Brute’s Bleat: February 5, 2014

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Another Super Bowl is history and I would have lost my shirt if I was a betting man. Seattle didn’t leave a thing in the locker room while Denver left everything back in Colorado. I lasted three quarters before I found a rerun of In the Heat of the Night. Tom Mooney commented at Monday morning coffee that he lasted through the first half. That group’s concensus on the commercials gave the nod to the Budweiser puppy as the day’s best.  I liked the German VW one with the factories engineers each getting their angel wings when a VW’s mileage hit 100,000 miles. The look from one of the ladies when a feather apparently brushed her backside was the deciding factor.     .     .     Next up are the Winter Olympics which get underway later this week. On a local scene the winter high school sports season is coming to a head. Just a reminder that even if the groundhog saw its shadow Sunday (six more weeks of winter) we’re about to turn the corner and with that comes the tournaments.     .      .     The MLLA fishing derby on Saturday nearly filled up greater Maple Lake with anglers stretched from the beach down each side of the lake.  I didn’t get there until about 1:30 p.m. and missed the Arctic Plunge which attracted a larger field of plungers and spectators.   I meandered around visiting with some of the anglers who chose to fish outside.  The accommodating weather, about 17 degrees and little wind, gave the anglers a chance to enjoy themselves and the event. Some made a party out of the afternoon, similar to the tail-gating that used to go on at the football games in Bloomington.  There were fire rings and lots of the groups brought along meals of food as well as snacks.  I was admiring the Northerns that were being put on display as they were registered and happened to be there when a 7 pound, 2 oz. Northern was being weighed.  There were lots of hammer-handle size caught which should be beneficial to the lake.        .        .       The derby is growing each year both in participation and quality, a credit to the organizers.   
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Mike Muller gave me a call last week Wednesday with a fishing report from Florida. He said he and Jesse got a late start that day, about 9:30 a.m., and crappie fishing wasn’t very good.  He got front ended again by Jesse who caught 15 while Mike had to be happy with three.  They were on Lake Okeechobee and Jesse claimed the cold front there (62 degrees) shouldn’t have affected fishing. Mike keeps tabs on his theatres while he’s in Florida and commented the school closings in Minnesota gave the matinee attendance a boost.     .     .     my fishing equipment is still in the back of the Suburban, but with the many roads that were plowed on Maple Lake, getting around should be a snap.      .     .     I ran into Tom Latour, former Thomas Marine and Warrior Boats owner, last week in Buffalo. He’s enjoying his retirement between Buffalo and the Gettysburg, SD area fishing walleyes where the limit is 8. He’s not happy with the decline in South Dakota’s pheasant population  which he said is 80% in the area where he lives.  Latour said he missed hearing song birds in South Dakota and remedied the situation by planting a bunch of ash trees.      .        .     locally I’ve had two reports of seeing mourning doves (12 to 25) in both Maple Lake and Annandale.  They’re a migratory bird and I’ll assume the ones seen either couldn’t stand the cold weather down south or these were doing a reconnaissance run for the rest of the flocks.       .       .
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I was having a cup of coffee Sunday at Holy Cross’ fellowship hall when a lady commented about a sub-headline “Maple Lake Ain’t a Place to Live, It’s a Place to Leave” in the Tribune’s Sunday issue. She wasn’t happy and it didn’t make my coffee taste any better.  It had to do with a classic play, Minnesota Moon, written by local playwright John Olive back in 1979.  His story used the name Maple Lake fictitiously as a small-town Mankato where he grew up.  The story probably wouldn’t have made the Sunday paper except Olive has received a call from a London-based filmmaker Cyrus Trafford asking permission to turn Minnesota Moon in a short film.  After brief negotiations Olive and Trafford reached accord. According to the Tribune the film puts the main actors on a beach with a railroad track.  It can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/82512766 according to My Minnesota reporter Curt Brown. 

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