore felt like swimming through soup for a week, but Virginia's Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park afforded some comfortably fresh air, as well as a good meal, some nice views, deer and fox sightings, and was part of a very agreeable visit with my Mom.

All together in Boston, we walked past Fenway Park.  The Sox were elsewhere, and that was okay, because we had fun, anyway!

This sign looms over the left field wall at Fenway and is unusually mesmerizing at night games.  Its likeness adorns my new hat, a very nice gift from my daughter, K.

Great breakfast, a walk on the beach, and all together in Maine; things are good!

The stripers cooperated nicely during our few days in Maine.  For the most part, they weren't too big, but they did provide a lot of action!

Striper No. 150 for 2017 was my largest of the year at 28.75 inches.

M was happy and excited to move into her new dorm in Providence!

Buffalo, New York is a frequent staging area for us as we travel between New England and Michigan.  Quite often we end up staying at a particular, privately-owned hotel.  It's very nice, in it's own way, but it is filled with the original owner's personality and memorabilia.  Regardless, this is good news from Rocky.

As always and regardless of the fun, it's nice to be home.  Our back yard is our current sanctuary, and what is more peaceful than watching a whitetail fawn suckle?

Of course this doesn't even come close to the important parts of the trip; learning some new skills and meeting new folks for work, cruising with loved ones on a fairly loose schedule, scoring some extra time with the kids, and sharing lots of good food with nary a problem along the way.  It was a good couple of weeks!

Century Mark!

I arrived in Maine with a simple fishing goal; to catch six more stripers during my relatively brief stay.  These six would bring me to The Century Mark, i.e., 100 Stripers caught for the season.  Not bad for a guy from Michigan!  And let's face it, I'm willing to recognize and celebrate just about any fun milestone, however artificial it might be.

Conditions upon our mid-day arrival were clear, bright and windy, and the tide was unfavorably high for good fishing.  But after a quick stop at The Tackle Shop for bait (sand-worms and frozen mackerel), I was down at the dock by 1:30 PM.

It was unusually windy in Portland, Maine on August 22, 2017.  The flags were stiff as I cast my lines.

Weeds made casting lures impossible, and bait fishing was difficult, at best.  By 2:30 PM and having encountered virtually no sign of sea life, I was smart enough to call it (temporarily) quits.  I snuck in a quick nap while awaiting more favorable conditions.

By 4 PM, at least the late, ebbing tide was more favorable, and the weeds were largely dissipated.  I caught two stripers (16 and 20 inches) on worms right away, and then I enjoyed a slow stream of steady action.  While most fish preferred the worms, a couple ate small chunks of mackerel off the bottom.  At about 6:50 PM, August 22, 2017, my float and worm went down, and Striper No. 100 for 2017 hit the deck!

Here's my Century Mark for the 2017 Striper Season!

Mission accomplished; but even better, I still had two or three full days of fishing ahead of me!

Jackie Chiles Meets Buddha! -or- Going APE!

So, I've adopted the practice of Anticipation! Participation! and Elaboration! as a part of my program for maintaining mental health and simply enjoying life.  Look here! to get a sense of what I'm getting at.  I thought I'd stumbled upon a simple, fun practice that could stretch out memorable events, but I suspect that it is possibly much more powerful than that.

Jackie Chiles; from the web!

Note that Anticipation! Participation! and Elaboration! (or for my purposes today, APE!) represents the future, present and past.  Simply enough, we anticipate future events, act in the present, and can elaborate on past events.

Meanwhile, this Buddhist has reminded us that control of our reaction to current conditions is the key to ongoing happiness.  While this is an easy statement to acknowledge, we know the difficulty lies in doing so, productively.

Let's face it, the Past and Future are basically eternal, while the Present is a razor-thin, ephemeral instance.  How can one hope to remain Present?  It's such an unlikely nano-target.  What are the odds of simply Being There?

I now can see that my practice of "Going APE!" is really about maintaining these events in that most fragile of times, the Present.  Whether I am Anticipating! or Elaborating!, I am in the current act of actively appreciating and/or understanding my experience.  (Anybody who has fished or played ball with me will attest that I Participate! to my fullest ability.)This really is an exercise in Being Present and maintaining that presence.

There's a huge difference between these exercises of active appreciation (and here, I am suddenly reminded of Appreciative Inquiry) and other approaches that distance ourselves from an experience.  Here, I'm thinking of "fearing" or "hoping" for a future outcome, or "longing for" or "missing" a past event.  These create some sort of artificial barrier between our current selves and mindset and the event(s) in question.  These do not allow us to fully immerse ourselves in the event; the very nature of these feelings is one of disconnection.  My exercises foster connection.  I think they do so even in the face of time; there's a certain time-independence in actively planning or dissecting an event towards a positive end.

It's pretty well documented that simply Being Present is a key to a sense of happiness, effective relationships and overall wellness.  Little did I know that my fondness for fishing stories and experiences would provide a meaningful framework for me to realize (actualize?) something so fundamentally important.

So, here's today's advice: to be more human, feel free to Go APE!

Maine Fun 2017.01

I was fortunate to have shared the week of July 4 with family in Maine.  It was a beautiful week filled with good food, celebrations and fishing.  My fishing approach here is simple; throw spoons for mackerel and provide some bait options for striped bass, but most importantly, be there when the fish are there!  My tackle and techniques have evolved over the course of almost 20 years; I think I've arrived at the proper balance of sport while providing for a chance at catching the largest available stripers.  In most years, I am amazed at how many bass there must be, because I will have a good number of chances while basically standing in a single spot.

This year was no exception.  There were many bass to be caught.  Mackerel were conspicuously absent, and the average bass was smaller than in most years.  I can't control those factors, all I can do is capitalize on the chances that are available.  Hopefully I do so while enjoying and appreciating the setting, scenery and wildlife.

A detailed log of the actual fishing can be found here; with this post, I would simply like to acknowledge the peaceful-yet-celebratory mood/theme of the week.

2017's First Striper!  I am always pleased to make their re-acquaintance!

One can get used to such sunrises.  Venus hangs over Casco Bay at about 4:15 AM, July 2, 2017.

Here I am converting a mackerel head into another nice striper on my first morning of fishing.

K is hooked up to a nice fish!

I brought the net for just such fish!

K's mid-day 28-incher was the biggest of the trip!

A nice evening fish; my largest of the trip.

Striper No. 50 for 2017

The hat says, "Live to Fish" and features a striped bass; a powerful combo!

Fish ... Eat ... Sleep.  Whenever one can!

Every day, every tide is different on the landing.  What will the next trip bring?

On Jupiter!

Did you know that the relative gravity (to Earth's) on Jupiter is about 2.4-times greater?

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And so I was precisely correct when I proclaimed, "On Jupiter, {em-epher}!" as K continued to proclaim every bluegill, pumpkinseed or hybrid to come over the gunwale to be a Master Angler candidate.  Of course my statement did nothing to curb her irrepressible enthusiasm for fishing this day, or for playfully pushing my buttons on any day.

I was pleased to find out that K and A chose to go fishing with me this day, our last full day together for a while.  It had been a longer while since we'd last enjoyed a day on the water together, and although I had grand visions of big water and giant fish, I've learned that a local lake, some food aboard, a shorter day and some fishing flexibility would more likely produce a pleasant day for all.  I was even smart enough to include some panfish gear in the boat, too, so as to maximize our chances for getting some bites.

We started looking for bass, but quickly switch over to panfish when I saw a colony of nests tucked in along shore.  At first, the residents proved to be runty little pests, but through a progression of spots and tactics, we started to catch some nicer specimens.  A small white glow-worm suspended under a float kept us busy for a couple of hours, and we sorted through a bunch of fish that certainly included a number of very decent 'gills and 'seeds. 

This first fish proved we could catch them after many missed bites.

The next spot started to produce some better fish.

Spunky and beautiful

You don't have to go to Harvard to know that this is a Master Angler fish ... On Jupiter!

Grand, it wasn't; Pleasant, it was.  It is always fun just to explore a new lake and catch some fish, and it was especially satisfying to have a quorum of my girls back in the boat, even for just a few hours.  We had simply enjoyed what the day had given us, to the best of our abilities.

This shoreline will bring me back to this lake!

Change for the Better

So, a lot has gone down in my life since I've written anything of substance.  It's all been voluntary, it all gone according to plan, and I think it's all been for the good.  In the last couple of months, I've acquired and/or undertaken:

• New Teeth
• New Smile
• New Home
• New City 
• New Job 
• New Home Lake

Apparently, I've also acquired a New Attitude about day-to-day life and work, because in just the last few days my longest-term and closest friend verbally recognized my change for the better, and a new-but-trusted co-worker mentioned that he couldn't even imagine me wound up over work.  I might even be starting to believe that my efforts towards multifaceted self-improvement might be working!

This is all reward enough, but let's explore how this isn't just about life and work, it's about fishing, too!

My new home lake might now be Lake St. Clair, and it's a large, shallow body of water.  It gets rough and muddy, and my limited experience there indicates that neither of these is conducive to my bass fishing.  The last weekend was Super Windy, out of many points on the compass, and Monday (my targeted day for fishing) was simply Less Windy.  Given these conditions (and incorporating cost, lack of good intelligence, risk of failure, fear of failure, general lack of confidence and such), Old Steve wouldn't have undertaken a trip, even to a world-class fishery such as Lake St. Clair.

That's fine, as there are many other decent options available, but when one is so close to so many giant smallmouth bass, and the window on the availability of pre-spawn lunkers is closing, should not one who really cares about such things at least give it a shot?  After all, the dream is valid, and there are no real consequences to failing; and so New Steve decided, What the heck?  Why hold myself back?  Let's go!

And so I did go!  I came home, 13 hours later with a half-broken spine (figuratively, but descriptive) and one less tooth (literally.)  I'd gotten two bass bites all day, the water was stained to muddy in my area of choice, and Lake St. Clair had beaten me into submission with wind and boat chop.

But it was a Good Day!  It was a weekday fishing expedition, after all, and one of the two bass bites turned into a Master Angler giant, possibly one of my Top 2 or 3 smallmouths ever, and certainly the largest ever aboard Numenon.  

But this wasn't even the best part of the day!  The day was another learning experience for me, and I know I'll take the best of what I learned (locations, logistics, presentations, boat control) with me on future trips.  I'm more prepared for whatever comes my way.

This is NOT a bad way to operate.  It might be Kaizen, it might be Appreciative Inquiry, it might be just good luck, but it might become natural.

Work hard, be smart, do your best and enjoy some occasional good fortune!