Welcome to The Angler's Song!

"A repository of miscellaneous piscatory pleasures to direct your thoughts away from the woes of the world."

Hook

This blog is 45 years in the making and after struggling through the technical part of actually setting it up here, I'm pretty sure I've aged another 45 years! Guh!

Nevertheless, welcome again from the 1980 Mancelona, Michigan Bass Queen. Pictured below in the backyard of my home on Big Twin Lake, I spent my formative years in a one traffic light and four church town that still to this day celebrates an annual Bass Festival. It's a big deal and I bet they still hide half dollars in a huge pile of sawdust for kids to find.

It was a good place. A library, bowling alley and one theater (until a car drove through it and burnt it down) comprised the totality of available entertainment unless you lived on or near water like I did. Water sports and fishing filled my summers and thoughts of water sports and fishing filled my winters.

Before anyone gets the impression that I earned my queenly crown and robe from catching a record haul of aggressive large mouths, however, let me be clear and admit that I did not. No. I simply had long legs, interviewed well, and thumped out an impressive rendition of Rachmaninoff's Concerto in C# Minor on the piano from memory. Other than doing a choreographed dance with the other festival pageant contestants while singing, "Gone Fishin'" (made famous by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong), there was absolutely nothing to do with fishing involved.

The pageant song, however, got in my head and stayed there. It was the seed for this blog. Other influences of course have added to and shaped my piscatory penchant, but I'll get to those in future posts. From what I'm learning, it's supposedly best to have five posts written before one begins to advertise a new site. Therefore, in the next four unadvertised posts, I'll be sure to expound upon the inspiration for the title of my blog and give other riveting information about myself and intentions.

Line

One intention that I'll address right now though is "... to direct your thoughts away from the woes of the world." It's my main intention. For both of us - for myself as the writer and for you as the reader. I love life and long to explore this entire world but at present, there sure does seem to be a lot of woe in it. Especially if you watch or read the daily news. And of course, we all deal with personal hardships and tragedies at various times in our lives. A little or a lot of woe, it's simply quite unavoidable.

We can, however, escape it for a measure. And if you're an angler, you especially know this to be true. I can't take you all fishing, but I certainly can share other fun fish and fishing related things with you. This I will aim to do in 600 words or less each post. I honestly don't have the time or attention span to take in more than that when I read other people's blogs so there's no sense in trying to write more than that.

Sinker

And yeeouch! I'm nearly at the word limit now. Hence, no fancy sign-off, just an abrupt one. And not that I'm actually skilled enough yet to do them literary justice, but next time I'll try to pay more attention to my clever Hook, Line, and Sinker section headings to shape my writing.

I'll also tell you why you should Subscribe to my blog. Admittedly, I'm super curious to see what will happen when you do. Supposedly, you'll get an automated confirmation message and email. Hmm. Well, 'til then - ciao for now!