Peak of the Rut.....Chicago Shopping!

Well, its the peak of the whitetail deer rut, geese and ducks are flying, pheasants and quail are in season, and the fish are actually still biting pretty aggressively...........and this weekend I was in Chicago shopping!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dont get me wrong, I had a great time away from the kids and work (Brook will read this blog post eventually) but no matter how much we needed a weekend away from the kids (for the first time in 2 years) Its just hard to be in Chicago, and shopping to boot.

Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to Fun City in Iowa on Thursday afternoon so Brook and I booked a last minute hotel on priceline.com and stayed at the 4 star Hyatt Lodge for $60 that night. I had to work South of Chicago on Friday anyways, so we just made a weekend out of it.

Friday morning well before rush hour traffic I headed over to Art Van Barens new pond near Beecher, IL. We hooked up a vertex air one plus aeration system and then formulated a gameplan to turn this 1/2 acre pond into the very best backyard fishin' hole imaginable. A few weeks earlier we stocked 100 lbs of feed trained largemouth bass, and thousands of fathead minnows and golden shiners. With a feeding program in place for next season and a properly designed pond with aeration system, I expect great things from this pond by the end of 2010! By the time the pond is exactly 1 year old, he is going to have a 2.5 lb average on these genetically superior LMB!!!!

I didnt really want to rush back to the mall, so we spent a couple hours checking out a couple other ponds, Art's factory (which is AMAZING!), and even did a little fishing. Then after lunch I really needed to head back up north to the windy city. I just could not imagine living anywhere near there- there are just people and traffic everywhere.

So the next 24 hours really werent that bad, but boy was I glad to be on the road headed back towards God's country with a deep dish giordonno's chicago pizza and a 6-pack of cinnabons Saturday evening. The only good thing about Chicago is the food!!!