Carl1969

I missed all of last year thanks to divorce, relocation & the ex stealing the little boat I had. This year though, will be a completely different story. Just brought home a new 20' pontoon set up for both fishing & cruising. My girlfriend loves being in & on the water, enjoys fishing & loves eating fish possibly even more than I do. She actually likes camping as well, so we're looking at spending at least every other weekend on the lake.

Figured I'd been gone so long & so much had changed, that I might oughtta do this again. I kinda fell off the edge of the world at the end of '22, due to a nasty divorce & relocation to the wrong side of the MO/KS state line. Ex also absconded with my little 15' tin can, so between the drama & lack of boat, I completely missed any fishing last year. But... I just bought a Suntracker Sportfish 20 DLX pontoon last week & will be picking it up next week. My girlfriend loves being in & on the water & enjoys fishing, so I expect we'll be on the water quite a bit going forward. Currently located in scenic Wyandotte county, so I expect I'll spend a lot of time on Hillsdale & Clinton. I'd really like to hit a few of the northern MO lakes known for their Bluegill & Redear. We'll hit Grand Lake pretty regular as well, since my girlfriend has a friend with a place on the lake down there & we both enjoy the area. Really just looking forward to getting back out on the water & start actually learning this fishing thing. This is shaping up to be a banner year.

Spend way more time on the water & see if I can't get the hang of this fishing thing. Completely missed last year, due to a nasty divorce & moving to the wrong side of the MO/KS state line. Didn't help that the ex absconded with my little 15' tin can, but I'm picking up a new boat on Wednesday & will be back out directly. Would love to catch a mess or two of crappie. A keeper sized Bluegill or Redear would be lovely. Getting into some whites or hybrids sounds like a good time. Past that, I'm just looking to get out & learn & have a good time.

I bought a new '07 as well, but 2wd. Long bed crew cab, 6spd manual. At 105K, it needed a new clutch & around 110K it needed a right front hub & driver's door power window relay died & took the switch block with it. Otherwise, just normal maintenance until the US 54 overpass at US50 froze two years ago & I bounced it violently between both barriers for about a quarter mile. Think it had 130K on it when I killed it. Solid truck & ran like new till the day it I wadded it up. Danged shame you can't hardly get a manual transmission in anything these days. Even disappearing in the smaller trucks & forget getting one in a half ton. I can figure out what gear I need without any computerized nanny & prefer to row my own.

Their Jalapeno Honey & Chocolate whiskies are great.

Used to drink a bunch of Drambuie the first couple years I was stationed in Germany. Good stuff, but just too expensive nowadays. BTDT. Lol! Used to be I couldn't slide down a mountainside with boards strapped to my feet unless I had a fifth of Yukon Jack in my day pack. Had to step away from them sweet whiskies though, after a particularly rough SoCo bender.

Not sure I want to even think about goals after this past year. Even having bought a small, used boat, each fish my wife & I caught this year cost us roughly $1100 a piece & not a keeper among them. I'd be over the moon just to catch a couple fish suppers, but at this point I don't know if I'm stupid & doing it wrong, or just have horrible luck.

I achieved #1, but my failure to achieve #s 4-6 tells me I failed at #s 2&3 as well. Don't know how I managed it, but every time I got on the water, it was too hot, rain too recent, water level just changed, you name a reason for fish not to bite & I was out on the water, burning gas & getting skunked that day. Half a dozen plus times each on Pomme & Truman & I caught 2 lousy fish, neither worth keeping. Tried getting back out in October when conditions should have been ideal & it was so windy my jumped up little jon boat was taking on water over the transom before I could even back away from the ramp. Said to hell with it & parked it for the year.

The summer I was 13 or 14, I had a Marlin .22 with a 4x scope & my grandfather's ponds had a crowd of big black bullfrogs. Big ol' mothers. Upon dressing them out, a few had BBs under their skin from my Crosman pellet gun from the previous summer. I'd lay on the dam, imagining myself a sniper & zap 'em from across the pond. Big pile of froglegs that year, but I've never seen that size or number of bullfrogs since.

Glad I'm not the only one who "fished" for frogs as a kid.

Do these things work? I've got a handful & absolutely no idea how to fish them.

We know that one or two males from each generation of the German fam came here from the 1820s-1890’s, with my g-g-grandpa being the last. No contact with them, though I see the names on FB. Even discovered a branch that went east & settled in Romania in the 1850’s. From what I’ve been able to dig up, we lost one in the Spanish-American War & 5 or 6 total on both sides of both World Wars.

23andMe says I'm roughly 45/45 German & Irish, with a smattering of NW European mutt. Figure the DoD's had my DNA since the early '90's & with 57 years remaining on my NDA, I figure I'm already on a couple lists. Dad's side, we were raised "German" & re-connected with our peeps in the old country in the mid 80's. Family traced back to some very minor nobility in the 16th century. My paternal grandfather's mother's people were Huguenots. My paternal grandmother's people were Irish, settled in MO & were divided & scattered by the War of Northern Aggression. Lots of soldiers, sailors & dirt farmers, more than a few drunks & one murderer. Otherwise no one really of note. Mom's side is a white trash dumpster fire. Lore was "we had Cherokee blood" & that turned out to be crap. Grandmother would divorce her current husband when she'd get knocked up with future ex husband's child & nobody knows for sure how many children my grandfather sired. To the best of my knowledge my mother has 8 sisters & a brother between 2 mothers & 3 fathers. A couple of childhood deaths, an attempted murder of one sister by another, one known child molester, 4 or 5 junkies & countless toxic parasites. Classy people, that crew. Parents split when I was 5, so with a vindictive mother who would burn photo albums out of spite & to deny those memories to anyone else & couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it, there's no telling what info or stories are lost forever or what untruths she told. The surest indication she's lying is the movement of her lips, so I just assume everything she says as a lie. Truth be told, it's probably just as well. Haven't spoken with my egg donor in over 10 years- I already know everything I need to about her & her people & that's more than I want to.

Holy smokes! Ol' girl's turnin' into a guitar slinger.

Every time. Wantin' deer & squirrels everywhere, taunting me, take a .22 out, intent on gettin' some tree rat for the stew pot & not a squirrel in sight.

I’ve been a Weird Al fan since the Doctor Demento days. Wanna say it was played around 10pm on Sundays on KY102. ‘83ish. For a weird 13 y/o, that was the funniest stuff I’d ever heard.

Served breakfast down at the Mason Lodge to mostly Vietnam & Korea era vets. One or 2 salty old WW2 bubbas as well. Always fun to swap war stories with the old silverbacks & it's nice to give back to the community. I enlisted in the Cold War Army & retired from the "Global War on Terror" Army & despite my best efforts, I missed out on every single conflict from Panama on & that with the 2nd half of my career on jump status as a PSYOPer. Always a case of my unit either not being sent, or deploying after accepting a different assignment. Did a lot of janky, plain clothes, classified stuff in Africa, but even being actively sought & targeted by the booger eaters, never once was I in a legit combat zone. I got orders authorizing wear of a combat patch for a central African boondoggle right before I retired, but never wore it. Too many friends saw the elephant up close & not all of them came home & I'd feel like a poseur for wearing a combat patch, like I was claiming something I hadn't earned. I've never been one of those "you're welcome for my service" dipwads. Maybe I endured & did some whacky, sometimes not fun stuff, but nobody made me do it. Hell, the Army paid for 2 college degrees & most of a third, enabled me to buy 3 houses & got to see the world on Uncle Sugar's nickel. I had a blast & the Army was the best vehicle available for me to escape my hyper-toxic home environment. So, yeah. I appreciate the sentiment, but it makes me uncomfortable to be thanked for my service. If a retailer offers a military discount, I will gladly take advantage of it, but I've never once partaken of any of the "vets eat free" deals on Veteran's Day. To be fair, I am very socially awkward & self conscious & compliments & gifts/freebies just make me really uncomfortable. Maybe it's also that for me, it's more a sense of personal accomplishment & self satisfaction- I did what I did for myself & my self alone.

I was always a tube amp guy till I quit playing. A good friend & monster player bought my '73 Marshall Superbass & traded my Boogie Single Rectifier head (with good glass- 7581As in the power amp & early '80's Chinese grey plate 12AX7s) with a VHT 2x12 cab for a full sleeve tattoo. Down in NC, I was fortunate to become friends with a handful of boutique amp builders & luthiers. Evil spirits live in electricity, so I don't poke around inside, but when your buddy who builds world class vintage Marshall clones with a 9-12 month waiting list lives just down the road, it was nice to be able to pop by & have him look over & go through my amps.

These guys are fun.

One of my favorite German bands.

First song I ever played live onstage, though not near so well as these guys.

This one's a lot of fun.

I’m a believer in buying the best glass you can afford. I ran $250-$300 scopes on my rifles, Leupold VX2s, Vortex Vipers & such. When I was putting together my SHTF AR, I sprung for a Steiner P4Xi for it. My heart sank immediately when I looked through it, as I realized optics were gonna start costing me a lot more money going forward. We’ve got a cheap set of old Simmons variable binos that are okay-ish for sitting on the porch watching wildlife, but I would really like to pick up something nicer.

Not even interested. Shot a buddy's 7 1/2" .44 Mag Ruger Redhawk one time. Just fine with any normal factory ammo, but with Buffalo Bore 340gr +P+, one round was enough. Shooting's not supposed to be an endurance test & if hot .41 Mag handloads from my Super Blackhawk Hunter won't get 'er done, I'm using a rifle.

I've always struggled with technology. I'm a points & carburetor, analog kinda guy floundering around with a buncha digital crap I can barely turn on, let alone do anything useful with 🙃 2 years on a nasty anti-malarial many years ago & an unhealthy number of concussions don't help, either.