April Outdoor Notebook

[Dan Draz]

Last year, while getting some information on fishing locations around the state to take my son, Quinn, fishing at, I met Bob Maciulis, Editor of the Outdoor Notebook and host of the Outdoor Notebook Radio Show.

 

He contacted me a short time later to tell me that he really liked the fact that I was working so hard teaching my son to fish, making the time to take him fishing and how special that really was. He asked me if I would be interested in doing an occasional radio interview about our experiences around the state, places we'd gone, things we'd seen and done and to talk about the experience of taking your son/daughter fishing. I told him that I would be happy to do so and have since done several radio interviews ranging from 20 minutes to 40 minutes on the Saturday AM program. In all of those I've mentioned that we are members of ISA and are learning to smallie fish.

 

This morning, I happened to open the April Outdoor Notebook and while thumbing through it, there was a note that I sent to Bob about our fishing trip to Western Michigan in March, along with three huge pictures of Quinn holding the big steelhead he landed. The smile on Quinn's face in these pictures and the smile on his face this morning was well worth all the effort I put in to help him have these kinds of experiences that we share together. As I said in my reply to Jonn Graham's post about his son catching his first three smallies, they are memories that will last a lifetime. Make time for your kids and get them out on the water for some quality time together. I am playing hooky from work today and we are hitting LaSalle to see what's going on there with Greg Heath. Heidecke was on original plan but Greg called last night to say that he'd been on the water with clients the last two days and they hadn't caught a fish. The weather is screwing everything up! So, we are going to try LaSalle and see how that works out for us.

 

As you all have been so kind to help me learn to smallie fish on the rivers here, I am sure Quinn and I will be having another proud father/son moment the first time he nails a river smallie and outfishes me again!

 

 

[Russ S]

Dan,

 

Bob is a great guy, no doubt about. I found him to be very responsive when I sent him a question last year, he certainly was helpful.

 

Saw the pics of your son very cool. Have submitted photos of my sson with fish and they sure do get a kick out of seeing their pics in the paper. Great thing you're doing involving your son in the outdoors, that has to be one important responsibilty for us as a parents.