Lancer09

In the last two weeks my garden has gone crazy setting actual fruits. Particularly the tomatoes. I have yet to get a full size tomato from the garden and only a few cherry tomatoes.. that's with 12 tomato plants. the 2 week surge in growth is directly correlated with me purchasing a new air gun and clearing out 20 squirrels from the back yard in those two weeks. Birds are a lot happier on the feeders now too. I'll keep and eat a few when it cool;s off. Righ tnow they are just pests and half of them are getting popped as I step out to head to work.

I just think when I see people hold fish that big like that.. "how are they ever going to get the smell out of those clothes?"

Garden is doing good. Got some of the small heirlooms finally starting to set some fruit. The hybrid maters have been for a while but the squirrels had been eating everything. a few weeks, lots of frustration. Netting the whole garden in, and a pellet gun I'm finally starting to see some actual fruit! Tomatoes, melons, squash, zuchini, watermelon, peppers galore.. all finally starting to put fruit out now. I think the squirrels were getting it a whole lot worse than I realized.

I never really figured the blue out. no real hatches, lot of pumping water, lot of fishing in the city, it was the "I've gotta kill some time while everyone gets ready" fishing for me. had a few rises on some small stimulators but that was about it.

Stayed up in Silverthorne. Spent some time there, Breck, Leadville, Glenwood, and basalt!

Last year around September, my Grandfather's 85th birthday he decided that he just couldn't use his bass boat any more. It was one of his prized possessions. He grew up dirt floor poor, served, came back to small town MO and served as a principal and guidance counselor. Money was never something was in abundance and he spent years fishing out of small aluminum jon boats while he saved up for his fiberglass boat. I was beyond ecstatic that he asked me to take it, clean it up, and catch some fish out of it. I've many memories as a kid in it, now I'll make some more as an adult and eventually, hopefully some memories with my own kids. We got it down to the lake and after a few hours of cleaning, scrubbing, shampooing, waxing and buffing we got her ready for some fishing time. My brother sat in the front pedestal and drank a bunch of beer while he worked on his tan. The last few years instead of Christmas presents for all of the kids my dad and his "wife" decided they would start booking a house in various locations across the country for a week every year and all we had to do was get ourselves out there. This year was Colorado. I spent a lot of time working leading up to heading west but when I sat down on the deck for a few beers after nearly 12 hours in the car.. We had a pretty darn good view. We did some fishing, hiking, rafting, little bit of everything touristy. Sure I would have preferred an all fishing trip, but it was a pretty darn good time. I guess I have to make plans to point the car west again.

More of a drive, but I'd just as soon head out the direction of West Yellowstone and spend some time out there.

My wife is a kindergarten teacher up in that area (Fort Osage). About half their school serves a government subsidized housing project and about the same percentage is on Free and Reduced. Pretty amazing some of the stories that I hear from there.

Did she win?

For you mater people. Ive got 5 better boys in, 1 rapunzel cherry, 1 cherokee purple and two pink brandywines in the beds and the rest of tge yard. What are some preferred heirloom varieties?

Finally got a good mix of dirt into the beds from last summer. Swung by the nursery and picked up various stuff that we are going to give a go. Mix of broccolis, lettuc, brussell sprouts, peppers. buncha crap. Tomatoes go in this week.

That little blemish means TFO won't honor the warranty.... bit of a steep asking price for that then.

So did you see any stripers? Since people seem to think they are going to over populate the rainbows now that the darn is gone.

If I was in the market for a boat I'd be looking at one of them stealthcrafts. Great boat..

My Crocus made it through this... first flower bloom started popping yesterday. My grape Hyacinths have been going crazy too. Got about half of them at full bloom already. Wonder how those will go. Tulips are about to sprout up real big also. Right now they are opening up already.

Just worry about how much flare you want. Tie with different parts of the tail to see how they react to get what you want. Smaller amounts will still give bulk. If you use too much hair it's going to be too stiff to collapse down on itself.

If you can do synthetics you can do bucktail. Biggest difference is thread tension and not over doing the bucktail. Just decide if you are tying in flat, reverse or hollow flared and your good.

All craft fur? If you can try something similar with bucktail in the body. Gives you more bulk for a similar weight. It will cast easier and probably have better movement. That much craft fur usually collapses on itself and doesn't have the stiffness to give much wiggle. But go throw it and see if you like the action!

Didymo isn't in taney, and it's not as if taney is a bunch of slippery shelf rock. it's predominately gravel. Felt wouldn't be any better there than anything else. Just wear studded boots if you are that worried about it.

I'm a big fan of my Behemoth. For the money they are darn hard to beat.

Since ducks are done up here in the middle zone I'm zoned in on the geese now so the idea of the spreads I at least don't have to worry about movement on the water. Since I'm only running with 9 shells I've been using a loose J or U shape with the wind sock decoy to a side coming in to keep the landing area open. I've been trying to orient them so that the geese can land into the wind, and still not have to drop on over top of all the others. Typically they are flying north to south so I know they aren't seeing me, and they can't/won't until they would be directly in front of me at 20 yards with how far back I am in some brush. I have trees that extend completely over the top of my head, plus the camo they aren't catching me that way at least. I'll just keep giving them a go until I figure it out.. then I have to figure out how to cook one.

For the last three years I've thought about getting into waterfowl hunting. This year I did. Two and a half years ago my dad sold his lake place down at Truman. In the back shed were a dozen duck decoys, a mix of mallards, pintails, woodies, teal, and 9 goose shells. Out doing some Christmas shopping I decided to grab my tags and make my focus the geese as I have longer to hunt them versus the ducks, and any duck I would bag would just be gravy on my biscuits. My father-in-law and I went out one morning, set some decoys and had a ridiculous day. I was terrible on my shiny new goose call and pretty much scared everything away. I've been hunting a family's farm pond of about 10 acres that is a roosting pond for anywhere from a dozen to 10 dozen geese each night. I can't get to it and set up without spooking them so they aren't really the birds that I'm hunting hard. That first morning we saw nearly 800 geese as they were constantly flying over for 4 straight hours out of range. He ended up bagging a gadwall. My terrible calling and poor decoy placement scared every goose off before we could get a shot, and the only ones we attempted were those who came from behind and couldn't see how bad anything was. A few more days of practice on the call and research on how to set up a small spread of decoys I went back again.. nothing, and not a lot of birds moving. I decided that I'd hunt the next day as well, and again a slow day. I had to work so I got there early and had to start picking up by 930 so that I could be at work by 10. Close to pick up time the first goose of the day comes over my spread and I hit the call. That goose darn-near broke his neck turning, two laps over the pond and heads back my way. I backed off a call and as soon as I saw it cupping those wings to come in and land I knew I had him. Stand up. Click. Bottom barrel of the over under didn't go off. I swear I saw goose give me the finger as it flew away. I squeezed off the top barrel and hit it but couldn't bring it down. His-posterior is going to be cold when he sits down in some cold water with all the feathers I took off of him. So I've now figured out that if I'm aiming above parallel to the ground my bottom barrel firing pin isn't hitting with enough power to set off the primer, and it cost me a bird with that first shot at 35 yards. Time to start hunting with the pump gun. Fast forward a few days, and $125 in bass pro gift cards for a wind sock decoy to give some movement, a duck call, a box of shells and a few other odds and ends and I'm pretty deep now. A few hunts. Birds working me a little bit but just not liking something so I keep changing it up and every hunt I'm getting them a little bit closer. Yesterday. Freaking birds everywhere. I sat down at 8, first birds at 815, and never went more than 10 minutes without birds coming over the pond, but CONSTANTLY flaring off of my spread at about 80 yards. I had them right there! What was going wrong?!?!?! I haven't been hunting in a blind but tucking back beneath a cedar and a locust tree. They aren't seeing me so I know that's not the problem, so what is it? As I start collecting decoys I realized that one of the decoys out of my view had flipped and was laying on its side, and I know that the moment the geese would "turn the corner" to come in and land they saw that decoy laying on it's side and changed course. I have just under a month left. I'm going to get my bird even if its in the 11th hour.

We bought a house last spring and had a bunch of Family from both sides over. Wife did a big ol 20 pound bird, We smoked 2 racks of ribs, and I did a venison tenderloin. Plenty of other stuff as well. This is my favorite way to eat venison. Sure seems and tastes fancy, but is actually really easy and doesn't take that much time. Thaw that venison in red cooking wine. Coat that bad boy in a mix of Shallots, Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme. Cook in butter in the Cast Iron with a spring of rosemary and garlic cloves. Baste while it cooks Hot on 3 minutes per side. 7 to 8 minutes in the oven at 350. Top with a red wine reduction sauce.

I didn't have a pm from anyone looking for an address. I have about half of my flies done. Assuming everyone still wants to be in this, Christmas is a better date for me so I can get them mailed out the week between then and the first week of January. Thanks All.

I ought to probably get started...