ness

I agree with that sentiment 100 percent. And, it applies to other things as well. Where it gets muddied up is when you don't have to make those choices -- because the safety net is too large. I've noodled this over a lot, and I really don't have a solution. About the best thing I've come up with is that the current healthcare model is severely broken in many ways. Just look around you: -- New hospitals are being built like crazy. The one I worked at for my first job was closed, and a new one built a few miles down the road. They look like palaces. -- Costs are out of control -- even the most basic procedure can be tens of thousands of $. -- Drugs are the new treatment -- everything is treated with drugs. -- Drug companies are making so much they can afford to be crooked. Pfizer has paid close to $3 billion in fines, Merck $1 billion, Glaxo $3 billion, J&J $1 billion for illegal marketing, fraud, kickbacks to prescribers. -- Medical malpractice awards are crazy. -- Medicare fraud is rampant. Things is jacked up.

...yet your avatar is a pirate. Hmmmm.

Loved him peeling line off the top of the reel. 'If you don't hear it snapping, you're not doing it right.' 'I think Brad Pitt said it best, 'I am haunting in water'"

I hear they're super easy to catch during the spawn.

Cool! Does it have the compass in the stock and this thing which tells time?

What are you, like 6-8, 6-9? That put's it at about 12 inches.

Sweet looking little stream there.

If I'm not in the mood for a little hand-to-hand, I'll just use the cyanide dart umbrella I picked it up at a KGB flea market back in the 80's.

Hey, smarty pants -- cut me some slack, I've been busy! BTW -- I've caught wild browns in the Driftless area -- so that's no news to me.

I thought maybe I recognized the road along Bear Creek in the photos, and when you said camping, I thought of Highlandville. That general store there is great. Not sure if they're the same folks as the campground, but awful nice and helpful. Interesting to hear on the corn -- southern IA hasn't been as lucky from what I'm hearing.

And get a lanyard for it. As my daughter can attest -- "waterproof" isn't the same as "floats".

Tim -- I had to look that up. I knew the name Aldo Leopold, but didn't know why, nor had I heard of Sand County Almanac. Got it on the wish list now.

Sweet! I love it up there. That's a nice fish in the picture. I'm always impressed with the vast amounts of corn they grow up there. How did it look? Edit: Just read the blog post -- very nice. Do you mind sharing where you camped?

Save your sheckles and buy a waterproof some day.

Sweet! Looks like a nice setup you've got there. The pine beetle damage catches my eye. Dang.

Sweet! Now go do it again

Congratulations! You should celebrate by having a cig -- just one wouldn't hurt right?? DON'T FREAKIN' DO IT MAN! Seriously -- one day at a time, man. Not today. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

Geez, you've been busy as your beez! You're starting to make this cool-sounding hobby sound like a lotta work!

Chesters is really good stuff, but they closed the one near us after about a year operating in a gas station/convenience store. My cussed Garmin told me there was one in a truck stop in Colby, KS a couple weeks ago. I dragged my whole family in there knowing they'd all love it. It was gone and we had to settle for some other junk.

Old guns, Justin...old guns. Same problems as the new, but they don't look so freakin' gay. Go get a nice, old Browning A5 with a little character, and cuss it when the shell doesn't eject. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing you're one in a long line of people that have cussed that classic duck gun. You'll be holding a masterpiece in your hands, designed by a true genius -- that's reason enough to have it. Later, you can call them grandbabies over close to the wood stove and show them an old Field and Stream with YOUR gun in the illustration on the cover in the hands of a true sport . You can tell them of the old days with handmade cork decoys, and flocks of mallards so thick you could take your pick of the plump drakes when they set their wings. You gotta be thinking long-term here, man!

I like them pickled -- that's about it.

I tried a new hybrid banana pepper -- Sweet Spot 3XR -- against my old standby Sweet Banana. It has produced very nice, thick-walled, straight peppers to about 10 inches since mid-July. Sweet Bananas, Anaheims and Poblanos have been a bust. I reassessed the cukes today, and they just need to come out. Added all the 2-year old compost to the beds today. Gonna start some carrots, bush beans and beets outside tomorrow night.

YEah -- this season started out soooo good, but the heat and drought were too much for my beans and some of my maters. We were out of town for a week, and the hired help didn't keep things watered enough so I pulled a bunch out yesterday. I'm getting things ready for fall now -- starting some lettuce indoors, cleaning up the beds, amending the soil. Hoping the recent cool nights will turn things back on. Haven't had a mater in two weeks.

There you go, moguy1973. Good old PB&J is hard to beat. Throw in a couple apples, or whatever fruit is looking good. Sometimes I'll put together a good sandwich with all the fixins if it's a full day. If it's gonna be overnight and/or a few people along, I'll get some of my baby brother's BBQ to reheat over the fire.

With Lily Lake right on the highway, a large parking lot, a handicap-accessible loop trail, and every piece of park literature touting it as full of greenbacks -- guess what? But, one of the most exciting fishing experiences I've ever had was in a canoe on Lily Lake one evening with a massive spinner fall going on -- surrounded by cruising, slurping cutthroats. You'd try to figure out the fish's trajectory, and lay a fly in it's path. I'm sure I didn't have the place to myself, but I don't recall anybody else being out there. And it certainly wasn't fishing in a parking lot. To each his own, I guess. I've found that being willing to get up a little earlier, stay out a little later or walk a little farther will help you avoid folks.