TEAM T CRASHES YET AGAIN!

Piled her up into a parked car.......Car #2 in less than 2 weeks.......


What can I say......I'm good. Just not good about breaking stuff...

CHANGED PLANS

Plans have now changed.........Bus plans that is.......I wonder if they sell these things on EBAY?


Seems to me they would be pretty cheap......Maybe free up some more cash for one of these babies??????

LETTING IT OUT OF THE BAG-MY LOVE.....

I'm bursting and can't take it anymore. I have to let it out! I have to let my profession of love out for everyone to see......So here it goes.....It's wrong. I know it's wrong. But I have to say it.....I can't help it.....It is consuming me.....


I think about you,
when I don't want to.

Dream about your smiling face.

And I keep tryin', not to love you
but I love you, anway.....

We should be together, together,
we should be walkin' side by side.
Keepin' eachother satisfied.

I have talked to come to know you
I've come to need your company

What will I do if I can't have you?
If I can't have you, what will I do?

We should be together, keepin' eachother satisfied......














We should be together, keepin' eachother satisfied......
And I'll take you DEEP FRIED!!!!!

ABOVE SONG IS COPYRIGHTED BY DON WILLIAMS "WE SHOULD BE TOGETHER"

TEAM T- TRAVELS TO THE WALLEYE CAPITOL OF THE WORLD!

What an adventure! This weekend I made the trip to the WALLEYE CAPITOL OF THE WORLD! LAKE ERIE!

We are talking hard core adventure here folks. My brother, a buddy of his, and me were in a fishing tournament on Friday and Saturday. The tournament was sponsored by the West Michigan Walleye Club. You must believe me that the rush of adrenaline when they launched the pack of 50 boats at 0630 am was intense!

Here we are leading the pack at kickoff!

The trip began at 0430 hours on Friday. I hopped into the truck with my brother and his buddy and began the drive over to Erie. We launched out of Monroe,MI. I have never seen a launch this big! It has 12 launching slips! I was a little groggy as I made the entire first day a 27 hour run without sleep....This old man still has it in him as I hung with the boys without fallin' over and did it all on no sleep!

I gotta tell ya, Joel's hot new deep Walleye boat really rocked! Made my motor look like a kids toy! As I hung on with both hands slammin' through the waves of Lake Erie at 45 mph I couldn't help but make a Tim the Toolman primate grunt! What a rush! Dual live wells, a big crankin' motor, a kicker motor that cost more than my Jeep, Dual fishfinders and a chart plotting GPS........MAN!

What a rush feeling these Walleye's consistently hammer our bait all day long! I have never fished Lake Erie and have only one comparable Walleye trip which was to Canada. This trip to Erie was undoubtedly the best Walleye fishing I have ever partaken in. What a blast! I would say the average of these EYES was about 16-19 inches. We caught about 26 fish on the first day and NEARLY 40 WALLEYE on day two.....WOW.....

WALLEYE FISHING TRAINING SECTION:
Here are some of the crucial integrated techniques to successful Walleye Fishing. This section is a bonus provided by Team T Outdoors.

CRUCIAL TROLLING TECHNIQUES
Now, without giving away our rigging secrets, we ran 6 poles and trolled......6 poles keeps ya busy and we were busy most of the entire time. We used nightcrawlers and made long 1 mile trolling sweeps.


These long trolling runs looking for pods of fish left some time for soaking up the sun. I was so relaxed and was able to do some serious stepping away from life.


THE B.W.S.S. TECHNIQUE
The only bad thing about this fishing was the fact that the nearest bathroom was 7-8 miles away. We were that far from shore out in Lake Erie. So................


When it's time to re-pollute ol' Lake Erie, a method passed down through generations of Walleye fisherman got put to use! Better known as the B.W.S.S (BIG WATER SAFETY SHIT) The ol' ass over the side of the boat schatt ass chummer routine! This time honored technique of shitting over the side of the boat involves the following:

And here is some time perfected form being demonstrated by my brother in this technique.....

Some may shake their head in disgust but let me tell you that there is no other choice when a DIE HARD WALLEYE fisherman has to leave a shit.....No sense inconveniencing your buddies by making a 7 mile run to poop. This method is very safe even on big choppy water as the rope supports and provides leverage to git er done promptly and safely!

TROLL, SET, PREPARE AND NET!

Almost as crucial a technique as BWSS is the -troll-set-prepare and net- technique.

As we would troll and watch the pole start to bounce, we allowed the fish to bite the bait. We would then pick up the pole out of the holder, and set the hoook!!!! Here's my brother at the end of the hook snap set--->

Now he is tied up and committed to bringing the fish in....."DON'T HORSE EM!" was the usual saying quipped out at the hook setter. You could sense the excitement in both the hook setter and other members of the boat knowing that we had a "FISH ON!" This leaves one of the two remaining members to hustle and grab the large landing net. Their job was to move to the location of the angler fighting the fish and prepare to net.

A very crucial concept in this technique is getting the net ready to go but not looking over eager to net the fish. This made the other members of the boat ornery. Just get the damn net and stand near the fighter. Don't start asking questions like, "is it a good one? Is he on there good? That looks like a good fish!" All of these sayings make the other boat members ornery and curse the fact it may be a lunker.

Here I have taken a vigilant post of netter.

Now folks, the real fight starting anxiety starts to build. You see, we're in this to win. Besides the fish not biting, the other way to not win in a tournament is to get fish on and lose them during the netting at the boat. We even had a dandy hog get off just prior to netting. So, a successful, quick, precision netting is crucial. Once the fish gets near the surface, you have one swipe to make with the net to grab em. With the large rolling choppy waves it is very easy for the fish to be 4' deep and suddenly pop to the surface. Once the slack hits, GOODBYE WALLEYE....

Here's a successful hot netting in progress.

FISH CLEANING-THE NEXT GENERATION

The final crucial technique is locating a Hotel that has a good fish cleaning station. I learned this weekend that its a little known fact that each and every hotel offers several rooms with a built in fish cleaning station. HUH? YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?

Locating these rooms in the hotel is as easy as this: "hello, I would like to make a reservation. I would request a room with handicapped access please."

Make sure you bring a piece of cardboard along so you can lay it on the floor. As you can see in the above shown photo, handicapped bathrooms have a shower without barriers. This way you can cut up the fish on the cardboard and rinse any blood/fluids down the drain. Make sure you bring a couple of large garbage bags to put the fish remnants in.

The end of the tournament meant weigh in time. We sorted through our 15 fish (the limit for 3 anglers in Michigan-5 per piece) and picked our best five. Then we went full throttle to make it to the weigh-in.

And our Team-T/Parm team made it into the top 20! 17th place! Not bad out of almost 60 boats. Our prize?

LIFELONG MEMORIES!

Here's our biggest fish that I caught, a 24 inch 4.1 pound Walleye!

I brought home a lot of Walleye to eat! DELICIOUS.

One last little note to make, if anyone doubts how far we were from shore, look carefully at this picture.........

...

A LOVE POEM-by Me

When I close my eyes,
I seem to only think about you.

In my dreams,
you dance across my sky.

I shutter when I think about caressing your lips
stroking your beautiful skin
holding you in my arms.

I constantly think of new presentations to awe you
to captivate your attention,
to steal your glance,
and make you react with raging instinct and passion.

I've tried for several years now to think of a way to land you
To make you all mine.

I've spent countless hours chasing you,
in the middle of the night I pursue you relentlessly.

How have you become my obsession?

I never thought seeing you would burn such an image on my mind.

Didn't know you would consume me......

Never thought that YOU were the one I wouldn't be able to forget....

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.











BUT YOU ARE!




And I can't wait to grasp those lips, your back, and touch your beautiful skin after fighting you into the boat....Can't wait to fillet you out and throw you in the frypan again!
-----by Team T 7-12-06 0332 hours

Did I have you all going there? Now go back and read it again and see what I'm talkin' about here.......WALLEYE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do some of my best work after a couple Milwaukee's Best Lights....

Run with your dreams!

You know, as I drove around at work the other night, besides being keenly aware of what I was supposed to be doing, my mind started to wander......and I mean really wander......A little soul searching perhaps.....

I wish I could take you into my head and let you see what's going on......It's not pretty.....It is very busy inside my head.....Yes indeed.....I have so many things I keep locked in there: dreams, secrets, a flurry of activity to say the least.....

Well, as I ran around inside my mind, I stopped and perused through an old idea that's on the shelf.....I've picked it up from time to time over the last few years......But today folks, I went one better. I picked it up, dusted it off, got a rag and some pledge, and really delved into it.....

It's time that I let this one out in the open.....

Anyone that knows me can vouch I've never been about the newest, fanciest, trendy item of the day.....Don't get me wrong, I appreciate nice things. I've been known to drop the big bucks at a 5 star restaurant wearing a fancy suit and taking a way too expensive carriage ride afterwards.....I've sipped the real top shelf booze while sitting on the top floor of the Amway while looking out over the city landscape on Valentine's Day.....But most of the time, I'M PRETTY SIMPLE! A CHEAP ASS (as one of my relatives told me).

This whole keeping up with the Jones' thing never really has got a hold of me. I always seem to see something nice, maybe even experience it, and the whole time I'm thinking, "shit, I could make that for about two grand...all I need is_________"..........

Stay with me now......Don't make me drag a bunch of duct taped stuff out of my pole barn and take pictures to put on the blog......

Anyway, I'm getting off course here......So here's the idea:

THE TEAM-T BUS CAMPER RV PROJECT......

Let me wet your appetite...

Something like this---->


Not like this (don't worry wife)...















I'm talking about having vision. About turning something like this



Into this...













Now, anything worth anything in life has a name.....So the name is pretty important for this beast.....I want to incorporate a couple of things into the name.....white trash, team t, the fact I roll around this earth with 5 women at most times, the fact I'm never keeping up with the Jones', and most of all, I want the name to be unique.....Let me think here a minute....It's 0207 hours and I'm going to take a quick break. When I get back here to sit down, I'm gonna have the name......

Ok, I'm back, here's a couple things I'm swattin' around....

The TEAM T PALACE OF WOMEN AND WONDER

OUTGUNNED-(highlighting the fact its 5 women and one man)

GROVER-(Gene's ROVing Eccentric Ride)

T N T- (trashy n team)

I've always wanted to name my son (even though I never had one) COLTON....How about naming it COLTON'S PALACE.....that works out pretty decent because I could call it the C.P.!

I don't know though, perhaps since its a vehicle, it should have a female name?

TRISHA'S TRASHY WAGON

For some reason I reeeallly like this one...NATALIE

NESSIE

MRS T'S SCHOOL OF LIFE

Anybody with ideas, feel free to post a comment or tell me in person....

Anyway, I've been looking around on the internet and found some pretty sweet ideas.....You can pick these baby's up on EBAY for 500-4000 bucks......and I'm gonna do it! Stay tuned for further.....File this one under the "up and coming" blog items......

Today's advice, get a cup of coffee and go for walk in your mind.....What's sittin' on the shelf? Look around and let the dreams out!

JEEP CONFUSION

There seems to be some confusion lately......People keep asking me "I thought you said you bought a truck? Not a JEEP?"

So to clear this up, I want you to know that I did buy a Jeep. And its a pickup truck.....Not a Jeep CJ7, Wrangler,Cherokee, BUT A JEEP COMMANCHE COMMANDER! FROM ONE OF THE FOUR YEARS THEY BUILT IT.....QUITE A LONG TIME AGO IN 1992....

So, it's a JEEP and a TRUCK........What a value for 800 bucks.

A TEAM T ANCESTOR

You must know that TEAM-T comes from a long line of cool ancestors.....Pictured here is my great great uncle John K. Tobin who was a lighthouse keeper and member of the United States Lifesaving Service (now the Coast Guard) in northern Michigan near Glen Haven, MI. (Traverse City Area).....

He is pictured in the left front of the photograph holding onto a USLSS rescue boat in the early 1900's!

Feeding the Robins

Today,after a nice evening of fishing with mama Team T-(we got a sitter and fished til 0130 this morn), we kept the sitter at home and headed to the TEAM T SUPERSTORE-Aldi's, and stocked up..........


Just as a robin works tirelessly to bring food to their young, lets just say that we parked the JEEP in the nest and filled the cupboards!

TWINS?

Somebody very special to me said today that me and my oldest look like twins.....


I'm not buyin' it.....

Uhhhmmmm, is it hunting season yet?????

We are not giving up until its hunting season.....

We'll wait it out.....and she asks every day.....

Today's Sunset

Today's sunset,
yesterday is gone.
So is today.

But oh the promises that tomorrow holds. The possibilities.

Anything is possible, TOMORROW.

What do you hope happens........I know what I dream for......

WE'RE BACK! BEEN BUSY JEEPIN', CAMPIN', DISCO DANCIN', AND FISHIN!

Greetings ALMOSTGUNLAKERS fans!

I've been so busy with summer and enjoyin' it Barry County Style that I've had no time for the blogggggg........But here's an update for ya to give ya a fix for what you've been missin on almostgunlakers.blogspot.com.........

We've been camping........




Here's the world famous White Trash Campcook's COOKING PALACE OF WONDER!
















Ton's of fishin on Gun Lake!


Team T Outdoors All Girl Trolling Team!!!












And now, I present to you the new TEAMT Outdoors Hot 20 horse outboard fresh out of Florida! Seeing as this 12 foot boat is only rated for a 7.5 horse, she really screams! Lets just say I wear my life jacket anytime I'm by myself! Big Stick picked her up for me from a lady who just lost her husband.......Hope he didn't take advantage of her lack of knowledge on motors....
















Team T comes through again.....a dandy pike and 18" smallmouth.......both these fish put up absolutely extenserrificly enthusiastic fights!!!!!!

Took a trip to my brother's northern escape....
He snagged a monster of a deal to help fill a void I've had for nearly 15 years........NO PICKUP TRUCK! Not anymore!!!!!!!!!!!! It's JEEPARAMA time!!!!Thanks Brother!!!

I now present to you the new TEAM T OUTDOORS 4x4 Jeep Commanche pickup! Its a 1992 with 124,900 miles! A mere $800 bucks!

My son took the helm so I could catch up on some sleep while on the way....

We had a beautiful time with campfires, relaxing, some fishin' and fresh Walleye for dinner, a visit to the beautiful northern sea......even the boy went swimmin....

My first priority upon getting this beauty home was having a rematch with a hill that had done me in with all the kids last year when I took them two trackin in my front wheel drive Dodge van and got her buried in the sand! This time, I stopped at the bottom of the hill,

stuck my head out the window and yelled, "I"M BACK!!!!!!!!!!" Then I walked right up her in four wheel drive in the new TEAM T JEEP COMMANCHE COMMANDER!!!!...

As much as I love winter and hot perch ice fishing..........This summer has been one for the books!

I will be posting more frequently again so everyone can RELAXXXXXXXXXXXXXX...

OH YEAH, I FORGOT TO SHOW A PIC OF SOME DISCO DANCIN' WE DID......

NUMMY