All bogged down

I had the wonderful occasion last week to go fishing with my father in law and a local guide up in Watersmeet, Michigan. As if this wasn't cool enough of and in itself, it also marked my first opportunity to go bog fishing.

What's bog fishing? Well, many of the lakes up in that area are surrounded by thick layers of bog material. I'm not sure what exactly composes the bogs, but suffice to say that it has to be plenty thick and sturdy to support my big body. Anyhow...to fish these bogs, one needs some way to distribute body weight on the bog in order to avoid plunging straight through it. The trick? Snowshoes!

The snowshoe fishing is something that our guide, Gary Corsi, has introduced into the Michigan Upper Peninsula region and taught us this past Friday. We had a great time out on the bog but unfortunately caught very few fish despite Gary's stereotypical story of having caught several dozen fish there only a week earlier. In his defense, the nights have been cold in the UP lately, and so the fish have been pretty sluggish. I ended up catching the most fish, which was only two pretty average largemouth, one of which is shown here. This was the bigger of the two, but the other wasn't much smaller.

Little Darcy hitting the trails now!

Not one to be outdone for long by big sister, Darcy Leah has moved from her little-girl bike over to Kiara's old 20" mountain bike and is already on the trails. After first starting on a local neighborhood trail, Darcy has already done a few of the easier trails at Walnut Creek Park and is gaining more and more confidence with each outing. She is definitely Kiara's sister, because already after just a few trips she is already demanding to be the leader, even though her tiny little legs propel her along so much more slowly than the rest of us. She is confidently doing some of the easier downhills now and has even taken a few falls that would probably bring tears to the typical five year old. She has some guts though and so far refuses to cry.

Will post some pics later.