Greasy B

Hatcheries produce hideous fish but given enough time that river allows them to turn back to something wonderful. Those are beautiful.

Yeah, it’s a different world now. A while back my brother and were looking into buy a new river jon. Our primary concern wasn’t power or speed it was how do we install grab rails and lean bars.

Our local liquor store has a few bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, somewhere in the $800.00 range. I’m trying to imagine an occasion grand enough to justify a bottle.

I recall seeing these jack plates on wooden Jons when I first floated the Eleven Point, ~1980. It was impressive watching boatmen adjust the throttle and jack plate to glide through Mary Decker shoal. Equally impressive were the graceful lines of the narrow Jon boats, they were beautiful. Despite the weight a 9.9 seemed to power the boat, guide and two fishermen just fine.

Retirement is a beautiful thing, Linda and I are three months in and I’ve never felt more joy.

Happy birthday Pete,

Thank you, it works now.

Please include me, there are times when I can’t navigate at all.

It’s funny that I still have the memory, there are whole decades that I’ve forgotten and some I don’t want to remember. It was on a clubhouse dock at Spatterdock Lake near Brickhouse slough in St Charles county. I don’t recall the exact fish but I do recall looking in the water and being fascinated that there were living creatures in there that I could see. The first time I caught something other than a Bluegill was at Memorial Park Cemetery. By the time I moved up to Wabash lake I was a fishing veteran.

I’d love to hear about Wisconsin River.

I was hoping someone would reply to your question. That’s the terrifying problem with taking a river Jon on a downstream trip. Was a time when my partner and I could have emptied the boat and dragged is over a gravel bar, those days are over. If you make the trip let us know how you did.

I lifetime spent outdoors and I can count the Bobcats I’ve seen on one hand.

My neighbor took this picture a few weeks age, Warren County.

In light of the recent river tragedies you’d think they’d be sensitive to safety, nope.

The first time I found a Black Snake in the chicken coop it had just started to wrap its mouth around an egg. I pulled the egg out of its mouth and searched for something to wack it with. That one climbed the barn wall in an amazing escape. After a bit of thought I realized the snake was probably eating far more mice than eggs, he was probably a net positive as the barn has few mice, I’m now taking a live and let live approach. The next snake I found had already swallowed the egg and curled up in the nesting box to digest. Problem was it took weeks, I got tired of him and tossed him in the woods. A couple weeks ago I found the one in the picture swallowing a golf ball that I keep in the nest box as a decoy. Funny thing it passed up a perfectly good egg to eat the golf ball. Shortly after I started to feel sorry if the darn thing died gagging on a golf ball, I went back to the coop but he had either detected the fake or got scared and left.

It’s crazy how many flood videos are taken from bridges that are threatened and river banks that are collapsing. Folks should be running for high ground but they stand slack jawed filming with their darn phones. I guess if you could find the victims phones some would have short videos of their owners last minutes.

Mammatus clouds are beautiful, there must have been some big weather moving through.

Dings, dents and scratches, wear em like a badge of honor.

Those Browns are porkers. There must be an extraordinary amount of food.

I few years ago I heard a story of a woman getting attacked by a rabid coon. It was a real life horror story. I’ve got a growing list of zero tolerance critters. Raccoons are on it.

I’ve only seen two examples of AI contributing to the quality of life, this one of them. Wonderful.

One of the surprises of moving to a rural area is the lack of bugs. We had an awful Asian beetle infestation this year but very few June bugs and very little of anything else. A couple of decades ago I would visit a sister who use to live near where I now live. Insects would pile up in drifts on her window sills. I can hang out in my garage at night and only see a couple of moths. Go figure?

I see more pear trees blooming in my woods than Redbuds. It might be a lost cause but I’d like to declare war on pears trees, mustard garlic and Autumn Olive. I believe once you cut them you can treat the stumps with something to prevent them from coming back. Anyone know what that is?

I’m sorry for your loss. Losing friends is hard.

The story gets a little sappy but I love the old Jon boats and the float trip stories. I guess I also feel a little sappy watching this, me and a bunch of you guys grew up with this stuff. My fascination with fishing started with a neighbors Ranger boat and his gigantic tackle box.