[May] June 1999 [July]

Wednesday 6/02
I babysat my niece & nephew, Kaitlyn & Brandon, today. Kaitlyn has the chicken pox so she can not go to school (1st grade). We had such a fun day, and I was exhausted by the time they went home. Dan, Jeff & my brother Charlie went to the archery range at the state park to shoot Jeff’s new bow. They did great, but when they came home they said that Dan should stick to fishing.

Thursday 6/03
Dropped the motorhome off at the service shop again, so they could finish installing parts that were on order. I went shopping for most of the day, because Jeff & Chris have outgrown all the clothes we keep for them in the camper. At 3:00 I brought Kate to her dentist’s appointment - she was not looking forward to it. When we got there though, we found out that the appointment had been canceled, and Kate cheered up significantly. Instead of the dentist’s, we went shopping. Afterwards, Dan and I went to get the motorhome. The transmission is fixed, but we are still waiting for another part. My parents said that we could camp at their house for the weekend, so we parked the camper there, and went to see another of Chris’s baseball games.

Friday 6/04
Ran errands most of the day and met back at my parents house at 3:30. Chris is gone to a Red Sox game with his friend, so we will not see him until tomorrow. We picked up Jeff at 4:30, then Kate from Alfred’s house, and then Kate’s friend Meredith, who was going to hang out with us for a while. We all went out to eat, then went to watch Alfred’s lacrosse game at the high school. We had never been to a lacrosse game before, and thought it was great. Jeff now says that he may be interested in playing lacrosse, because he’d be good at the rough stuff. Kate & Meredith went out with friends (Friday night); Dan, Jeff & I went back to my parents house. At 11:00pm I went out to pick Kate up, and give her friends a ride home.

Saturday 6/05
We were meeting Chris at his baseball game this morning so we all got up, showered, dressed and headed to the game. It turned out that they were playing a double header today - we sat out in the sun from 10:30 to 5, in 95 degree heat. It’s a good thing we were thinking when we left this morning - we had brought comfortable chairs to sit in, and a cooler filled with food, drinks and snacks. Actually Dan and Jeff left during the second game, they went to the car wash with the boat - to finish cleaning out the residue of the Mississippi River from two weeks ago. Kate also left to go hang out with Alfred, but I stayed and relaxed, cheered for Chris’s team, and worked on my tan. After the game Chris and I went to buy him new sneakers at the mall. Then we headed back to my mom’s house, and Dan and Jeff came in right behind us. The boys were having two of their friends sleep over, so we set up the big tent and the 4 of them slept outside. Tonight it was Dan’s turn to stay up late and play chauffeur for Kate and her friends. We are definitely not used to going out at 11:00 any more, and it’s a chore to even stay up that late nowadays.

Sunday 6/06
We took the boy’s overnight friends home this morning, and then Kate and I went shopping for a new duffel bag that she needed for summer camp. Dan and the boys went to play baseball in the school yard. We all met back at my parent’s house, then Jeff and Dan went out to shoot the new bow some more. At 5:00 we took the kids home and said our good-byes for the upcoming trip. Back home, we ignored the thunderstorm possibilities, it’s been in the mid-90’s for days now, and broke out the Harley for a ride. We rode down to our friend Roger’s house, had dinner there and stayed until after 10:00. It was a beautiful night, perfect for riding. We had not been on the bike since last fall, and both of us had been itching to go for some time.

Monday 6/07
We brought the motorhome back in for service this morning, for one last cable that needed to be changed. I drove the motorhome, while Dan rode the Harley. (I got my motorcycle license two years ago, but I’m still not comfortable riding the Harley - it’s BIG.) I got on back and we rode the backroads home. It was another beautiful day for a ride, and we stopped at Ron & Phyllis Poirier’s house on the way back to visit for a bit. We picked up the motorhome in the afternoon, for the last time, and afterwards went to a school activity for my niece Kaitlyn. We then said goodbye to my brother and his family, and went out to dinner with my mom and dad. It is our last night here. Oh, I almost forgot this story. For years now Dan has been carrying around in his wallet three 4-leafed clovers. Each one has a date on it - he found one in 1992, one in ’93, and one in ’94, but hasn’t found one since…until today. Today, believe it or not, we found FOUR (4) new 4-leafed clovers in my dad’s front lawn! We are really taking this as a sign of good things to come, and can’t wait to start fishing this next tournament.

Tuesday 6/08
We are supposed to be ready to leave today, but of course we are not. We split up early, Dan went out to run last minute errands, as did I. I did laundry, and groceries, and went to Chris’s house to drop some things off. I also brought the newspaper for him to see - he played so well on Saturday (two triple’s) that they put his name in. Back home I washed half of the motorhome (if you see us, look at the passenger’s side only), and moved our cars around in my dad’s lawn. He is being a saint by letting us keep them here while we are off. We hooked the boat up to the camper, cooked a final meal for all of us out on the gas grill, and it was time to leave. Dan drove, about 94 miles, and we slept their for the night in a rest area. We’re off - to our final FLW tournament - the Forrest Wood Open, in Detroit, Michigan.

Wednesday 6/09
I drove this morning while Dan worked on the computer. This is the first trip we’ve made this season without the Bronco. This part of the trip is nice, because we alternate drivers every 100 miles or so, and the non-driver can be doing lots of other things in the camper while underway. On the other hand, not having the Bronco means that once we’re there, in Michigan, we have to unhook and move the camper every day - to launch the boat, drive to the store, attend the registration meeting, etc. We had driven about 300 miles today, into upstate New York, when Dan reminded me of the pact we had made yesterday. We had decided that we were going to start exercising, and start today. Well, Dan was driving and he decided that it was time to exercise. He said that we would be stopping soon, and he had the perfect plan. I had no clue what it could be. Yesterday he said we were going to start running, and I almost choked. I am not a runner. That is not my idea of fun exercise. Okay, we are pulling off the highway. Oh no, here it comes. Dan’s plan was ……… rollerblading. There is a gorgeous park right off the NY thruway, on the shores of Lake Onandaga, that we have seen many times from the road. We found that it was all flat, (no hills thank God,) with miles of paved pathways set up exclusively for biking and in-line skating. It was the perfect place to break in to this exercise thing. We skated about 5 miles, a little overkill for the first time, but it was great. Afterwards, we continued driving and made it to Buffalo, NY. It was 8pm, and we were less than an hour from Canada. We decided to stay the night at the Flying J truck stop, because we don’t know if we can stay overnight on the side of the road like this in Canada.

Thursday 6/10
Dan got up at 4:30am and began working. He has some new desktop publishing software, and together with that and the digital camera, he wants to make up some new business cards before this next tournament. When I got up, Dan was deep into his project and in no hurry to leave. I picked up on the task of cleaning the camper, which I had begun yesterday and don’t know when I will ever finish. There is so much pollen in the air everywhere we go this spring that everything, inside and out, is covered with a fine green dust. Maybe it will be different in Michigan. We didn’t start driving today until 2pm. We know that once we arrive in Michigan, Dan will be ready to start fishing, and the importance and urgency of all his other projects will quickly fade. We have found that once he starts his practice, there is little or no time for anything else. We’re trying to finish up some things, before our priorities change. We crossed into Canada at about 4pm, drove west and crossed the St. Clair River into Michigan at 7. This was a lot earlier than we had expected - there is a lot of daylight left, and believe it or not it is 95 degrees here at 7pm! We are camped at Algonac State Park, right on the river, and where the river dumps in to Lake St. Clair at the north end. Exercise today: sit-ups. Yuk. But it's too hot outside to do anything.

Friday 06/11
Dan was up again at 4:30 this morning. I thought we were going to have at least one day off before we started fishing, but I was wrong. We agreed to go at 9am. Dan uncovered the boat and prep’ed it, while I made lunches and put on my bathing suit. It looks like another hot one. The area we are in now is entirely different from where we were last - Memphis. Here we have beautiful tree-lined streets, soft green grass and manicured lawns, and very much a summer resort town atmosphere. And the water - it is the prettiest blue-green and crystal clear. We know the fishing here will be primarily for Smallmouth, which is okay because we do a lot of that back home, but for some reason Dan decided today to go hunt for largemouth. We looked around a bit and found a small creek wandering off into the marsh, so we ventured in. The place was loaded with fish. Nothing much happened at first, except that we saw a few smaller fish, and then caught a couple of small pike. But then we got back to the honey hole, and things started happening fast. Dan tied on a topwater, a new Terminator Titanium buzzbait, and the fish just couldn’t leave it alone. In two hours, under bright, sunny skies and 90 degree heat, we caught at least 20 bass and more than 20 pike. Dan’s limit in here would have weighed about 13 lbs. Dan would have stayed in there all day, playing. He was catching every fish he could - it is still a long time before tournament day, and he was having a wonderful time. Cooper and I, on the other hand, were suffering from heat exhaustion, and begged him to take us back out to where we could go swimming. The water out in the river was a chilly 62 degrees, but I didn’t care, I was so hot. I jumped in. Wow! That’s cold! We fished around in a few more places, but never caught another bass. Today was one of the hottest days we’ve ever experienced out in the boat. There was sweat pouring out of our bodies, and believe me we both had on the very minimum for clothing. We quit around 5:00 and went back to camp. Exercise today: more sit-ups. Not fun, but at least they don’t take too long to do.

Saturday 06/12
Last night before we fell asleep we set a departure time for today of 6:30am. Dan got up at 4:30 so he could start his day, and I got up at 6:00. Just enough time to make lunches and unhook. The launch ramp is only 3 miles from our campground, so that works out well. We were fishing by 7:00. At 7:05 an absolute MONSTER of a fish attacked Dan’s buzzbait. It was a pike, or maybe a muskie, and we couldn’t fit even half of it in the net to get it into the boat. We managed though, mainly because we wanted our Terminator Titanium buzzbait back, and then snapped a few photos. That fish was 39" long and weighed perhaps 20 lbs. What a way to start the day! The rest of the fishing today was not as good as yesterday. Apparently we just lucked into a unique little spot yesterday, because we have been trying to find another like it since, and cannot. We caught a few fish today, but we’re not sure we caught any keepers (14") at all. It was another hot one, the temperature today only slightly cooler than yesterday. All 3 of us went swimming, and more than once. If you get back in the shallow, quite bays the water temp gets up to 80 degrees. A half mile away, out in the flow of the river, we saw 60 degree water. At 4:30 the thunder started rolling in, so we packed it up and headed in. We were exhausted when we got back to camp - the heat really saps your energy. We showered, ate, and went to bed. But Oh No, we forgot to exercise! It was still early so we got up did our sit-ups, then went back to bed.

Sunday 06/13
It was another glorious day, with highs in the 80’s. We traveled to a new section of the lake today, and caught a few smaller fish, but no keepers at all for a few hours. Then we started doing that thing in the weeds, a little thing we started to figure out yesterday. We were flipping along a weed edge, and of course me, being in the back of the boat, doesn’t have much of a chance. But yesterday, fishing "used water" like this, I had more bites and caught more fish than Dan did. And today, when we started flipping this little grass edge, we hadn’t gone 50 yards before I had had two bites, and boated a 16" largemouth, again fishing used water. Dan said he was really glad he brought me along, and this is why it’s better to have two baits in the water than just one. Obviously I’m doing something a little different than he - it could be the bait I’m throwing, the type of spots I’m flipping into, the length of time I let my bait sit - we’ll figure that out. I was very happy though because Dan really made me feel like my being there made a difference. All in all we caught 7 or 8 keepers today, including the biggest fish we’ve seen so far, a 4 lb’er that I flipped up (again, from the back of the boat!). The thunder started about 2:00, so we left that area and headed towards home. We made stops on the way, attempting to duplicate the pattern we are putting together. We pulled up to one little grass patch and started throwing a spinnerbait and a buzzbait - and from that moment until we could take it no more, 45 minutes later, it was non-stop action. There must have been a hundred pike there, with a few Smallmouth mixed in. I’ve never had so much fun fishing. At one point we were catching a fish on every single cast, and there were at least 5 times when we both had fish on at the same time. It was so ridiculous that we even had a contest to see who could make the most casts WITHOUT catching a fish! Nobody made it past eight in that contest. We finally quit, having caught at least 30 pike and 5 bass in less than an hour. What a way to end the day.

Monday 6/14
Dan woke up at 4:30 as usual, his body is back in the fishing routine. I on the other hand, am not the morning person. When I awoke and heard the rain on the roof, and the wind in the trees, I went back to sleep. When I finally did get up it was still raining, and much cooler than yesterday, and I had no intentions of going fishing. Dan worked on the computer all morning trying to organize all the pictures we have taken so far with our digital camera. I showered, made breakfast, and worked on ordering Dan some new Ranger clothing. This is not an easy task. Most men will wear anything you put in front of them, but not my husband. By afternoon the rain had finally stopped and it had started to clear up. It was still windy, and cooler, but the sun was out, and it didn’t take long for the fishing bugs to start biting! Dan was ready to go at 1:30. We started driving out and stopped to talk to Dwayne Horton, who had arrived here at the campground even before we did last week. As we were talking, Dick Bowman arrived and set up camp next to our site, so we went over to see him. Dick & Dan have decided to work together here in Michigan, as they did last month Mississippi. Dan finally made it into the water around 3:00, but I stayed in the camper in the parking lot. I got much accomplished - phone calls, making summer plans, doing budget sheets. Dan came in around 6:15 and we went home, where I cooked dinner for us and Dick and we ate a delicious apple pie that Dick’s wife Lena had made for us. At 8:00 Dan was not feeling too good, so he went to bed. I stayed up and talked to Kate and Alfred on Instant Messaging for a while, sent out some emails, and worked on the summer calendar. I was just about to go to bed when the phone rang, and it was Kate - she wants to know if I will take a Tia Boa class with her this summer. I said YES, and I am really happy that she and I get along so well that she wants to do things like this with her step-mom.

Tuesday 6/15
A cold front has passed through and the temp this morning was 48 degrees as we trailered the boat to the launch ramp. That makes it exactly 48 degrees LESS than it was when we arrived here, just a few days ago. Dan expects this change to have a negative impact on our fishing today. We launched the boat and began fishing a mile or so away. Immediately the wind came up and it too became a factor for us to deal with. We had to go back to the launch ramp to get more clothes to put on, including hats and gloves. The rest of the day it never warmed up much at all, at least out there on the water, and I stayed cold until I got in the shower at the end of the day. We went looking for Smallmouth today, wandering around in the northern and western part of the lake and expecting to find rock. Instead all we found were large flats with lots of grass - Milfoil, Eelgrass, and another which we don’t know the name of but seems to be the predominant submergent vegetation. This must be where you catch the Smallmouth here, in this grass, but as expected the fishing was very slow today. We caught 6 or7 fish, but only 1 or 2 keepers. The wind finally got to us about mid-day, and we quit the big lake and went back to looking for Largemouth in quieter areas. We had 2 or 3 keeper Largemouth before we finally quit around 5pm. Back at the campground, Dan cooked dinner tonight for the three of us (that’s me, Dan and Dick). Dick had gone out with a local today who showed him some of the hot spots down towards Detroit. Fishing there was slow today also, and they caught only 3 keepers in 5 or 6 hours. Dan and Dick compared notes, and poured over their maps, until I broke it up with servings of Lena’s apple pie. After dinner, Chris called from New Hampshire. He rarely ever initiates a call, but today he had something special to tell us. In their Little League playoff game tonight, which would have been their last game of the year had they lost, Chris batted in all 5 of their team’s runs, and smacked one pitch over the fence for a three-run homer. We are so proud of him, and so happy also that he made the effort to call us.

Wednesday 6/16
I did not go fishing today, partly because of the dream I had last night. I was dozing, and all of a sudden I felt a fish tapping my worm, so I SET the hook! I jumped so hard that it woke both Dan and myself up. He asked what was wrong, and I told him " I set the hook." This was very funny, because it is exactly the same thing that happens to him not infrequently when he is dozing. We both had a good laugh, but my interpretation is that I am fishing too much, so I took the day off today. Dan spent a long day on the water, again looking for Largemouths. He ended up finding another good topwater spot, with lots of 3-4 lb. bedding fish, but could only get the 2 lb’ers to bite. He had about a 10 lb limit today. Back home at the launch ramp, this morning there was a knock at the door at about 10am. It was Dick, having boat trouble, and he asked me to go out on the water with him for a few minutes. I drove the boat while he tried different things to fix the engine. In the end he had to drive 4 ½ hours home for his mechanic to fix it. I was parked at the far end of the parking lot until around 5pm, and then I moved the motorhome closer to the launch ramp, expecting Dan in soon. At 6:00 I moved onto the ramp and in position, so Dan would just have to come in and I would be ready. At 7:00 I was both mad at him and worried about him. He never comes in this late, and I was going to go find a phone booth to try to call him, but I was afraid that if I left the ramp, then he would show up and I would be gone. He finally came in at 7:20, I did not know whether to hug him or yell at him. I did both, first I hugged, then I yelled. We went home, and to make up with me Dan asked me out on a date for tomorrow night. I accepted, we are happy again.

Thursday 6/17
We spent one more day searching the shallow waters for Largemouth. We caught some little ones, and I caught one about 3 ½ lbs. At 3:00 we gave it up, and went back out into the main lake to fish the grass beds. The first 5 minutes out there produced a 3 ½ lb’er for Dan and a 2 lb’er for me. This must be a sign that we’re supposed to be fishing out here, and not back in the shallows. We got back to the ramp around 5:00 and loaded the boat. We also showered and changed clothes right there in the parking lot, then went out to eat at a nice restaurant overlooking the water. Both Dick and Mike Watson came over to visit later in the evening, and we made it to bed by 9:30, after our sit-ups. Dan and Dick decided to follow each other tomorrow, and we are leaving at 6am.

Friday 6/18
I could not make us any lunch today because we had no bread. All we had to take with us in the boat was 6 mini donuts, 2 granola bars and some Frosted Flakes cereal (no milk). This is what happens when you spend all your time fishing and are too tired to go to the store at night. I started the motorhome at 6:00 on the dot, and drove to the launch ramp while Dan worked on the computer. We, along with Dick, were the first ones there. That makes you feel good, knowing that you are working so hard and are there before anyone else. Today we fished the west side of the lake, where a hundred other boats are also fishing. We have seen relatively few bass boats in the past week, and now we know why - everyone is over here. We fished in 5 or 6 different areas, and all caught a limit of 2lb. fish. There must be 20 miles of shoreline here where you can just stop at random and catch fish. Two of the areas we fished seemed to hold slightly bigger fish, and these are the kind of places that we need to find. At our last stop we all decided that we would eat at the little café right next to the launch ramp. We were so hungry. When we loaded the boats and walked over, it was closed. That of course makes you even more hungry. Dick knew of an Italian place on the way back where he thought we get the motorhome & boat in the parking lot, so we went there. It was very good. When we got home at 6:30, the campground was packed - it was Friday night. Our friends Glenn & Sharon Rogers had moved in next door, so we went to visit them for a while, and then Dan had to head off to bed. It was a late night for me, because I do not have to go fishing tomorrow (wahoo!). Oh, we did not forget - we did our sit-ups again tonight. So far, so good.

Saturday 6/19
Dan had called a fellow that he knew from this area, Cliff, earlier in the week, and arranged to go fishing with him today. Cliff showed up at the campground this morning, and pulled the boat to the launch ramp with his truck so the camper did not have to move. I never even heard Dan leave. I remember him coming in to kiss me goodbye, but that was it. I finally got up at 9:00. It was great. I worked around the house for a while, then got road errands done, including getting us some lunch food! At 5:00 I met Dan at the launch ramp. He had dropped Cliff off at 3, and then fished by himself for a couple more hours. He caught another 13lb. limit today, including a 4 ½ and a 3 ½. We’d be happy, but not thrilled, with 13lbs. on tournament day. That’s probably what it will take just to stay in the middle of the pack. Back at the campground, we cooked out on the grill, and watched a movie I rented today while we ate supper. We visited with the neighbors, of course, did our sit-ups and went to bed.

Sunday 6/20
This morning on the water we decided to go back to the bedding largemouth that Dan found last Wednesday. We’re not going to fish on Tuesday, the day before the tournament, so with only two practice days left we have to start formulating a plan. Today we want to eliminate some areas where we may have caught fish earlier, but don’t think they’re worth going back to on tournament days. We started in an area where Dan caught a limit of 2 to 2½ lb. largemouth last week. Today he caught 3 in about two hours, but again nothing real big. We left there and fished a number of other spots, and Dan caught two more 2lb. largemouth, so by noon time we (he) had about a 10lb. limit. We decided that that’s about the best we’re going to do with the largemouth, unless we got a lucky bite, so we switched gears and ran over to the smallmouth side of the lake. Over there the weekend boat traffic was horrendous - even with no wind the water was some of the roughest we’ve ever been in, and it’s very difficult to fish. There were boat waves breaking over the bow and stern, and our boat was bobbing around so much that you couldn’t keep the trolling motor in the water. This was the first time I have ever felt sea sick in the boat. Also, the fishing was very slow. In the first three spots we fished , we never got a bite, but when we moved over nearer to where we caught fish on previous days, we did catch a few. In fact, here’s a story I just have to tell. Today was Father’s Day, and we had our cell phone out in the boat, so I called my dad back in New Hampshire. I was relaxing on the seat, kind-of laying down, curing a headache, and letting my bait drag on the bottom while I talked on the phone. Wouldn’t you know that that is when the big one would bite. I was telling my dad that we were actually in the boat, out on the lake at that moment, and I was complaining that I had only caught one fish all day. Then my rod started going crazy. I had to put the phone down, and I was yelling toward it "Hold on Dad, I have a fish on!" Well, the fish was fighting pretty hard, and was far from the boat, so Dan picked up the phone and was giving my Dad a play by play report. I finally got the fish in and got the phone back. My Dad thought it was hilarious. I could here him yelling to my mom "She has a fish!" It turned out to be a 3+ lb. smallmouth, and made a real good end to my day. Later on, when we got back to camp, we heard from everyone how slow the fishing was today. It looks like that largemouth limit we had this morning wouldn’t have been bad at all, for today’s conditions anyway. We worked hard out there, putting in 11 hours on the boat, and really got beat up by the rough water, so Dan told me to take tomorrow off, and I think I will. I did not have to think to hard about that one.

Monday 6/21
I dropped Dan in the water at 7:00 and went back to the campground. My day was extremely busy. I gave Cooper a nice, summer haircut, cleaned up the house, showered, dressed and got ready to get some road errands done. Dan’s mom called and we started making summer plans. I went out and did laundry, and some groceries, and was at the launch ramp at 5pm. We had discussed it this morning and agreed that he would be in between 5 and 7pm – that way we would not have a replay of last Wednesday. Well, he came in at 7:06, and made a joke about getting a 6lb. penalty for being late. It was not funny. Why is 12 hours out there just not enough for him, and he has to be late?!! The fishing report: Even though we had decided yesterday that the largemouth bite was just not big enough to win us a lot of money here, Dan played a hunch on his way out this morning. He stopped at a little spot that we had found last week and, even though we had not caught any fish there, it had looked real good. Well today Dan caught 2 largemouth there right away, then stopped setting the hook and shook off at least 3 more that he knew were bass. He could have had his 10lb. limit in about an hour from that one little spot. Unlike last week when we found this area, Dan now seems to know just what kind of cover the fish are using, and what baits to throw in there to make them bite. After that good start he went smallmouth fishing. He fished probably ten different areas, and caught a grand total of one (1) keeper-sized smallmouth all day. Back at camp, it seems that everyone was griping about how tough the fishing has become in the last few days. It has gone from being real good, when most of the guys arrived a week ago, to being real slow, at least out there on the lake. After the last two days, Dan has now reconsidered the value of his largemouth bite, and now thinks that on tournament day he will run up the river and catch that 10lb. limit first, and then go out in the lake and wait patiently for a couple of big smallmouth bites.

Tuesday 6/22
We checked out of the campground at 6:30am. I put Dan in the water so he could get a couple hours of fishing in, while I drove around to the other side of the lake to Metro Park, the tournament site. Dan met me at the park with the boat, and from there we went to WalMart to find the Ranger service crew - the live-well pumps in the boat were still plugged up with Mississippi River mud from Memphis last month. We got them cleaned out, and went back to Metro Park for the registration meeting and partner pairings. After the meeting we met with Dick, and the guys discussed their plans for tomorrow. Unlike Dan, Dick has really been catching the smallmouth good over the last couple of days. That is what he (Dick) is going to do first thing in the morning. Dan on the other hand had another excellent morning of largemouth fishing - he found another little area just around the corner from where he was yesterday, and it was loaded with largemouth willing to pounce on a Terminator buzzbait. This convinced him that what he should do tomorrow is go out and catch his 10-12 lbs. of largemouth first thing in the morning, and then fish for big smallmouth after that.

Wednesday 6/23
We stayed here in the parking lot of Metro Park overnight, so after putting Dan in the water this morning I went right back to bed. Later, I went rollerblading around the park, and then went tanning at the pool for a few hours . I wish all of the weigh-ins were at beautiful parks like this - there is even a beach, tennis courts, and a golf course here. Dan came in with 5 largemouth weighing 11lbs. 15oz. It took him 90 minutes to catch them this morning, and he spent the rest of the day trying to catch a big smallmouth. He never did. He is 1lb. 5oz. out of the money - it took 13lbs. 4oz. to be in the top 75. He discussed his strategy for tomorrow with me, and individually with 3 of his fisherman friends, and every one of us thinks he should do exactly the same thing tomorrow - that is, catch the easy largemouth first and then go hunt for a big fish. We went to an OMC pro staff meeting from 7-9pm, where they fed us dinner and updated us on new products for the upcoming year, then drove back to the park for the night and fooled them again. If you pay $3.00 you can park your vehicle overnight, but you’re not supposed to sleep overnight in your vehicle or bring pets in.

Thursday 6/24
Our last day of fishing on the 1999 FLW Tour. Once again we were up at 4:30 to launch the boat before the crowds came. At 12:00 Carol Wright came to pick me up, and 5 of us wives went out to lunch. It was the last time we will see each other this season. Afterwards we drove back to the weigh-in to await our husband’s return. Dan did his largemouth thing again this morning, but modified the plan slightly. He figured that he should leave after catching 4, and not 5, largemouth. He says that he would be wasting time catching a 5th largemouth, since he’d have to cull one of them out anyway with a big smallmouth in order to catch the 14 lbs. he needs to cash a check. It took a little longer today, but he caught his 4th largemouth at about 11:00. The good news though was that they were bigger than normal, and the 4 fish weighed over 11lbs. All he needed now was one 3lb.+ bite in the next 4 hours to make the money here. Unfortunately though, just like yesterday, that bite never came. He ended up weighing in just the four largemouth, 11lbs. 4oz., for a total of 23.3, and it took 26 lbs. even to make a check. (Dick, by the way, who had about 12lbs. yesterday, caught 16 today and got himself a check for $3,000. Congratulations, Dick.) Dan of course spent the evening second guessing himself, saying maybe he should have this or should have that, but it’s over now and we can’t change a thing. It’s a testament to the great fishing here though, when it takes 26lbs. over two days just to make 75th place. We had to stay for the Top 10 meeting after the weigh-in because Dan is driving a camera boat tomorrow. When the meeting was over we packed up our stuff and drove to WalMart, where we will camp for the next couple of nights. We are of course disappointed in our tournament results, but for the next few days at least we will be kept busy doing lots of things, and watching the very exciting FLW Tour Top 10 and Top 5 weigh-in’s. Dan is exhausted, and is facing another two nights of 5 or 6 hours sleep, so I pampered him a lot tonight. I really miss him, at this point in the week. Even though we are together so much, during tournament weeks, starting about Monday and running all the way through to the end on Saturday, I don’t get a lot of Dan’s attention. He is too focused on his fishing at the start of the week, and the last few days are just a whirlwind of people and events and emotions.

Friday 6/25
AYYUGGH!!!!! What a day! Dan was off driving a camera boat, and I was on my own for the day with a very busy agenda. I started by cleaning the house, then showered and dressed, unhooked the boat and was off to do road errands. First errand was to wash the motorhome. We had seen a great big, brand new car wash just down the road, and it had plenty of room to maneuver the motorhome around. Well I drove in the lot, headed into one of the bays, and crashed into the overhead canopy! The sign had said "Clearance: 11 Feet". Apparently that is not enough for us. I hit and tore the canopy with our roof air conditioner. I backed out very carefully and parked. The car wash crew was running all around, more worried about their silly canopy than with me or my motorhome. I exchanged information with them and had a look at the damage to their place. It was nothing compared to the damage to the top of my motorhome. I left there and went straight back to WalMart, where I stayed the rest of the day trying to stay out of trouble. Later today Marty, the cameraman from ESPN Outdoors, stopped by to visit. Earlier this week we had discussed having him travel with us in the motorhome back to New Hampshire. We are making a series of six TV commercials for Citgo, and this would be a good opportunity for him to shoot some videotape of us in our travels. We discussed some of the details, and I am starting to get pretty excited about our trip home now. Dan came back with the fisherman at 5pm. We watched the weigh-in, and I told him about my car wash incident during all the noise and excitement. He was not upset. We just got out some tools and some silicone sealer, and climbed up on the roof to fix the damage. It was not too bad, and we were able to fix most of it good-as-new.

Saturday 6/26
Today was Dan’s earliest morning yet - he had to be up at 3:30am in order to meet everyone and get out to the lake for the final day’s take-off. I got up long after that, and began my day with calls to the insurance company regarding yesterday’s little mishap. Dan and the final 5 fishermen got back around 4, and we got to witness the most exciting FLW weigh-in yet. Our friend David Walker was crowned Angler of the Year, for which he gets, among other things, his picture appearing on the Wheaties box this fall. We also got to see the drama and experience the excitement of the Final 5 shoot-out, which included video shot just 2 hours earlier of Peter T catching a 5lb. bass on his very last cast of the day! This earned him first place in the tournament, and a check for $200,000. It was an awesome show, and we can’t wait to see it on TV in October.

Sunday 6/27
Our trip home to New Hampshire is going to be a little different this time. We are bringing Marty, the ESPN Outdoors cameraman, with us in the camper to shoot some footage for our Citgo commercials. Marty has lots of great ideas, so we may end up doing some goofy and out-or-the-ordinary things over the next few days. We got started around 10am, after the first good night’s sleep we’ve had in a long time. We drove about a half hour, to a town north of Detroit where Dan lived for a while when he was a kid. We stopped at his old house, which he hadn’t seen in 32 years, and met the woman who lives there now. We walked the streets of his old neighborhood, and visited his old school down the road as well. We did all of this, as we will most everything over the next 2 or 3 days, with the camera rolling. Dan told all kinds of stories, and has incredibly vivid memories of this area. He showed me the tree under which he lost his first tooth, the streetcorner where he crashed his bicycle, and the kindergarten classroom where he threw-up his cheese sandwich. One glaring difference to him now though is that the school, which was brand-new when he went to kindergarten through 2nd grade there, is now an old-folks convalescence home - we found quite a bit of humor in that, but perhaps Marty and I more so than Dan. Our next stop was at a Citgo station. We filmed outside, putting gas in the camper and the boat, and inside, using the ATM machine, getting some groceries, and getting a cup of cappuccino. (I’d never had a cappuccino before, but it was REALLY good and can’t wait to find another one!) Next we drove north and east, and crossed over into Canada, which is the most direct route home for us. We almost lost Marty at the border, as he was carrying a can of pepper spray (a no-no going through customs into Canada,) and five hours later we camped at a nice park just outside Niagara Falls. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day, visiting the Falls and shooting lots of video there.

Monday 6/28
Before we left the campground this morning, we each spent about a half hour in front of the camera outside in a very pretty setting. We talked about our life on the road, about our hopes and dreams, and gave Marty a bunch of one-liners that he is bound to take out of context and piece together into some kind of funny story. Afterwards, we drove in to Niagara Falls and arrived around 11am. Marty had made some phone calls ahead of time and come up with a great plan: we were to go down to the very base of the falls aboard the tourist boat "Maid of the Mist", where he would shoot Dan fishing off the back of the boat. It went perfectly - here are 200 sightseeing tourists covered head to toe in their blue plastic rain ponchos, the boat pitching and rolling in the seas and the falls thundering in the background, and there is Dan, soaked to the skin, water pouring down off his hat, earnestly casting his Terminator spinnerbait into the maelstrom. We reviewed the video afterwards, and it looks like we got some great shots. Believe me, though, we had to answer a lot of tourist’s questions and endure a lot of stares this day! We shot lots of other neat stuff there at the falls, then had lunch there, and ice cream, and got back on the road. We drove hard the rest of the day, and decided late in the afternoon that we would like to shoot the Green Mountains of Vermont in the early morning (6am) light. We drove on until almost midnight, and finally stopped to sleep when we reached Bennington, VT.

Tuesday 6/29
Up at 5am, then driving through the mist so we could find the right shot. We put Marty out at a little bridge, so he could wade out into the rocky stream and shoot us crossing the bridge. The shot came out nice, but Marty’s feet were blue when we got him back - that mountain water is COLD at 6am! Also got some shots of us passing through small-town America, stopping at the fire station to ask directions, and crossing the state line into New Hampshire. Arrived home around noon, and put Marty on a plane for 1:00. Later on, parked out in my dad’s front lawn, we visited all evening. It was mom, dad, Charlie, Debbie, Kaitlyn, Brandon, and Aunt Lucy. Us women stayed up past midnight, and Dan had to come in and retrieve me and bring me out to bed.

Note: Our 1999 FLW Tour season is over, and we are home in New Hampshire for the summer. We’d like to hear from you, the people who’ve been following us this season through "Life On Tour" on ESPN.com. Send us your comments on the journal, with what you liked or didn’t like, and include ideas for what you’d like to hear more (or less) about in the future. Also, any words of encouragement are greatly appreciated. Finally, if you’re a tournament angler who’d like to show Dan how to catch ‘em when we come to your area, drop us a note. Thanks for following along, and we look forward to hearing back from you. You can email us at daniel_keyes@msn.com.

Wednesday 6/30
Ran errands around town - post office, bank, library, and did some shopping for summer clothes for us and the kids. Dan stayed home and made the switch - from his fishing mindset to his home mindset. He went through the mail, paid bills, and prioritized items on his "to do" list. We called the kids, and made plans to pick them up tomorrow. They’ll be with us now for much of the summer. Too bad we don’t have a place to live.

Link to: July 1999