Lake Martin Magazine

Ten years ago, every piece of tackle I owned was confined to a small tackle box, 14 inches long by 8 inches wide with two small trays that folded out at the top and a tiny storage area beneath. That was before I was a tournament angler. Now there’s tackle everywhere: in the truck, in the storage building, in the closet and of course in the boat.

Wine has a reputation for being expensive. Maybe that relates to the atmosphere in which it is often served. Maybe it’s the stemware that lends an air of elegance to an occasion. Or maybe there is a vast conspiracy underway by the beer industry to quell any competition. We can’t argue that it is a misconception, but there are plenty of good wines that are not expensive.

Golf is a game of misses. Most people’s good shots are all the same. By that I mean they are hit at the intended target. However, what separates a bad golfer from a good golfer is the quality of their misses.

s the summer comes to an end, I thought this would be a fitting issue to speak of the evolution of watersports and the future. I look back at what has come about since the first day I got up on two wooden skis. Back then there was no wakeboarding, wakeskating or wakesurfing – now a multi-million dollar sports industry that dominates the market.

We’ve had two recent personal watercraft accidents in Alabama that resulted in extremely severe injuries when the people aboard the PWC either fell off or were thrown off the PWC near the jet-drive nozzle while the throttle was engaged.

On Thursday, I interviewed Ryan Penney, a 20-year-old Samford University student who was paralyzed after jumping off Acapulco Rock in mid-June.

Sawyer Davis, Larry Bain and Justin Falkner use only their feet to ski on Lake Martin.

Russell Lands holds its annual Hula Hoop Contest during its Fourth of July Blast and fireworks show.

It seems at once casual and epic – climbing over the side of a speeding boat, supporting your weight as you inch out onto a pole that extends out over the water and pointing your toes up, forcing your heels down and suddenly you’re standing on top of water.

It’s a conundrum many a cabin owner has faced on Lake Martin.

When siblings George and Gene Gwaltney and Nancy Gwaltney Klopman received their grandparents’ cabin several years ago, they faced a tough choice. They were delighted to own the cabin where they shared many childhood memories, but the building was old and outdated. With more than a dozen people in the three families, the cramped space was hardly an ideal retreat.

So the families decided to start fresh. With Nancy’s husband Jim Klopman serving as architect, they built a new lake house on the property, one that incorporated the original cabin’s rich history with the families’ need for space and convenience.