Reub's journey

17 January 2011

Mark's lures

Imagine that you're one of the world's leading authorities on critical environmental topics like carbon sequestration, climate change, and forests. You have received 35 National Science Foundation grants, you've written many important papers, and your opinion is widely requested. Work, work, work...

What do you do for fun?



Recently John's friend and colleague, the forest scientist Mark Harmon who I just described, came over to show us something he has been working on over the past few years.

For fun Mark makes beautifully crafted fishing lures, mostly for bass and musky, neither of which inhabit the waters of the Pacific Northwest.



Those are fish found in the Midwest, South, and Northeast of the US, where Mark has spent a lot of time.



In order to bite on one of Mark's lures, it would have to be a very big fish!




These fishing lures were really cool to look at even if I couldn't imagine the enormous fish that they might attract. They were finished products, artworks that needed to go no further than the light of our kitchen table. After the long hours put in at another job it must be a great escape to create these, and then to eventually use them.

7 comments:

  1. WE also have a smart friend that makes the most beautiful lures. Too nice to put in a fishes mouth I think. These people are so fascinating. Nothing holds them back, does it?

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  2. They are really cool! So HUGE ... yikes.

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  3. Sorry, no comment on this entry, but wondering if you're liking Cutting for Stone as much as I did? That's what I was reading last March when we were out for the wedding! I loved it, of course!

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  4. I just finished Cutting For Stone, and I did like it. Definitely written by a doctor, and one who had the experience of being an Indian in Ethiopia. It kept me interested the whole time, even though there was a lot of medical terminology.

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  5. Everyone needs their window of creativity now and then.

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  6. some of those hand made lures are just plain works of art. We did an etched glass window for a client once using their antique lures as subject matter.

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  7. I love Mark! Of course, he is my brother, and in our younger days would drag me down to Dudley Pond to catch bass. His lures are beautiful, totally based on the science of catching bass, muskie, pickerel. Thanks for sharing his passion! - Sister Janet

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