Gonna Be a Long Hot Summer!

Ponds all over the state are starting to dry up! The corn is thirsty....I am thirsty! It was just plain hot today and it looks like its gonna be a long hot summer! For some reason that song by I believe Keith Urban is just stuck in my head every place I go. I almost sing it out as I talking about the weather with clients and what to do with their lakes and ponds going into a summer such as this.

Ok so its 1:57 am Friday morning. I am still sugared up from a midnight energy drink as we drove home from Carbondale. Also I am jacked up for Tuna fishing in Venice Louisiana this weekend, so sleep isnt gonna come easy tonight, might as well write...

Just finished up a marathon two weeks that saw mucho miles put on the red chevy and electrofishing boat. Last week we spent a good portion of the week in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Consulted with 4 seperate lake and land owners there and finished up at perhaps one of the coolest estates in the whole state of Iowa. It has it all- fish, deer, golf, swimming, tennis, basketball, horses, streams, waterfalls, etc etc etc. Simply amazing and now the fish there are gonna be amazing too....

Seems like alot of folks in that area are big into fishing and hunting and managing their lakes and land! I ship more lake supply orders and get more phone calls and emails from Cedar Rapids area each year than I do the whole rest of the state of Iowa! Already got several people from that area lined up for next road trip there this fall- very cool!

Here are some pics from Marks very cool sand pit lake just outside of Cedar Rapids. Looks like a fun place to fish eh? Big and little walleye everywhere!!!




Then on Saturday we hosted a couple hundred high school boys and co up at the lake on Saturday. Shew boy is that ever an action packed day. We picked up a used ice cream maching on Ebay earlier this year and went through like 500 cones on girls camp weekend, but went through over 1300 on boys camp day!!! We stocked up.

Also on Saturday we sent the boys out striper fishing and we cleaned and cooked up the fish as they were catching them. Probably 30 fish in all!!
 



They were gobbling up that stuff so fast they were burning their hands grabbing it instantly once the basket flopped onto the paper towel.

Then Sunday we rested. Me and the kids just hung out together peacefully all day long and after church we rented a movie about a family who bought a zoo. Someday we will probably have a zoo too. Noah for some reason wants a blue lion from Africa. Been talking about that for over a year....

This week we put way more miles on the truck! Built a couple nice docks on Tuesday. Here is a pic of the big swim dock for Chris's lake:



Then we loaded up truck and boat to the max and headed south Wednesday. 3500 feet of weighted tubing, 3 aeration compressors and cabinets, 11 membrane diffusers, 1000 lbs high protein fish food, 6 texas hunter fish feeders, couple cases of HB brand lake dye and algaecides, 50 lbs HB Bacteria, tools, clothes, and 3 guys. Not an inch of space left-



Electrofished and installed aeration near Taylorville for good client Al. Visited his place in 2010 and his pond has been hopping since then!!

Then dropped up some feeders near Hillsboro for a Pond Boss guy and headed down to the Double Tree Hotel in Collinsville for the night. Mexican for dinner and then lights out. Installed aeration in Belleville for an awesome pond in the AM and then headed for the big job near Carbondale. We had so much stuff jampacked in the truck and boat, it would take 20 minutes to unload the boat and truck each time we had to use it and then repack it up again to head to the next place!

Finally near Carbondale we installed the motherload of all aeration systems. Jason is literally growing a pond full of double digit largemouth bass and I am not exaggerating. He has the perfect storm brewing and we are monitoring it very closely!!!!! There are not many bass, but rather HUGE bass... So anyhow we custom designed this aeration system, we call it the ROCK STAR system! Here is a peek inside of the insulated weatherproof cabinet!



We did some work on the other ponds on his property, designed a couple sweet docks for him and headed out around 8:30 pm for home. Oh yeah, it was 106 degrees today near Carbondale and that was actual temp, not heat index. Oh yeah again, our air conditioning did not work in the red chevy for the entire road trip and it was more than 90 degrees in the truck as we drove around the dry thirsty hot southern portion of the state. WOW was that ever an experience. Even at 10 pm it was still 88 degrees in the truck.....serious stink.....

So that brings me up to right now this very moment. Well let me back up, Jared and Tate were with me in Southern Illinois and Justin, Allen and Phil had the privilege of cutting trees and clearing Dr. Dave's lake front lot. Hottest day of the decade and they were out plugging away with skid steer, chipper, and chainsaws!







So now here we are on the heel of an epic deep sea fishing trip to Venice! One for the ages: 12 guys, 4 days, 8 coolers, and supposedly the tuna are on fire 70 miles offshore!!!!!! You wanna know whats crazy, the forecast for Venice is 10 degrees cooler than the forecast for Peoria baby!!!

So we get back July 3rd and the rest of the summer should be back to normal. The camps are done, the busy season should be behind us and we got a couple fun close to home projects to take us through this long hot summer!!! Lots of swimming will be on the agenda! And hopefully eating a summers worth of yellowfin tuna!