bye bye 2024, and good riddance

 Ain't gonna miss all the memories I've made in that year . Some of them are flat unforgettable but I'm getting good at handling those things , cause you have to . When MP told me that I'd been brave - after 71 years on the planet I know exactly what bravery is now - all it is is  what happens when people have no options .

That's me and MPeasy celebrating the season at our favorite fine dining genuine Mexican place. We found El Tunnel on our 2nd trip to Mazatlan in 2002 and have been going there ever since. They make the tacos Sinaloa style and call it Ala Plaza . Mine were carne asada with potato served under a pile of sliced cukes, radishes and lettuce that you pour a really nice chili consomme over....oh baby...and Pacifico's...of course.

Because it's a long ways from home and the fact that Mazatlan is facing some security issues at night when we go to old town we stay overnight on Olas Altas beach at the LaSiesta. We love this place . A nice walk along the Malecon in the morning . Breakfast with a Platano liquido ( with Splenda of course ) at an ocean front comida and even a quick music session with an old friend.

Downtown is where you see the good stuff. You know I'm always on the hunt for the unusual . The city is alive in of itself so every year and every day it's different. This building just went through a major face lift and it done entirely with hand placed tile mosaic . It must have taken thousands of hours and is absolutely gorgeous. The mosaic is dedicated to the chug chug panga drivers that fish off the neighboring North Beach.  To any and all of my friends here in Mazatlan...you need to get down there and see this . It's unbelieving to quote Jacque Lizin .

And then is the view from the side street of the building where the art is dedicated to the panga fishermen.

As we walked MP tells me this is her favorite street because of the elephants. I don't remember but she doesn't miss any thing creative, it's her life .

On this date last year I could hardly carry a fishing pole , never mind casting it . But Dr. Russo and Dr. Steve Perry at Billings Clinic gave me my fishing back . And even though its slow , slow,slow I'm finding out that just doing it again is a reward in of itself and that all along through 37 years of guiding and 25 years of surf fishing Mazatlan I really just like doing it, the ritual, the fellowship, the mystery to be solved and of course being in nature , sometimes alone. I love it all . BUT, if ya wanna harvest just get to the beach at 4:00 a.m. like my friend Alejandro . Then clamor out over the rocks of the breakwater and toss your pluma with a hand line cause it works better than your rod and reel and won't break if you fall off the rocks. But sun up you'll have a collection of what I think are the best eating fish in Mazatlan. They are snook looking pesca the locals call Paleta. I tell him " Alejandro mucho peligraso on piedre " and he goes anyway . His legs are scarred from previous falls. 

And here's a pic of a new team Xer with the very biggest Cocanaco snapper I've ever seen. I asked him to hold it up for me and it took me a bit to change settings on my camera. I didn't think he minded but MP gave me the old quit bothering everybody speech that I've heard my entire life.

and now seeings how I might miss another december Mile 14 post I'm gonna make a list of stuff I need to do in 2025. 

 

1. Now that my neck is better I can lift again. Start with my rubber bands and move up to dumb bells ( ain't that a poetic name for them ) . I got this skin hanging from where my triceps used to be that a friend of mine calls ' bingo wings '....they gotta go .

2. Ignore the insensitive jerks here at LaMarina...I finally know I ain't got enough time to keep swimming upriver and I ain't gonna change them jerks anyway. 

3. Be happy. It's a mind set and it starts with me. It's like a tree, the trunk supports the branches so be happy and those around you will be happy.....and let me tell you I have A LOT to be happy about.

That's it ....Duck soup....done deal....easy peasy...lead pipe...no brainier....Happy New Year everybody, see ya next year.

Ray Ban

There's soooo many of these babies that you can hardly drag a hook through the water without catching one. AND when you do it's a tricky operation to retrieve you 6 dollar cast master or whatever. I've been trying to heed my Hematologists advice when she told me about blood thinners in high doses with the emphasis on " be careful " !  Once again Alejandro taught me what to do. You grab the tip of his wing with your pliers and turn him upside down so the stinger is is the dirt, then you twist out your hook and then grab the stinger with your pliers and lift him back to the H20 . I've done it probably 10 times in the last week....If this was Alaska and these babies were holding up commerce who knows what they'd do, poison ? explosives ? maybe even a management plan would take care of them . 

But I ain't gonna be scaredy chicken to no ol fish and through it all I managed to land a slimey or two. It was dark when I hit this nice big Toro and wouldn't ya know there was no one around to take the pic so I took my old blue weatherproof Lumix and held it up in front of me and captured the magic.

 

I jumped the bus to Mar Rosa the other day where we all think the best rocks for collecting fish exist. So I gotta tell ya Tim I got there at high tide and the new tourist jungle business there has re enforced the sea wall with just enough huge rip rap that I get can't get  above the surf enough to safely walk down to the place, remember the " be careful " part . Pretty damn insensitive to a bunch of ole fish hounds if you ask me . 

So you know me I keep the faith and keep throwing every morning. I'm far from 100 % but I can do a couple of hours pain free and then when I do get to feeling it in the neck it's just kinda like a stiff neck with a tolerable dull ache......no tingling , no spasms like I was having before the ablation. Yahoo ! And of course it's all in the math ...E minus B flat, x 7.2 squared to the 4th power and divided by .04 percent of January 6th  equals my first consumable, a nice Cocoanaco snapper.... But....that's the slimey that seemed to affect my ciguatera fish toxin the most and I'm scared to eat them like I used to. I let him swim away deciding that the next Robalo I catch I'll try some in hopes I can now keep it down, ain't ate any of it for 3 years now.

And just this morning I watched my new friend Juan Carlos catch the biggest Toro I've ever seen caught on the playa, maybe 16 pounds or so. This fish gave up the good fight.....But then disaster happened. I threw an air knot in the brand new ultra thin  Suffix line that Kurt gifted me. I loved that stuff and try as I might to untangle I ended up losing a bit of it....and here's the  ' but then ' part...and then I re tied my leader and loaded up and threw  the long cast not looking for Pelicans as there's been so few of them and Walla...it snags a ' Christmas turkey ' as Slah calls them and when I tightened  up to stop him from getting it all the line parted and all my new Suffix flew away......jeez Louise....

After that it was a screw the fishing morning and I took a nice long bike ride. This is my favorite tree in Mazatlan. I can't tell you what it is but it's huge , spanning the whole Island on Cameron Sabalo Cerritos. It's always full of birds ....

Of course you notice that nice bike/hiking path that Mazatlan furnished for us . When we first came to this area there was nothing here, nothing...and now  there's lots and lots of new buildings and more people but this path is the benefit of progress. It's safe ( remember the ' be careful ' deal ) and runs  3 miles to the end of Cerritos and it's well used....thank you Mazatlan.

And of course as much of a sun up guy I am who couldn't love the sunsets here....Hope ya come back in 10 days or so .

My girlfriend was waiting for me int eh same place as always.

The weak in review

 Well, today marks a week since we arrived at Mile 14 Southern Bureau . It's one of the unfair things in life that no matter how cool , how special something is you can still get used to it, it becomes routine . and that's what I'm struggling with right now, to NOT have that feeling. I think I'm doing OK with it and I suppose an entire winter and half a summer of doctor appointments has helped to reset my rudder....I'm feeling good.

My readers have many times heard me report on the beer culture in Montana. The pic above is the Travel stop chain Town Pump's new biggest store with a 1600 sq. ft. Beer Cave. Well Montana doesn't have an exclusive on beer consumption, right here in Mazatlan Mexico they're pretty darn good at it . With the holidays arriving the stores are stocked to the ceiling with Pacifico and this display of mini Kegs jumped out at me. 3 gallons of all kinds of beer nobody's ever heard of ...

You're probably wondering why I didn't start the post with a fish pic, or maybe you're not...My first morning I walked up on my old friend Alejandro as he was wrestling this Toro. He's well, I'm well and both just flat happy to have another season together fishing .

Many Manta's on the beach like this one. They swim around in formation and when you see them it's best to not fish. There are several different types of Rays here and this guy is the one with the dangerous stinger that has sent many a pescador to the hospital emergency room...So all of us kinda drop the machismo for this guy and are openly afraid of him but we still need to recover that 200 peso Kastmaster it's got in his wing. 

I've seen a lot of things in sport fishing in my life and many things in surf fishing in the last 25 years.  One thing is just kinda understood with fishing, it's best to be either next to or on top of the water...not in it. If you look to the very middle left of this pic you'll see a guy holding his rod up after he swam out to either get more distance or frankly who knows ? Hey man....the fish ain't that important !

So me and MPeasy are in flow. Today we're off to the movies to see Gladiator 2 and pick up take out Chinese . We hope to be home for sunset, got my first aerial assist just last night.

So it goes like this....up @ 4:30 and read the Helena and Anchorage papers. Before sun up hike 1/2 Mile up the beach and fish until 8:00 or 9:00 then go have breakfast with MP. Then hit the terrace for nap #1, we call this the yoga nap as I usually fall asleep to the melodic droning of Alexia's voice as she leads the yoga class. Then read until noon or so, right now I'm doing a Michael Connelly novel. Have tostado's for lunch. Ride Bike up to Oxxo store for beer and chips. About 2:00 take indoor nap . About three meet with kennel mates in pool for gossip . Cocktail hour at 5:00 including sunset ritual. Practice songs. Eat supper . Watch Oak Island and fall asleep.....repeat with slight variations such as go watch fishing boats come in with catch, shop , early lunch on beach....here's a pic of Jaiba ( crab ) tostados .

I WILL catch a fish soon so come on back and see....

 

Let me sing ya song

 Well as Geno always said ' we jump the jet ' on Monday for our winter home in Mazatlan. I'm soooo looking forward to a normal winter after last years unexpected retreat . It's a cool life style and with my neck better  from the ablation procedure I should get back to being the harvester that I was....It goes like this....fish....nap....read....nap.....hike....sunset....play music .....repeat......I'll be posting real soon so I hope ya'all come back. In the meantime hows about a song. My friend Kiki recorded this for me at his home in Prada Del Sol in 2015 . We'll see ya soon Kiki !  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGxtkqiF00E

please watch it till the end, I gotta off to a kinda slow start on that one

Everybody say Cheese

That's the stuff right there . This stuff was part of our lives for over 40 years.....Christmas ? get yourself some Echo Lake cheese spread . Company coming over ? get yourself some Echo Lake Cheese spread.  Somebody die ? get yourself some Echo Lake cheese spread . For 20 years Hobo Jim would serve it every Friday and Saturday night at BJ's bar along with wonderful servings of home made music. Jim swore that not only was it the best Cheese he'd ever ate and that it also had restorative qualities and was the best hang over cure he had ever found !

Through the years MP has made our version of it but , well , it just ain't the same. The original recipe is creamy and has a subtle smokey taste along with jalapeno. She thinks one of the secrets is the cheese that's used and how it it extruded or blended to make the texture right....in any case this stuff is so good it can make a Bulldog break his chain.

And the story goes like this : Echo Lake Lockers was started in the 1970's south of Soldotna about 8 miles . It was and still is a butcher shop that sold meat and processed fish and game.  They had many specialty items of which tons of this stuff was sold annually, no doubt their most popular product. The store was started by a guy from Montana named Bob Biastock who the legend goes invented the receipt and guarded it for years before selling the recipe along with the business and moving back to Montana. We've pined away for this stuff ever since we left Alaska. We've seen similar cheeses but...it just ain't the same. 

So the other day at the gym I was telling a new friend that we were going to Butte for lunch at Pork Chop John's and to buy Truzzilini Tamales....they know how to eat in Butte. He suggested we go to this place as he thinks it's the best Butcher Shop in Montana.

Western Meat Block on Dewey Street has got the goods ! Wonderful store made sausage and 7 different types of bacon. Gourmet cheeses and seafood etc. So we bought the ' original ' sausages, Sweet Bourbon bacon and a couple of Tamales and then it happened....in a smaller cooler case I spotted this .

At Echo Lake Lockers Bob always had samples but yesterday we had to wait until we got home. MP hadn't been in door 5 minutes when it was open and she got out the chips. She looked at me and said ' do you suppose this could be it ' ? AND Yahtzee ....IT IS ! 

So , inspector Clueso here sees another trip to Butte in our future. I gotta find the origin of the recipe and who knows the trail may lead to Bob and maybe even an Echo Lake Montana reunion. Who knows ? But I'll tell ya this my FootBall Sunday just got way better.

Our favorite little town

 Choteau Montana...just something about that place . It's not like the rest of the State isn't friendly and welcoming it's just that in this town it's unmistakable . We're waiting at a crosswalk and in the middle of the light controlled intersection and a guy driving a one ton dually and pulling 5 tons of Hay pulls to stop and waves us over...and smiles.  Our waitress at the unbelievably affordable John Henry bar / casino / restaurant says " whatchya doin in Choteau " and we tell her that we love her town and come to bird watch at the Lake often, when we mention Alaska she says " my husband right there works in Alaska, ya wanna visit with him " ? ...and so it goes in Choteau Montana.

So we're up at  cold thirty as usual to be at Freeze out Lake to watch the birds lift off . Well, fall bird watching is complicated  by a few things, one of which is hunting season . Wouldn't ya know that they'd have a hunting season for Swans here in Montana and guess what kind of birds were the only ones present  ?  Yup, Tundra Swans and they 'lift off' real good when they're being shot at . I was pretty proud of myself for getting this shot as the Swans were at the farthest side in the farthest off lake. I set my old trusty Minolta on the tripod and then used maximum digital zoom with the time to hold the camera steady. Walla.

Of course the Lakes and management area are a ( yawn ) State Park and of course State Parks come with State Park policies soooo......During hunting season all the roads have gates that are locked closed. This area is huge and some of the hunting and viewing areas are way to far away to walk so it begs the question. If it's legal hunting and there are enough birds for harvest why make it so darn hard on the park users ? People that know me know that I easily find fault with State Parks . This time I think I've been real gentlemanly with a little constructive criticism . MP and I were disappointed that this vast eco system was basically closed but we'll be back to see the birds off in the spring when it's open.  

One thing they're good at with State Parks.....Signs. Look at how big this area is, can you imagine walking to the far side of that lake ?

I'm a fish / boat / music guy and agriculture is new to me, and I'm impressed . If I hadn't ventured north I think I would have found myself a place in this Montana lifestyle. There's an energy in the morning just like there is on the harbor floats as the boats are prepping to leave, you can feel it, it's money, it's culture , it's the American way.

I took this shot driving through Fairfiefd. I think it's a gorgeous scene, the symmetry of it especially. It was a cool morning and hour after sun up and truck after truck was arriving to unload. On the other side of the bins train cars were being loaded. It was bustling with activity . Wish I could tell you what they were loading and where it was going and well....I've got a lot to learn about Montana. But so far I can tell you this for sure, we love this part of the State.

The power of the pen

 Well first off the staff here at the Mile 14 Southern Bureau has to apologize for not making our own imposed deadlines as promised, we let it go dark for an entire month and that's not right. But it was a weird month and nothing spectacular occured other than my friend Keith traveling through and stopped to give counsel on operation Walleye and gift me this treasure drove of tackle....thanks buddy. But soon our fortunes will reverse and we'll be in Mazatlan surf fishing and singing. My neck is soooo much better so I'll have adventures to report. Please come back to Mile 14.  Check out the goodies.

So what I thought I'd do is shine a little light....explain what's bothering me a bit and I'd bet dollars to donuts many or even all of you ' know the feeling ' .  In this day and age of instant information it takes just a little effort to shine the light as Howard Beal did in the movie  Network when he famously opened his window and encouraged people to yell out ' I'm sick and tired of this #%&* and I'm not going to take it anymore " . Howard called it a cleansing moment of clarity . So Mile 14 is my window. I have about 500 loyal readers and if some of those 500 have windows and....well you get the idea, maybe somewhere somehow somebody will hear.

These guys right here. Terrible . We've banked with these guys for over thirty years and have run mucho dinero through their system and what do you get for that...ya get mined, you get taken advantage of, robbed. Here's the short story. We had a wonderful Canadian couple come down to buy our camper. They brought a guaranteed bank draft for the Royal Bank of Canada that was for the agreed price adjusted to the current foreign exchange rate. Well, our friends here at Wells Fargo manipulate the exchange rate with what their own web page calls ' set at our discretion ' which is no more than a hidden fee of 3% , it's called a non-competetive exchange rate . In this case we were charged $ 545.00 good ol American Money for a safe and easy transaction.  So it goes like this.....I'm still in business, guide #003 Walleye expert fish killer for hire. Now being in a border State I have a huge customer base from Alberta that love to come south and fish with me. Of course we tailor the price so we can accept their currency for their convenience .So every week when I deposit my hard earned work these people at W.F. want me to give them 3 % of my life....I don't think so. W.F. is in the news a lot and I don't really need to go into that, you know the story but the final chapter of this mine job was when it was suggested we could make up the ' non competitive exchange rate ' by investing the left over money from the deposit in one of their CD's ....So it's hello Interstate Bank and if any of you Wells Fargo people want to go fishing we'll have a great professionally guided trip and I'll tell you about our ' fresh bait fee ' when the trips over . The only good news was just look how happy they were with their new camper and how cool it is .

Election : The next 18 days can't come soon enough and I'm sure all of us are feeling it. What a system, we have candidates that have raised and spent millions. We got commercials during the football game that last long enough for ya to cook a burger. Everybody's got a nasty nickname . Everyday our mail box has 4 to 10 of these in it....Kinda old school I'd say. I wish I'd saved them, we'd have had enough to wall paper that nursery bed room we've be working on....hehehe, pulling your leg with that one.

Taxes : One of the underlying themes this election season in Montana is - they don't like people moving here....yawn.... They complain about you all the while you're paving the roads and putting their kids through college. They think it's some kinda utopia and that new people are ruining it in many ways. Our rental house in Hamilton Mt. is 750 sq. feet and has one bathroom with two garages on 3 city lots, it's nice and has a beautiful view. For that we pay about the same property tax as our house in Alaska that was 2500 sq. feet with 3 bathrooms, two garages on 7 acres of riverfront . It's an absurd amount of tax here in Montana and somehow they've crafted it into being somebody's fault besides the government. 

But. Our elected officials got to thinking that this tax situation could end up with some of them getting unelected and how in the heck are they gonna change the world with that happening. So they come up with a rebate system to send you $$$$$ but it doesn't just come in the mail with a check and an apology, oh no, you have to apply for it and prove you're not one of those @#&%* non-residents....And then the next year you have to do it all over again cause ya mighta been lying the first time....and oh , I'm joking about the apology , that never happens . AND while this is all going on with ridiculous amounts of $$$$$ the State has a 2 billion dollar surplus in the budget . Go figure. That's 2,000,000,000....Yikes....

OK, I feel better...thank you for your patience. And don't forget to open that window and let people know of yet another unethical business practice at Wells Fargo Bank . 

Update : It's been a week now and I had hoped that the Bank would use some of the ' discretion ' they have mentioned on their webpage and somehow try to correct this situation a bit . No business person like myself would ever begrudge a business from making $$$$. But this amount on one transaction is ridiculous . I was left with a guy telling us he thought it was too much and after talking with his manager we were told someone would ' get back ' with us with either help or an explanation.....Well add ' lied to ' and 'ignored ' to the list along with 'taken advantage of and hidden fees ' ..... But stupid me, I could have taken the Canadian Bank draft to ANY bank and opened an account with absolutely no fee and a nice " welcome to our  Bank Mr. King '.

It's all foreign to me...fishing for life

 

It really is....but , I'm adjusting . My friends on the Kenai have suffered through King Salmon closures of course and this fall they waited for the usually dependable Silver run to develop and then suffered through the slowest fishing that run has ever delivered....so....where am I going with this ?  Well, I have no right to weeny whine about my own empty fish box. It's been humbling . The fishing report says  cow bells down 30 ft with lead core line . So I get the color coded lead core . I get line counter reels . I get down riggers . I got 30 sets of cowbells . I got as many hard baits as Capital Sports and .....nadda . The other day a guy watched me put the Minnow VI on the trailer and he said " wow , you're good at that " . I replied " yup it's the only part of it I'm good at ".  OK Jeff, remember your mantra ' The joy is is in the pursuit ' ! And oh, that Pike you see there is 3 fishing trips worth . And you wonder why my blog is late ?

So I caught this Jumbo unit with a 6 inch blade on a Gerber Knife... We're not sure what the hell it is but you gotta admit ol #003 is still a High Liner .  We're still living off the ' the fat of the land ' just lacking a bit of white flakey protein with tarter sauce. As we say in the business, how about this load.

I caught these gorgeous Montana scenes yesterday on a Panasonic Lumix DC Vario water and shock proof camera.  Tom has been itching to go hunting and of course I don't hunt big game as I have a personal code that came from killing soooo many gorgeous fish through the years that now I don't kill anything that has eye lashes. So we went Grouse hunting on a mountain he knows outside of Wolf Creek Montana home of the legendary Oasis Bar. For the first time in my recent life we did serious mountain climbing in that old white Chevy of mine and man oh man....drop that baby into granny low and she'll climb a telephone pole. I was kinda proud of my 26 year old truck. We saw one Blue Grouse that we jumped with the truck and it flew down a 45 degree hill into a tree and we made the adult decision to let that guy win. It was steep and a long way down and Tom's a year older than me.....hehehe

About a week ago me and MPeasy went to Garnet Ghost town, this is not a place you get to by accident. 

This place is way up in the mountains on an 11 mile road that only goes there. Most of the town burned down years ago but what's left certainly shows you the life of the Gold Rushers .  It's amazing picturesque , in the bottom photo it would have been nice to get a pic of just how the town is but of course the Park Rangers hands their trucks parked everywhere. It's everywhere with those people, they treat the Park like it was theirs and not ours....

Well I wish I had a new song for you but I don't. So instead of that I have a video that I took 10 years ago on the road below our house.  It was this time of year almost to the day. The animals were in rut and weren't much interested in much else until one saw me. The video is only 35 seconds long so turn the volume up and watch it until the end and you'll see old guy move fast .  We're going to do some fall fishing so check back, I'll post on the first successful day, you might even hear me crowing like an old Banty rooster...