Lake Michigan Chinook Salmon Fishing Charter

Last night I attended the Dan Keating, Keating on Kings Seminar in Grand Haven, Michigan.  Dan is a 25 year captain of the Lake Michigan fishing industry and is a great teacher regarding catching King Salmon. 

I too run a boat in the summer for my brother, the Catch-A-Bunch, out of Chinook Pier in Grand Haven, Michigan. 

It was interesting to hear the differences in how he fishes and to also hear the questions that arose during the night.  Everyone has their own techniques.

Check out Dan’s new DVD set and his books at his website.  Should be some useful information for any fisherman or woman.

Don’t forget to swing by my photography site!

Bruce Hudson Photography Seminar in Detroit, Michigan

Dave Ramsey in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Tuesday I attended the Bruce Hudson Photography Seminar in Detroit Michigan.  Bruce is from the Seattle area and he has some great ideas and a wonderful studio and marketing plan.  His work if perfect.  I learned a nice amount from Bruce’s seminar.  There was like 135 people there, the largest of his tour so far.  I will be starting a few new programs soon so keep checking back!  Luckily, the snow subsided just before my 2 1/2 hour, one way, trip to Detroit.  Highway 94 can be pretty trecherous in the snow.  I have been on the 94, I learned this lingo in California, and seen dozens, if not hundreds of cars in the ditch and into each others fenders…  I don’t know if they just don’t plow it or what.

Last night my wife and I attended the Dave Ramsey Live Seminar at the Van Andel in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  We have both listened to Dave Ramsey on XM radio for over a year now, so the seminar itself was inspiring but nothing really new for us.   He is a great inspiration and Dave Ramsey’s Website is here.

Just think of this one thing, if you had no payments except your food and your lights how much could you invest for the rest of your life.  If you put, for example, $2000 a month in a mutual fund for the next 30 years do you know how rich you would be…you would only have a little over 4.5 million!  Check Dave’s investment calculator out here.

You are probably saying, well, what about the cars and the house and the time share and and and… 

I have never had a finance course in my life and I struggle to understand quickbooks, but this is just simple math with compound interest on your money.  Anyways, check his site out and maybe it can help you in your situation.

Yesterday I did another photo shoot with the dogs in the snow.  They are so willing to be my personal subjects!:-)  Here are a few of the 400 images…

Winter season is definitely my slower season so I have been reading a lot and also I am scanning my nature image slides into my computer so that they are all full resolution TIFF files and I can tag them all with keywords.  I just picked up Adobe Lightroom and I am reading a lot about the program before I jump in.  I also just purchased the OnOne Software programs to help with my Wedding Photography. 

I sold one of my Canon 20Ds and I picked up a Canon 40D.  By the way, the images above were shot with my 40D.  The focusing is obviously better in the 40D and it is quieter too.  The 3″ screen is almost bigger than my one TV.:-) 

The book that I am reading right now is The Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck.  You may have a strong opinion of this guy, and I do too, but his book is wonderful and it is a recommended read by me.  He is so straight forward in the way he talks and I admire him for that.  He points out a lot of crazy things that one would never even think about.  Read the book and you will see how messed up our values, our system, and our thoughts can be.  I picked up my book at www.half.com.   Recently I have been buying and then reselling my books on half.com and it is working out well for me.

Don’t forget to read The Audacity of Hope too.  You should be informed on the background of a possible future president. 

Hope that everyone has a great weekend!  Looks like I may do some skiing and some snowshoeing this weekend!

Check out my Wedding Photography Website

Bird Photography in Michigan winter cardinals

Today we woke to some frigid temperatures, 15 degrees F, and frost on the trees.  The dogs didn’t really want to go outside.  Our Weim has very little hair on his belly and gets cold really easy.

I have been feeding sunflower seeds and the cardinals have been amazing.  I had 9 cardinals at the feeder at one point and I believe there had to be at least a dozen total around.  I planted forage grasses a year and a half ago and they love the seeds from the grasses.  They are on the ground all the time picking up seeds from the plants.  The cardinals have become very wise to the dogs too.  They have a spotter watching the slider door where the dogs come out.

Here are some images that were taken hand held with my 100-400 IS lens this morning through the slider window.  I’ll try to get some better images later, but these turned out very nice.

Enjoy your day!