Johnsfolly

@Ketchup We are pretty close 🤣😉 This next one was a hugger. Kneel down and open your arms and she would put her head on your shoulder for a hug. Wife was tired of giving me fishing stuff. She gave me this silky for our anniversary. I called here wooly bugger🤣

Rick we pick(ed) birds mostly based upon variety of egg coloration first then bird coloration. We have done a similar approach with our chicks. They usually don't go outside for several weeks. We want them to be fully feathered before they get added to the flock.

Dave are you going to try and ice fish those koi over the winter 😆

If I gave my wife that much room for the chickens, we would have 15 hens and counting...😅

We did have the Christmas lights for a few years on our coop in Missouri. Kept the hens laying at least a few eggs each week during the winter. We did not give them a tree 😅

Never decorated any chickens, but the rabbit or turtle 🙄

Nice smallie Jeff. Sounds like a good time. I haven't bass fished like that in years.

I can't wait to see the final product. Also, would love to try it out someday😉

When you waterfowlers are done with your seasons this looks like a great way to keep you retrievers in top condition. Take a trip with them to south Florida to retrieve iguanas😉

First deer for my wife and I. My buck and her doe.

You just have to stop catching giant brown trout and stick with 25 inch fish or less to keep down your taxidermy costs 😉😁

We celebrated our 27th year this year, but only married after living together for 10 yrs.

Someday I would like to get a reproduction of this guy including the pink clouser.

I agree. I think that it would be tough to get it sent back stateside after catching them in the UK 🤣😉.

I love photos of catches or kills, but also like more tangible memories. I do like taxidermy mounts when done well. We don't have many actual mounts. Most have been for "firsts" , e.g., deer, turkey, etc. My daughter enjoys looking at her first turkey display more so than just a photo in a frame. I like skulls and we do have a number of european skulls throughout the house. Much nicer than the photo of that stag 😉 I have set minimum sizes that I would consider for a replica mount that was dependent upon what was available in MO. Those were >6 lb trout, 4 lb smallmouth, and 7 lb largemouth. I came close with a 5 lb 4 oz brown trout just after telling my wife that 6 lbs was my minimum 🙄. The diorama style mounts like @Quillback posted to me are fantastic. I would definitely have one or two of those if I could afford one.

I have a INAT contact that is currently down in NC and he is catching more than a few species that would be lifers for me. That includes a blackcheek tonguefish. Who wouldn't want to catch on of these guys😁! At this point I just can't work out a way to get down there again before the end of the year. So those fish will likely end up as 2023 targets 😉.

That would be my guess as well.

With just a hair over one month more to go in 2022, posting an update (with lots of photos, but @snagged in outlet 3 is still AWOL). I case you didn't see my posts from North Carolina, I got a boost with four lifers and one specific target. I did fish the Eno river trying for roanoke bass, but didn't catch any. I technically met the goal of fishing for roanoke bass 😉. I did catch two lifers in the Eno and almost a third. Caught a few bull chubs I caught at least one white shiner. I half heartedly tried for some darters. It's possible that they were lifers, but I was focused more on snail bullheads or roanoke bass to commit a significant amount of time on the darters. I didn't catch a snail bullhead either 🙄. In Kit creek I caught a lifer flat bullhead, which partially satisfied my specific goal to catch two new lifer bullheads in 2022. I fished Town Creek near Germanton NC and was able to catch a couple of cresent shiners. These were one of the nicer fish that I caught during that trip. In November I have been targeting spots where I knew possible lifers were located. I have fished Fifteenmile creek three times previously trying for Potomac sculpin. I saw them on all three trips and lost several before I could get a photo. This fourth trip was a charm. I was finally able to hook up and get a P sculpin in the photo bag😁! Lastly, I was able to hook up with another lifer from a fairly local creek (actually across the street from one of my daughter's friends). I got intel from a contact from INAT and was successful in catching my 16th lifer of 2022, a spottail shiner. A second spottail. Lately I have been running out and fishing at night for additional lifers. I still have a few weeks left and hope to get at least two more lifers before the end of the year. I have some spots that may result in a banded sunfish, which would be one of the specific targets. I won't likely get the two that I had set out to catch before the end of the year. I will not be able to head south or to northern midwest states to where they live. I will not be able to get another bullhead species in 2022, since I will not be able to get down south again. There has been a recent split of the longear sunfish into multiple species. Going back through old photos we determined that I had caught one of the new species, a rio grande longear sunfish, Lepomis aquilensis. I have been looking at many of my minnow/shiner photos to see if any would be new species. I am also still trying to get confirmation of a couple of fish that I caught recently. Maybe those may end up as new species. I still have a few trips in mind and hope that the weather holds in my favor to be able to get to the 18 lifers that I had hoped for in 2022. More to come.. I hope 😉.

I'm a tin hatter on this one. Not that I would be likely to do anything that would warrant a DNA search. I still don't feel that I need a database having my DNA records.

You guys need to have a designated scribe/poster so that those of us living vicariously will be able to keep up to date on the festivities.

@Quillback and @Dutch congrats for getting out and trying to make it happen. You caught some fish even on a tough bite day. Still good to see OAF folks getting out and fishing together.

Congrats Ollie! Sounds like there was a fair amount of excitement during this year's OllieFest.

Looks delicious.

We all know that the moon landing was faked. It was filmed by Stanley Kubrick. However, it cost a tremendous amount of money. As Kubrick was a perfectionist, he demanded that they film on location!🤣