I promised some big news. We are now the proud renters of our very own dedicated server. Woohoo! But, even bigger than that is what just happened....Pond Boss hosted its first ever moderator's retreat. Ewest drove over from Mississippi, Sunil came from Pennsylvania, Bill Cody and Theo Gallus made their way from Ohio, Bruce Condello from Nebraska, Dr. David Willis from South Dakota along with Dave Davidson from Fort Worth, Texas, Mike Otto and myself.
Everyone arrived at Lusk Lodge, two Friday afternoon and evening. We had a fabulous evening meal of ribeyes, baked potato and salad, after some good appetizers. Everyone was excited to be there and to sit down and share some enthusiastic ideas about the future of Pond Boss magazine and our website.
Here are your moderators. Sunil, Theo Gallus, Bill Cody, Editor Bob Lusk, Dr. Dave Willis, Ewest, Dr. Bruce Condello, Dave Davidson and Mike Otto.
We spent much of Saturday morning exchanging ideas how to continue improving the magazine and giving some thought where to take the website.
Ideas were rolling out of everyone.
Yesterday afternoon, most of the guys spent time fishing in several of the 8 ponds on the property.
Dr. Bruce Condello with two big bluegill he caught early this morning.
Condello was the spirit of that ordeal, catching more than 40 fish in less than three hours. But, everyone who chose to cast caught some fish. Sunil is convinced he caught the biggest bass. He thinks it was at least six pounds. Condello caught a glimpse of it and thought it was more like four and a half. After a couple of beers, Sunil rethought, and decided it was probably seven or eight. Later that night, we all agreed it had to be more like nine.
We mixed in quite a bit of fun to go with the "work."
It's an exciting time.
I have no doubt Pond Boss continues to lead the nation as the voice of pond management. But, I also see that we have a bigger mission and part of that is to teach people how to be better stewards of their land as well as water.
I value the braintrust that has developed over the years with our moderators and website participants.
This weekend, we had an aerospace engineer, a natural resources attorney, microbiologist, industrial businessman, PhD fisheries biologist/professor, IT headhunter and a dentist who may well be the best angler any of us has met. Toss in a pond building, earthmoving guru with yours truly, and we had quite a braintrust trading some great ideas.
While we don't intend to make major changes to the magazine, we do intend to improve it. But, we do intend to focus on this website. Since we are now on a dedicated server, we must turn it into a profit center.
The changes to the website won't entail big visible changes, we will have banner ads and change the way we manage the site.
So, thanks for being here with us. It's a great ride, on its way to much, much more.
Over the next few days, you'll hear from the moderators and their experiences of this weekend.
While they all "know" each other from this website, rarely do they get to see each other face to face. This weekend was one of great ideas, fellowship, good food and fun.
Most of the group, this morning next to one of the ponds. From left, Ewest, Dr. Willis, Theo Gallus, Dave Davidson, Sunil. (Kneeling, Dr. Bruce Condello)Not pictured, Bill Cody & Mike Otto. Lusk was on the business end of the camera.
