It's Cold Today. It's the last Saturday in March and a planned walleye
outing was put off for a week due to the cold weather and the 17" of snow
they got up north. Hopefully spring will show up next week. Last week I was
walking around in a long sleeve shirt outside, today I was wearing a coat
and gloves.

My friend Doug Kloet had a guide trip up on the Fox River near DePere today.
When they launched the boat it was 5 degrees..BRRR. I am glad we stayed home
today. The fishing may not be better next week, but it will be more
comfortable to be wetting a line.

School's Out.for me anyways.

I have been toiling away on and off for the last couple of years to finish
off the degree. I finally finished a couple weeks ago. Now that I have some
extra time on a weekly basis, I am hoping that I can finally catch up on the
website. Trying to keep it updated has not gone as planned. I cannot promise
anything, but we will see what happens. Plus, there are some outdoor stories
that I just could not fit into the schedule because school got in the way.
No more excuses. Well..at least fewer excuses than before.

Yes!! So far so good. Unlike last year when we got one week of warm
weather, it seems like we are getting a real summer this year. You will not
hear me complain about the heat . I like a nice warm summer.

Speaking of fishing, I have been doing a little bit of that too. Catching
some nice bass lately.I have been mostly fishing lakes Delavan and Geneva.

I just got back from a day of fishing for smallmouth bass around Sturgeon
Bay. It was great fun. We did not put a lot of fish in the boat, but Doug
did manage to catch a 20" fish. Very nice!!



The article for this story should run within the next two weeks.



Terry

Yeah!!!! The open fishing season is here.

The season opened this weekend. However, instead of fishing in WI, I went to
IL to do some perch fishing on Lake Michigan with my good pal Bill Pocius.
We did okay. It was kind of slow, but we brought home 20 fish. The largest
was a 14.5" fish.a couple of 12 inchers were in there as well. We landed one
Coho too..a nice bonus.

Look for the story in this weekend's Kenosha News.



Terry

It's deep into February and I am sure looking forward to the open water
fishing season. I don't mind ice fishing, but I am definitely an open water
guy. I am sure I will be out on the ice a couple more times this winter.
There are still fish to be caught and I figure it will be about a month
before I will be out in a boat again.



Terry

Yes, this year is winding down. This has been quite a year in the Bitz
household. Lots of things have happened..some good, some not so good.



I was able to get out to do some brown trout fishing yesterday on a boat in
the Milwaukee Harbor. It is an amazing trout fishery there.



Just being able to get out in a boat again made me feel good. It was a
little bumpy out there with big rollers bouncing off the break walls, but we
caught fish. The story about that outing should be in the Kenosha News in
two weeks, then posted on my website a short time later.



Terry

Oh boy are people ticked off at the DNR right now. After what many deer
hunters considered the worst gun hunt in decades, people are looking for
heads to roll. That includes some of the state legislators. State Senator
Russ Decker is calling for people to be fired. While I doubt that will
happen, it's a rare thing for the DNR to escape unscathed when legislators
start getting this vocal.



I think the DNR will have hard time convincing people that there needs to
be any antlerless-only hunts. They can probably kiss extending the regular
season goodbye. They were lobbying hunters to extend the gun hunt to 16
days.



Personally, this was one of the worst hunts I had in regards to seeing deer.
Between me and my youngest son, we saw one deer in the woods. Yep, just one.
I cannot recall a season where I only saw one.



I will have an article in two weeks discussing this very issue.

Those who read my Kenosha News columns may recall that I and Motorola parted ways back in the spring. After 17 years they decided that they no longer wanted to pay me for my services....aka I got laid-off along with about 25 percent of their workforce in my location. They have since gone on to eliminate even more jobs to cut cost and try save their wireless business.

I am not bitter about getting axed. I am certainly not happy to have left in such a matter, but I did get a severance package...Plus it gave me the chance to reconnect with myself, my family and my faith. I wish Motorola and all my friends that still work there the best, but overall I am happy that I got a chance to move on.

Today marked the end of my lay-off. I officially started work at a cool company called Rath Microtech. They design/produce emergency telephones and I am very excited to be working for them as a Technical Support/ Product Manager.

Of course today also marked the end of my 3 weeks of pounding the water to try and make up for lost fishing time. The fishing was mostly mediocre, but I did manage to catch - and lose - a few. The highlight was a 38.5 inch musky that I caught on the Chain O'Lakes down in Flatland USA....that being Illinois. I was fishing with my best friend Bill Pocius and Doug Kloet.

So now it's back to life in the real world and I am ready.

Terry

I have been spending more and more time on the water recently. I am not exactly living on the water, but I have fished 5 times in the last 7 days. Its almost like the old days for me when I spent 4 days on the water almost every week from June through September.

In the last week, I have fished Lake Mendota in Madison 3 times. Silver Lake in Kenosha Cty once and just today I was on the Chain of Lake in Illinois.

Today was a very good day. My good friend Capt Doug Kloet landed a 47.5" muskie on a Double Cowgirl. I had a very small muskie take a swipe at a Topraider. But, it was Doug's fish that made the day. A muskie measuring almost 48" is a nice fish no matter where you are at. High fives were given after the successful release.

Stay tuned for an article on today's outing to be in the Kenosha News in 2 weeks. I should then have it posted online a few days later.

Terry