Norm M

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/wandering-with-norm-minas-access-points-to-a-fishing-and-life/

this was the worst apple of the bunch, most of them are pretty good . i figured why pay for rotten service , if i want that i can go to a fast food joint . darn glad chemo and radiation are done . my neck never got real bad and it's healing up nicely . my hair is also starting to come back although not real fast . at this point i'll take what i get .

once again a doctor who was not willing to listen , not only ignoring what were saying but talking at cross purposes while we were trying to explain what was going on . being as how this doctor makes it a habit of triple booking and waits of an hour or more are not uncommon , we walked out of his office and are never returning . he kept insisting we need to do things for symptoms i have never had and paid no attention when we pointed that out among other things .

thanks again . it's definitely frustrating especially when it seems you are just another statistic . fishing with your doctor is a good way to avoid long waits due to over booking so common in doctor's practices .

Thanks guys , It's a slow road back . My wife and I had to finally confront some doc's to actually find solutions rather than just hear it takes time . Since then , they started ordering tests and we have found out stuff, especially the thyroid issue . Since we started treating that , I feel so much better than before , it is amazing . Still have not got them to order a petscan to check for any possible remaing cancer. I am going to have a heated if necessary conversation about that issue with them at my next appointment . Not sure how much more , if any fishing , I'll get in this year .

For the most part what I start with is based on gut instinct based on 5 decades of experience on this river . Generally it pans out as I have learned over the years by looking at the USGS flow charts before every trip what to kinda of expect . Almost halfway thru radiation , just did session 6 of 7 for chemo today . The first time combining the two was rough . The doc and I went back to the anti nausea patch I wear for a week hoping it helps . So far it has been more of being too tired and sleeping than even thinking about fishing . However, I have still been getting days where my body says , try it . On the not so good days I have enough stamina for an hour or so . The good days, I have enough stamina for about three hours or so . Even an hour on the river though is enough to lift my spirits . I know it's going to get worse before it gets better , so I go when my body allows regardless of conditions . Well, except t storms and possible tornadoes , I have gotten a little smarter since my days of being young and invincible .

I managed to slide in two trips to the river , one while it was dropping , the other while it was rising . Actually, that's pretty much been the story for this year , up-down-up-down with more of the up . While it was dropping , I started with a rattlebait over cobblestone flats . I got enough smallmouth that I never saw fit to change as the action was kinda steady . Nothing big size wise, mostly 12 to 16 inchers . While it was rising , I started with a square bill crank on the current seam , only got three there but all between 17 and 19 inches . I moved in by the outside edge of the waterwillow beds with a singlespin . It seemed like every time it came by a point or cut in the weeds it got blasted. Mostly 14 to 16 inch smallmouth . I tried with the spinnerbait and a chatterbait in the water willow beds themself but never got bit . Throughly enjoyed both trips , just what I needed .Peace Norm

http://midcurrent.com/techniques/interview-lefty-kreh-on-a-lifetime-of-smallmouth-fishing/?utm_source=MidCurrent+Fly+Fishing+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b2be49656e-MidCurrent_August_2_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8efbf3b958-b2be49656e-18956357 I don't fly fish but I am buying a copy . Most of these fly guys know current , see if I can learn something new .

Austin Adduci also guides on the Kankakee and Pere Marquette rivers . He is very good at what he does . I also consider him one of my friends and have fished with him on the Kankakee River .

Phil I've been wading thru stuff all my life . i'm sure I can adapt to this .

The river is dropping but on all gauges it more than twice it's normal flow . Clearing a little near shore and in slower water , visibilty still not great . 3 to 4 inches of tops of water willows currently sticking out of water , although still some fish holding on outside edges of beds with some depth next to them .Weather has been nice the last couple days and I have been feeling better so why not do some fishing . Some fish on a single spin run on outside edge of water willow beds with some depth to them . I treid fishing in the beds and dropping into holes with no takers .I switched to fishing cobblestone flats with crankbaits and rattlebaits, ran up Pepe's flag . I switched to a jig/pig in the same areas quartercast upstream and bounced down . That got me what I was after, some solid thunks but more light hits , still smallmouth were eating the jig/pig . I stayed with that pattern for the rest of the trip and all of the next one, it kept producing . Not huge numbers of fish or really huge fish but enough to keep the interest up and a smile on my face . I likely could have caught more but when my body started telling it was done , I quit fishing . I would go home , eat and take a nap , as the doc's tell me I have to listen to my body . Besides it's not the best idea to mix moving water and a body that is rapidly tiring . Not bad for starting week 3 of radiation the way I see it .PeaceNorm

Snook are carp with a better PR agent is what a friend of mine who guided for snook told me . MoCarp feel free to use that if you want .

They were bred for the table, less scales for easier cleaning and deeper sides for more meat to bone ratio and a guy gets beat up for eating one , how ironic .

How about someone who sneaks in, catches and steals these fish , for their own profit. They put them in a pond that gets flooded and they escape to the wild . They have better genes than the common carp you tell us . How do we know what effect these giant fish with better genes will have upon our native fish ? Do their young grow rapidly to a size upon which they are beyond prey sized for natives , for one instance ? I know that removing all the carp does not automatically increase the number of game species . There is however a carrying capacity of fish life that many bodies of water have . If you increase something at one end of the scale , something else must give at the other end of the scale. There are many concerns with how the increasing grass carp population in Lake Erie is going to change that fishery . I just think that a very through study of how accidental introduction into the wild on native species should be done before another non native species is deliberately introduced into our waters . I am not anti carp, enjoy catching those that are already here . It's just that recent history with non native species getting loose or in the case of the Great Lakes being dumped with ballast water makes me very leery of adding any more deliberately .

my worry is that with the increased amount of and increasing severity of high water events is another non native fish escaping into our water ways . I recently went to a seminar about my local watershed . One of the real scary things were the presentations showing that the severity and increase of severe highwater events will increase thru 2090 . What kind of impact would these non natives have on our native fish ?

have them look at Illinois regs if they want to keep the 6 fish limit limit is 6 bass no more than 3 of which may be smallmouth bass in many streams might be a workable compromise

You have shown me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel . I thank you for preparing me and take inspiration from your current reports .

The Show Me state .

Much the same has happened up here in Illinois . Worst of it was , I had one of the guys who had a hand in decimating a creek come to me and asked me to see if I could get the IDNR to restock that creek . I told him that he and his buddies did it, they could go to the IDNR . I also told him that the likelihood of the dept doing that was slim and none with the budget cuts they were taking . darn if I was going to try to get that creek restocked so they could do it all over again . Not that I ever had the influence on the dept to get something like that budgeted but for some reason they thought I did .

The river is dropping a bit but the waterwillows are still flooded. Chocolate milk and not safe for wading . I've been getting my head handed to me by the current radiation/chemo regime . Today , I rallied enough to make a short trip out to some waterwillow beds that had relatively easy access . I used a buzzbait tipped with a twin tail grub to get a few smallmouth bass. Hits were savage with water spraying all over . It was what I needed to raise the spirits and give cancer the finger . I hope to slip in a few more quickies before I get too beat up by the treatment to have the energy to continue . Another month of treatment and best guess a month to get back on my feet . PeaceNorm

great to hear you are getting out again .

Shoot if your luck is like mine if you ever meet that damsel in distress , she will likely throw you over her shoulder and tote you home . Look Paw, he done follered me home, can I keep him ?

second hand chit