Denise and I have been traveling for the past month of June and into the first part of July.  First stop was Chicago where we had a booth for BlueHighways TV at the annual National Cable Television Show and Convention to promote our network and shake and howdy with hundreds of cable television industry leaders.

We had some great news to talk about to the cable operators, the fact that we had just signed our Time Warner carriage agreement and  our BlueHighways TV was being launched, in over a million new households,  all across North and South Carolina, a hot bed for our kind of music.  After an exhausting 5 days in Chicago working the convention we headed our RV and fishing boat to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, Denise’s hometown on the Upper Mississippi River.   We always go to Wisconsin the middle of June and stay through the 4^th of July…. Denise to enjoy all her family at home….while I disappear out on the Upper Mississippi River in my boat hunting for the big fish that live in those waters. 

If you have followed my stories in the BHTV Newsletter through the years, you know this is my special time of year, in Wisconsin, that I live for all year long.  First of all, because of the outdoor beauty of Western Wisconsin and the Upper Mississippi waterways.  All year, from August through the next May, I spend getting ready for the trip…..buying new lures, putting on new line, researching river maps for new spots, talking to other fishermen, reading my IN-FISHERMAN Magazine from cover to cover each month for articles on the Northern waters of Wisconsin and Minnesota, searching fishing reports….and just generally getting by until it’s time for the fishing season again.  Yeah, I can’t help it, I just love to fish. 

This year the water was really high on the Upper Mississippi with a lot of rain in North Wisconsin and Minnesota and the water was pretty dingy and up in the trees and bushes.  I’m a structure fisherman so I like it when the water is high because it brings the fish up shallow in weeds, grass and bushes and the big ones are active.  I went out and scouted the first day and started catching fish and it continued to get better each day.  My long time friend, Chuck Lowrance, one of the top country dj’s back in the 60’s and 70’s ,  in Atlanta, Tampa, Little Rock, St. Louis and Nashville, flew up to join me in fishing for a few days.  I picked him up at the Airport in La Crosse, Wisconsin and we drove down the River 60 miles to Prairie du Chien.  We headed on out to see what we could catch and I pulled the boat into the backwaters, where the weeds and brush were sticking up about two feet through the water. 

Chuck put on a Yamamoto worm and made his first cast, with me casting right after him into the 4 foot water at the edge of the weeds.  Wham! Chuck set the hook and just kinda held on for the ride, just as another fish hit my lure and I started my battle.  Well, Chuck got his fish to the boat first and reached down and pulled it up out of the water.  We both got so excited at the size of the bass that I jerked the hook out of my fishes mouth, and he kinda flipped his tail at me and swam off laughing to itself.  Chuck’s first cast catch was the biggest bass we caught the whole trip and it, like all the bass, was released gently to swim again.  The picture of Chuck and his fish shows him with his expression of , “Dang, I don’t believe I caught this thing”, as I grumbled about, “yeah, but you made so much noise holler’n and carrying on that you made me lose my fish and it was probably a world record!”  Course, I was only gonna bring him in the boat and then turn him loose, but it was the  thing to say to keep Chuck from just getting the big head about catching the big fish.  I was proud as could be of his fish and it was the highlight of the whole trip. 

Chuck flew back to Tennessee a couple days later and I went on to catch 25 to 30 good bass a day, by myself, like always on my Wisconsin trip, but none as big as his.

Kenny Johnson, a fishing friend who lives in Prairie du Chien, and who has taught me a lot about that body of water over the years, took me Northern Pike fishing on the last fishing day of our trip and we just happened to hit the right spot at the right time.  We couldn’t cast out without catching a Northern, just in a feeding frenzy.  They are so strong and such game fighters that it was a real memory maker couple of hours.  I had to get back to get ready for our trip home or we would probably still be there catching them.  While I am a catch and release fisherman, with Walleye and Northern Pike, we keep some to eat.  We released many, many of them but brought back 7 fish for a total of 57 pounds.  Two fish weighed 12 pounds each, while the rest went between 6-8 pounds.  It was a great day of fishing. 

Denise and I traveled on back to Sunny Tennessee, in our home away from home RV and the bass boat, listening to Satellite Radio all the way until your ears get tired of all the music and news pounding away, but it does keep you awake and going. 

When we got back, from the high tech Convention, the high tech fishing and the high tech driving back, I went into my knotty pine covered fishing room,

in our old farm house, sat down in my chair, pulled up in front of my radio and decompressed awhile.  Now, when I say radio, I am not talking about satellite delivered, digital sound radio…..no, what I needed was a dose of Low Tech, old time, tube delivered radio.  Let me explain:

In 1954, when I joined the Navy, I took with me from the home place  in the Missouri Ozarks where I grew up, my J45 Gibson guitar and my Zenith TransOceanic radio that Mom and Dad had given me.  I carried that guitar and radio all over the Far East on board my ship in the US Navy for four years, playing my guitar with the guys on board ship and sitting the radio up, on the Fantail of the ship, in Hong Kong, and tuning in WSM, clear channel 650 on your AM dial, Nashville, Tennessee.  On Saturday nights we would gather round and get the Opry and sit there fighting the homesickness with good old country music.  That was 1954. 1955, 1956 and nothing sounded  like that old Zenith radio with the Opry greats that I loved, and still do. 

But, ya’know, after 14 hours driving with satellite radio and the very latest digital sound…..I needed something real.  My brother, Sam Hitchcock, Springfield, Missouri born and bred and still there….found a 1948 Zenith TransOceanic radio at a yard sale in Springfield a few years back and brought it to me because he had heard me talk about my old one that got stolen years ago….as well as the old J45 Gibson….and he thought I would like to have it.  Sam, my brother, you are so right.  I pull my chair up close to the old Zenith, with the dial set at 650 AM, turn it up to hear through the static, and listen to country music as it is supposed to sound….real tubes…small speakers…nice lighted dial you can easily read….chair sitting right in front, staring at it some, or just closing my eyes and going back, back…..back.  

That’s what we used to do on the farm of an evening, sit in the living room, by the fire place and listen to the radio.  Yessir, it was Fibber McGee and  Molly, Lum and Abner, Amos and Andy, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Kraft Music Hall and of course the Opry on Saturday Night.  I don’t remember having to hear about murder, child abuse, terrorists, which politician was going to what jail, rap music, dirty talkin’ celebrities….and y’know, I never ever saw one naked woman on that radio dial being cut on by some CSI pathologist trying to figure out who killed her. 

So, this weekend, when everyone else has gone to bed, the old farm house grows quiet and old Buck the Collie is asleep at the side of my chair in the fishing room that holds my memories….I will reach out and turn the knob to on….and listen to the Opry, as it is meant to be listened to…on a 1948 Zenith radio….Low Tech, I love you.

Welcome to all our new viewers in the Carolina’s who now watch BlueHighways on their Time Warner cable and write me such nice letters of how they love the music.

You can go to my website: www.hitchcockcountry.com and read some of my Views  From The Front Porch and listen to some of my music.  You can always write me by email at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will enjoy hearing from you.  We are located in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, so come on by and have a cup of coffee with me some time.  God bless us all.

Stan Hitchcock

Chairman/CEO

BlueHighways TV