Ben Benner’s Blog

It seemed like only yesterday, that I was roused out of bed with shouts about how I needed to grab a camera and run down to the dock, that was two years ago (almost to the day). My Father-in-Law had caught himself a 40-inch Muskie, with the record on the lake being 42-inches.

Well, unless someone managed to catch something bigger than a 44-inch Muskie in the last two years, my Father-in-Law, Tom Coscarelli has broken the record with his 44-inch Muskie catch that happened this morning. I was already awake and was making myself some toast.

And with almost the same level of excitement it was proclaimed that my wife, Gina needed to bring her camera down to the beach immediately as her father was coming back with the fish that had his lure. A few days back, Tom lost a lure (antique I was told) and he had been searching the lake everyday since.

I was really, really impressed that he managed to hook the same fish that had stolen his lure a few days before.

However, it turns out that the fish in question, did not have the lost lure. Tom explained that the fish in question was hooked really well and that he had called asking for Charles (Gina’s brother) to come on the wave-runner to come help with the removal of the lure (which apparently is a smaller version of the lost lure).

Tom is pretty certain that he did not lose the antique lure to a fish, as the smaller version of the lure had prevented the 44-inch Muskie from diving.

Regardless, it is an impressive catch. The previous Muskie was too small to keep, but this was is above the 42-inch required size. Tom was planning to release this monster of a fish back into the water, but upon first release into the open water, the beast went belly up.

Not a good sign for the fish, so Tom began to use all the tricks he knows to try and revive a stunned/shocked fish. Moving it back in forth in the water as to move the water through it’s gills to allow it to breathe. However, after about an hour and a half, and Charles’ (soon-to-be) Father-in-Law attempting to aid Tom in reviving the fish, they called it quits and began to determine who would clean the fish, as later today we will be having fish steaks (or possibly in the morning, either way, I will let you know if Muskie is good eating).

I need to get back to coding.

bdbenner vacation fishing, lake, muskie, up north, vacation

I could have sworn that I left the blue sweater up here, but I cannot find it. It likely is back in Tejas.

Curly is loving it up here already. He has already marked just about every tree in the yard, drank from the lake, run on the dock and played with Killer (my In-law’s dog).

We got in early, early this morning about 1:30 (am) local time. I brought in the luggage and left the coolers out in the car. We brushed our teeth and went to bed.

The morning came early, we were up and about around 9:30 am. My mother-in-law was already starting to work on her macaroni salad for the party later today. My father-in-law has brought some new dock pieces in the trailer.

I was requested to boot up the laptop and begin searching for a recipe as there was a scare that a page was missing from the recipe book.

I made a couple of new wi-fi extenders (metal colanders with holes cut in them), I was hoping to garner another bar of signal with the different designs that these have in them. However, there has been no signal boost. There however is an upside to having more than one wi-fi extender, I also happen to have an extra USB wi-fi adapter, meaning that Gina and I could use the wi-fi at the same time.

I need to get an additional USB extender cable before we can use both of them at once. I will keep an eye out for one when we hit up Meijer in Traverse City.

The lake looks absolutely beautiful. This is a shot from the dock looking out into the water about 10ft out. The water is so clear you can easily see the bottom and then the darker area is the ‘drop-off’.

A shot of from the dock, looking out across the lake. You can see the transition between the bottom and the ‘drop-off’.

I should probably shut down and get ready, Gina has talked about going into town and getting some stuff. I need to grab some PBR and some flour, going to be baking some bread while I am up here.

Laterz

bdbenner vacation intermediate lake, lake, up north, vacation