ALMOST GUNLAKERS: BookEm Danno Charters!

(THIS IS A RECYCLED POST! IT WAS GOOD AND I THOUGHT I WOULD THROW IT BACK UP HERE TO GET YOU PUMPED FOR A SUNDAY MORNING BROWN TROUT FISHING TRIP ON LAKE MICHIGAN! THE MAIDEN FISHING VOYAGE FOR THE BADGE-R!!!!!!!!!!!!! this originally aired on my blog in September of 2006)

TEAM T travelled to the Big Lake today for a slice of Salmon Slaughtering Adventure!

Went out of Grand Haven on BOOK' EM' DANNO charters for a salmon slaughterfest! This Captain/Crew come with a five redneck star approval from TEAM T!

My day started very early with a road trip in the Commanche Commander over to Bisquick Gordon Indian Lightfoot's casa....On the road by 0400!

I had ol' BOBSCARELLI all worked up about being sea sick since he had never set foot on any boat except the one that is a barge and has slot machines..... Here's the big PuertoRican in his Walmart Hunter Orange thinking about how afraid he is to die.

I do recall him asking the Captain, "where's the life jackets?" The Captain's reply? "We have swimmies up front if you want some"........

The Outdoor Pro Staff here at TEAM T provides the next informational lesson in our ongoing series. Today we focus on yet another Crucial Critical Safety Skill for the BIG LAKE......I give you the Big City Salmon Safety Crouch! As always here is the informative MSPAINT drawing to ram home the concept!

And I now present Bobscorelli performing this crouch in perfect form! The knees are heavily bent over an overly aggressive wide stance. The knees are shaking as you've never been in a big boat on the BIG LAKE and you are nervous as Jiggers told you the whole way there you would be deathly sea-sick and vomit. A crucial portion of the Big City Salmon Safety Crouch is the highly visible orange jacket which screams "rescue me first!" should the Coast Guard become part of the fishing trip. Although Bobsco is sporting the 1998 model from Walmart, it obviously still has it's shine!

The weather was perfectly crummy......Rain.....Cold.....waves.....I felt like I was on the "Deadliest Catch" tv show! I tried so hard to pretend I was a deck hand on a crab boat and followed the Captain/First Mate around firing questions like a hood firing off rounds in the lot of the Chicken Coop. In my earnest endeavor to learn as much as I could during this trip, I did more damage than good.....And that little fantasy in my mind of the Captain putting his arm on my shoulder and saying, "I'd like you to join our team Jiggers. We need your coat size so we can buy you a BOOK'EM'DANNO' official crew jacket and get your name embroidered on it. I'm very impressed with what I've seen out of you today....." Well, that never happened....Instead, I screwed up the two fish I tried to reel in.....Complete 100% failure. No one else seemed to have trouble reeling in their fish.....No "PRO-STAFF CREW" team jacket for me!

Big deal you say? Well.......

Crockett had a fish on,

and got it in the boat.

Bobsco had a fish on,

and got it in the boat.

Trailer, yeah. Fish on

In the boat.

Here's a picture of my two fish! I screwed up both times reeling them in.....:-(

And a group photo of the buddies.....All with their fish respectively (or no fish because they got too excited and lost both of them).

The crew cleaned the fish up beautifully for us......

Here is the finished product. I put them in bags and took all the air out to keep em fresh! 12lbs of fresh Lake Michigan Salmon! At Meijers Thrifty Acres it's about $7 a pound.....Trailer and Bobsco gave me their fish......12 pounds worth=$84.00 of SALMONARAMALAMADINGDONG!