Winter Wonderland in Northern Indiana

Winter Wonderland

Timing really is everything. As I pulled out of our driveway in the wee hours of January 7th to head to St. Louis for the first show of the year, who would have guessed just a short 24 hours later our area of northern Indiana would be buried in 25" of new snow. Milissa (due to a military commitment) was not able to attend St. Louis with me. Talk about being a hero (or goat as the case may be), I go off to talk fishing and hunting for the weekend, she stays home and clears 25" of snow from the driveway. Now I know what many of you are already thinking, and I couldn't agree with you more. It IS a tough job marketing a camp with all the competition out there, but gosh darn it someone has to do it! As our girls would quickly follow up with in their vernacular JK, JK, JK!!!!! ( for those of you who are teenage text unsavvy that stands for "Just Kidding") Fortunately, we do have a snowblower and Milissa wasn't left home to shovel all that snow by hand, and bless her heart she did a great job and I even managed to gather some new business for camp too, although with the shows it's never easy (read on).

Yea! More of the "white stuff"

After leaving St. Louis, on Monday I headed to Indianapolis to work the Indy (actually in Carmel) All-Canada Show. Milissa would join me on Tuesday of the show. Of course, it started to snow making the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Indy a little more eventful but otherwise fine. Unfortunately after a good night of attendance Monday night, the shows (I think mostly due to weather considerations) attendance on Tuesday took a huge hit with probably only 40-50 people attending the show the ENTIRE six hours. As the show GROUND to a halt Tuesday night, I was quietly considering the events of the last week. I leave for St. Louis, Milissa gets buried with snow. She drives thru the snow on Tuesday to help out in Indy and there are very few show attendees----I can feel the noose tightening. Fortunately, we salvaged the day/night with a great experience at Mitchell's Fish Market in Carmel with some wonderfully fresh seafood and a couple of cold beverages. While there, we also received some excellent service from our waitress who is a Notre Dame Law student and who was working there on Christmas break. Thanks again for the great recommendations and excellent service!

Now it's home (and just so everyone knows: the snow gods are also willing to dump on me), to about six inches of fresh snow as I pull in the drive from Indy. MY turn to get behind the snowblower! Won't be long again now and the second half of the show circuit will be upon us and it will be time to hit the road for South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. Let's hope for better weather for travel and at home this time around! Cancellations have been few this year, but a few prime weeks do show a cabin open here or there. Maybe it's the week your looking for!

Until next time--stay warm and I don't think it's too early to (start) thinking spring and that first walleye tap on the end of the line.

Happy New Year!

Hey does anyone know if there is a college football bowl game on tonight? Yea, if it's anything like the last 2 1/2 weeks or this coming week, the answer is  probably "yes". Don't get me wrong, I love watching almost any team play college football, but I have to admit the bowl season is getting a little out of hand. If you are a fan, here is to hoping your team was 1) bowl eligible and 2) brought home a victory (or will be if they are still playing).

We are getting ready to "hit the road", as they say, and start the sport show circuit. None too soon as far as I am concerned, because if I don't get out and at least talk some camp and fishing, I am going to go nuts. This years schedule will take us to the following locales:

St. Louis, MO
Indianapolis, IN

Sioux Falls, SD

Omaha, NE

St. Cloud, MN

Minneapolis, MN

Edwardsburg, MI

You can see the complete show schedule, along with dates and addresses from our website. One thing that is a BIG change for us is that we will not be in Wisconsin this year. We have had a very strong presence in Wisconsin the last several years including two shows in Milwaukee, two in Madison and one in Green Bay last year. This year we decided (despite the many wonderful guests we have booked from Wisconsin in previous years) to "bite the bullet" and make an entrance in some markets we simply have not been able to get to previously. Those markets this year will be Indianapolis, Sioux Falls, Omaha and St. Cloud. As much as we hate to pass on our Wisconsin swing this year, we just simply can't afford to do all the shows we might like to do every year.

We will most certainly miss visiting with our great Wisconsin guests at the shows this year, but at the same time we are looking forward to meeting lots of show attendees in our new markets this year and hopefully even finding a few who will be willing to give us a try for their 2011 trip. We remain extremely confident that for those who do, they will be quite pleased with the camp and our fishing. As usual, there are not a lot of openings for next year already, but there are still a few really good weeks left here and there that I know will provide some excellent fishing to our guests, especially in September which is truly some awesome fishing! If you have never tried fishing Canada in September we encourage you to give it some consideration.

If you are near one of the areas we will be exhibiting, please stop by for a visit and a little fish chat!

Until next time, take care.