Johnsfolly

Over the last couple of weeks a few things occurred. The Gov allowed us to use masks to go out an fish for food at first then recreationally. The weather began to favor warming up the local lakes and the rain held off for a couple of days each week. So we got out and did chase some sunfish. Mostly using microjigs, like a John Deere from Weaver tackle shop, trout/panfish magnets, and even a redworm on a 1/64 oz jig head under a float was employed. The fish below represent a few different trips and a few different locations. At our local lake we were able to catch the three predominant sunfish, bluegill, redear, and pumpkinseed sunfish. Not in the numbers that I have caught in the past, but enough to feel like you had a good day of fishing. Livie did lose what looked to be a fat 16 to 17 inch bass right at the bank, but that another story. This bluegill (mine) and redear (Livie's) hit the John deere microjig. The redear in this lake really get dark in coloration during the spawn some much darker than Livie's fish. Lately I have been taking the family down to a place called Porter's crossing on the Pocomoke river. This spot has shad and some striper run past this spot to spawn. Due to COVID we were not able to travel here for the main shad run. On our first trip another gentleman caught three while we were fishing there. None for us. Though we did land bluegill, redbreast, and pumpkinseed sunfish. Livie's largest redbreast sunfish. Livie's nice bluegill (my hand for size comparison ). One of Livie's pumpkinseed sunfish. I was trying for mud sunfish and redfin pickerel at this location. No mud sunfish. I did catch this small pickerel and was somewhat disappointed that it was just a chain pickerel ( I caught three others on another trip while fishing for the sunfish). Livie has not landed one, but she had one on for a while. We will go back armed for pickerel and get her that first one ! After our last trip to Porter's we drove to a park downstream where we have caught a variety of catfish on past trips. I was fishing a trout magnet under a float in a boat access channel off of the main river. After one cast I had two hits on my float. Thinking that there should be pickerel and may be snakeheads in this area, I switched to a special bait sent to me by a good friend. I also let Livie fish it first. This bait is better cast with a fly rod, but we only had the spin gear on this trip. Livie did get the cast length that she needed to have the bait go past where the fish hit my float. She missed the first topwater bite. Made a second cast and this fish pounced on that topwater bait. Never would have expected a black crappie on a @BilletHead French fry!

My line managers/supervisors often lack empathy when they feel that their voice or thoughts are not being heard to their specifications. Getting them to see another person's point of view or understand that person's circumstances can be and often is one of my bigger challenges in this new lab.

The age of entitlement is the degradation of common courtesy!

@ThisFish if you live close enough to fish BSC often, I would suggest spending a trip just exploring the creek and don't fish. Find which pools runs have fish and which don't. If you can watch them without spooking them figure out where they might be on a return trip. Then you should have a game plan as to which pools you can walk by and which ones you need to sneak into to catch a fish. How are you casting to these fish?

Nice job sir! Good looking crappie!

Nice browns! Pretty neat to catch out your dad's old boat.

we have been seeing a lot of catch cook videos and posts on OAF where fish were fried with fins and tails on. Livie and I wanted to try it. She also wanted me to get back on the catfish horse as well. A few days ago we fished a spot where we have caught white, blues, and channel cats. I caught a couple of 10 inch whites and tossed them into cooler. Livie caught a 16 inch blue. My wife threw in an 8 inch bluegill for good measure. I fileted the bluegill and the blue. The whites got skinned and heads cut off. I mixed up my favorite breading mix. I fretted over this meal since my last two attempts at catfish sucked. So a lot was riding on this. I trimmed some more yellowish meat from the blue filets. All of the fish got flour, egg, breading, and oil treatment. We did enjoy eating the tail and fins from the whites. Everything tasted great. No photos but I suspect we will try to do our part thinning out more of those invasive blue cats😁.

Just missing a sneeze shield🙄. Seriously a great looking spread!

Greatest words that you can hear from our kids😁! Congrats to you both on some nice fish! Great job dad to keep taking her out!

No photos so it must not have happened🤔!?! Sounds like a better morning than many buddy. Congrats!

It's all ball bearings these days...😂

Great looking trout! Congrats! Seth and DJ are likely to wish that they were down there this week. Who am I kidding, they would love to be down there everyweek😁!

Simple breakfast today. Folly farm fresh eggs with garden basil. Topped with hot ham and Swiss.

Man that sucks Mitch! Hopefully you get adequate compensation.

We have a small local pond that have four or five 4 to 6 lb Koi. Very spooky fish since it's likely that most folks are throwing something at them. I personally have not really tried for them. The common carp yes, but not the koi. Now if you were in SW MO there's a guy that might be able to hook you up with a koi outing.

Cool catches, but a dilemma on whether to release them back into the pond. I have only caught one goldfish between 9 and 10 inches, which was in Hickory Creek in Neosho MO. Caught it on a similar size jig with a white chenille body. I did release that fish back into the creek.

I looked and found a couple of online (grain of salt) references that state that auto manufacturers are obligated to supply parts through the length of the longest warranty period. If that is the case here then 7 years from now parts manufacturing could be discontinued as well.

I seem to recall a conversation where a similar situation was discussed and particularly the length of time that a certain manufacturer was obligated to maintain a supply of parts. It seemed to me that time frame was based upon the time that the equipment would become obsolete or no longer than 5 or 10 yrs whichever came first. I certainly would not expect in f here circumstances that parts would be available indefinitely.

My wife has been using the Griswold to make Dutch baby pancakes. Topped them with a little powdered sugar and strawberry slices. Like a thicker crepe.

I'll have to check around here. Here is what we found two summers ago. Too dry last spring/summer. This year has been wet. Just for perspective the large fan in the middle was over 8 inches across. Delicious. Love Don's chuckwagon beer batter and cocktail sauce on these guys which learned from the master himself !

Bear meat is delicious. I think that it is a sweeter meat than beef. Do need to cook it well done since they still can carry trichinosis.

@BilletHead would call that the killing field😉. Looks like squirrel and dumplings to me.

Oh and I would recommend leather work gloves when handling a full cage. Especially when the critters knock off the plate below the trap handle. Or if they pull the handle off and you have to hold the front of the cage to carry it.

We had a big feral cat problem many years ago. I started trapping them back then. Used the dog food and always placed the bait well in the back of the trap. Would position the cage front in a spot where they usually walked. Often would block the back to keep them from digging behind the cage.. Caught lots of those darn cats actually 22 in about 18 months. Raccoons were an issue with our chickens. To catch them only I would take some wire and make a spiral that I would smear with peanut butter and twist the wire.to the top of the trap again behind the trigger plate. Caught nine raccoons while trapping those cats. Using dog food also caught seven opossums. They are nasty critters. Stink and full of worms. The raccoons and opossums would take along ride and I released them live. The coons would snarl and hiss a lot but always ran straight away once let go. Stopped trapping for a year or so until a raccoon killed my silkie hen. At that time MDC allowed lethal control on raccoons affecting our chickens. I would set the trap on Thurs since Friday was our trash pick up. Caught another seven raccoons before we left for MD. Good luck on catching a few.

A couple more soaks with the oven cleaner got rid of the last bit of carbon off the no name #7 skillet. Seasoned with four coats of vegetable shortening. Now we just need to use it and build its seasoning for years to come.