jdmidwest

Bantam roosters make great hackle for woolies. I used to pluck the ones at the farm from time to time. Now all we have is white roosters. The old ones were a nice furnace color, brown with black roots. Funny thing though, they never seemed to like it. But they survived, unlike the commercial ones.

This is true, but it is the first season that I have seen them in my garden here. Neighbor over the hill has started a grape vineyard, probably where they are coming from.

I bought the whole trap for $7.50 at the local Tru Value, bait is good for 6-8 weeks. Lowes, Wally, and other farm/home places did not sell this one locally. Emptied out another sack of bugs today. It emits a smell like citronella but not exactly. I could smell it carry in the wind, and so did the bugs. When you dump the bag, wash it out or the ziplock does not work well. The bugs are smelly after they spend time as a group in there defecating.

I like fresh squash from the garden coated in olive oil and seasoned with Cavender's Seasoning on the grill. Some new red potatoes chunked with the skin on, broccoli, vidalia onion, Mrs. Dash and butter wrapped in foil and cooked over the coals is always nice. Fresh corn on the cob, silk removed but the shuck retained, buttered then cooked over charcoal is nice.

Saddle hackles come from the same chickens as better grade neck hackles, just farther down the chicken on the back. Saddle hackles are generally longer, webbier, and softer in normal birds. It is the feathers that trail down the back and curl under the wings. Genetic breeding like the Whiting farms has created high grade saddle hackles that are good for tying dry flies in 10-16 range and rate a premium price. Prime dry fly hackle used to come from the neck area of the chicken. Strung hackle does fine in the larger sizes, cheap India or Chinese hackle does the same too. Smaller buggers can be tyed with nicer hackle or cheap hackle of bigger size and trimmed to fit. Both usually create the same effect for fishing.

Was visiting with a friend in town Friday and he showed me his new purchase. It was a Japanese Beetle Trap made by the RESCUE! company. Neat little device with a funnel and a phermone type bait station. Beetles show up and hit the trap and fall in what looks like a big ziplock bag that you can dump and reuse. The bait is supposed to last several weeks. Having seen something eating on my okra and beans, I bought one for $7.50 to see what I could catch. I set it out and walked down to the garden about 10 minutes later to see them already swarming the bag. This morning I dumped the trap into a walmart bag, tied it off, and sit it the sun to bake. I went out and bought another. I have another 2 bags full this evening. These things really work. Resue Beetle Trap.

Put that lipoma on a big treble hook and catch a nice big catfish with it....

Living within your means always helps when it comes to paying the bills.

Whoops, got into this one late. How about "survival of the fittest" and cut off all public aid to welfare? I personally write on my tax forms each year that my dollars I pay in are only for conservation use only....do not send any to welfare. Either pull your own weight or go somewhere else.

C'mon Al, nobody likes a good looking corpse... I just sharpened a pocket knife, maybe Gavin can donate the Scotch, and we can work on that Lipoma. I was pre med in college and I don't think I have killed all of those brain cells yet. Good to hear all is good.

Interesting. I use mine every day for something or other. Fishing, I have used the scale to measure a fish from time to time. I get a better grip to debarb a hook than I can with hemostats. The saw blade has cut limbs and gotten lures out of trees. The screwdrivers have fixed reels and other stuff. File to sharpen hooks.

Alot depends on the fly you will be using. Typically 4x or 5x would do just fine. The water is probably still off color and fish will not be tippet shy. You will probably fishing streamers or big nymphs.

Interesting thought about the break in period and the Leatherman's. The old tools did require a lot of action to make them smooth as silk like a butterfly knife. But then they changed the design with the current production tools that roughed up the jaw mechanism and you really can't break them in. The pliers are sticky even after some dremel work. But the new blades lock. The Gerber design always pinched my fingers when closing them down close like on a hook to debarb them. The butterfly design leaves a wider gap between the grips.

I have used multipliers for years starting out with a Leatherman PST back in the late 80's. For my wedding, I bought my groomsmen Gerber Multipliers for their services and they still use them to this day. After a while, I have become a collector of multitools. I have amassed a collection of most of the retired Leathermans, several Gerber's, Buck, Stanley, and misc others that have caught my eye due to their construction. While fishing, I carried the PST. Then the PST II came out with scissors and a diamond hook sharpener. Then the Wave with more goodies, but it was heavy, it became my EDC tool. I bought a Sideclip for fishing, it was minimal and had a pocket clip. But it lacked a file, and it became discontinued so its value increased. I carry a Blast everyday now, I like its rounded handles and its good selection of blades. I have a Skeletool in the fishing box and a Kick with a pocket clip on the vest. I just purchased a new/used PST II for fishing with the diamond hook sharpener and plan to modify it with a pocket clip for fishing. Sitting around bored tonight and was wondering what everyone else used for pliers while fishing.

Checking the net tonight and reading the MDC News. New article titled "Public invited to fish MDC's Duck Creek CA ponds before drained for renovations". The old heart skipped a few beats whilst the slow butt internet proceeded to load. Digging into the article and following the link to the Duck Creek Blog site revealed the Ponds to be drained. Thankfully, it is not Main Pool 1 where the good fishing is, it is the private lake fishery they acquired a few years back out by the road. Probably some good fish in there, I fished it a couple of times for catfish when I was a kid. Anyone looking for a good fish fry should show up and take the spoils before they spill out into the fields. Free For All Fish at Duck Creek Lakes.

I saw those also on the website, local shop does not carry them inhouse. He has a few of the swimbaits and the yabbies in several sizes. The website has some great looking baits and shipping is reasonable.

A local shop has started carrying some of the River2Sea lures and I picked up a pack of the Stand'n Yabbies to try them out. Nice little crawdad jig that I thought may do the trick. 5 for $4.99 seemed a little steep, but its only money. Tried them on the Big River Sunday in the heat of the day when the bite slowed down and wow did they do the trick. You need to pinch the barb because the fish inhale them. Several fish tossed them on the way in because they were latched on so hard I could not set the hook. They do come apart pretty easy, bluegill like to pluck the eyeballs off and tear off the pinchers, but they still work after they are mutilated. Had several Green Sunfish that were tough to get the lure out of their mouth, they stuffed it in pretty good. Bass would hit it as soon as it hit the water sometimes. River2Sea Website

75 seems about right. With fuel the way it is, they just pass it along. We rented a canoe at 2 Rivers a few weeks back to go from Eminence to 2 Rivers, 47 bucks. There is a campground in town below the MDC access that will take you most anyplace if you camp there and have a group. Last few years we had enough for 8 to 10 boats and they would shuttle us up to Akers if we wanted to for regular price. We did Akers to Pulltite a few years back, scenery is nice, river can be crowded this time of year because of vacations. Several trout in the first part then smallies here and there. Go to Round Springs if you want a 2 day and take your time.

We had to go thru a tricky spot yesterday on the Big River, a low steel bridge crosses the river and you normally lay out in the boat and drift under. The water was still up and I could not make it thru on the sit on top, so I backpaddled out of the hole to the bank. When I stepped out, I spotted a nice thick 4 footer heading up the bank to a clump of willows next to the front of my boat. He dislodged of the biggest bullfrogs I have seen in a while out of the clump and sent him sailing over the front of the kayak. That caught me off guard, never saw that one coming. Thankfully, I was already out of the boat, but was still waist deep in water trying to line up the boat to send it under the bridge. I probably would have bailed if that frog had landed on my lap.

Try a can of Cheap Tuna Cat Food or just Cheap Tuna. Poke a few holes in the can and they will come running. The scent trail draws them in.

I'd book one of them Alaska to Michigan float trips but I don't think there would be much fishing.

That must be a hard day's shuttle between the 2......

Experience..

Did you get the one I sent last week??

There have been several pieces of malware running around in the last year that pops up and says your computer is infected and installs a fake antivirus or repair tool. Ahout the only way to defeat it is to start in safe mode and run a cleaner or zap it with a boot disk or usb drive. One handy tool I use comes from this website called Combofix, My Bleeping Computer. . There are several boot iso files from Kasperskylab and Dr Web Cure it that create boot cd's with a linux shell that will let you remove viruses, delete autoruns, and fix mbr's that have been damaged. You really should not have to toss your computer. If all else fails, fdisk and format the drive and reinstall Windows and programs and you should be back to day one when you bought the computer.