BilletHead

Congrads Gramps! BilletHead

Dang it Russ! Will do as requested friend. TheBilletHead's

They like French fries and dropped the bomb on them too. Much bigger than yesterday too. That is all I got to say BilletHead

High muddy water has kept the BilletHead's at bay. Not really wanting to fight the elements been staying close to home. Yard and garden work and in free time carving some new poppers plus some experimental carving and painting. Finally the break we were hoping for with promises of clearer water. It was up at four AM, hit the road at five AM. Launched at five forty-five for the long trip to an undisclosed location hoping for the best. Fly rods built ready for possible action. Then we seen the first top water action. I started off with one of my new creations. Several slashes but they were behind missing the bait. Then a spotted bass connected. Stink off. Missed more boils and decided to tie on a shuttlecock and first cast hook up! Big white bass, next cast what we were looking for, Messed a bit more when Mrs. BilletHead connected using a half and half clouser, Made a run further up but sun creeping on the water only yielded a white for the Mrs. So back to original starting place where we seen a few more boils. Tied on another new carve. Missed five hits or should I say the fish missed five times? So this new fly rod bait will be forever called the French Fry. Why you ask? I will go back a few years when I made a trip to the White River in Arkansas. Was with a guy who set a friend and I on some browns on reds. The browns were feeding while there. I threw most everything I had when the guy said keep with it. He said it is like this. Say one guy has some french fries.Passes the fries across the fellow in the middle. This makes the guy in the middle mad and soon he is going to intercept one of those fries whether he really wants one of not. So as I kept throwing to this likely spot hoping that fish would take that balsa bait. Even discussed this with the Mrs. Then it happened it took it good. Not the biggest fish but we were happy. If weather cooperates the fish should get bigger, So take it to heart when things seem frustrating just keep casting that French Fry to where you know that fish is he just might take it. . So here are the new items. First one. I was looking at color schemes as I sometimes get a bit blank painting. Looking at tiny torpedoes http://www.tacklecollecting.com/TinyTorpedoCOLORtestforPDF.pdf I came across this. Decided I need to make one for the fly rod. I found it hard to carve in the round uniform but did it. Bad thing is it looks more like an old WW2 bomb. Thus "Da Bomb" was born. Casts great on the eight weight, much more easy to lift out of the water to cast than the cupped face popper. Round head really pushes the water and the little prop makes it sputter. This caught the Spotted Bass and missed some Hybrids. B10 hook with a bit of modification, Next a Trio of French fries. Top to bottom 2/0 , 1/0 and size 1 popper hooks. Angle of the photo is hard to tell but the bodies are smaller corresponding with hook size. These little jewels are easy casting.Sputter and twitch on the surface and if you can get the slanted face to bite on a fast strip a wiggle just under the surface, Then the batch of standard poppers freshly made, And then I leave you with the Mrs. laying out a cast, BilletHead

Romaine will be next Snagged . BilletHead

Pretty cool you are keeping us informed on the records being broke John. I had the record Black buffalo for a few years. Shot it Bowfishing. in the upper 30 pound range. Broke twice since then. Broke bigtime . I will see if I have a picture of a much younger BilletHead with one of those fish, scan it and put in on here if it can be found in the ancient BilletHead's photo archive. Many moons before the digital age, BilletHead

You don't know until you try Ronnie but I will take your word on the deep fried sammich . BilletHead

Still eating here in BilletHeadVille, Just have not tried much new. I did try grilling lettuce though and was very happy with the results. Used a head of the ruby glow we grew. Split it lengthwise, olive oil and salt and pepper. Got the gas grill smoking hot and pitched them on. A few minutes on each side. Drizzled with balsamic vinegar and proceeded to chow down. Great! Even the bitter core was good to eat. Warm but still crunchy. This was my lunch one day. Did a couple more for dinner last night for the Mrs. and I. Mrs. BilletHead approved . Really does not look tasty but I assure you it is, BilletHead

Congrads Mitch! The BilletHead's

I second that and most of our Mom's have put up with our shenanigans at times! Thanks Mom's out there, BilletHead

Boy Ness you gonna to shrivel up and blow away? Is that fine lady working the weight off of you? I ave a good support system too. I lean on her a bunch. You should of seen the two of us changing the blades on the rider mower. This one good arm thing is the berries. Glad I have good help and she likes to push mow and run the weed eater . Tho1mas, We are also beginning to turn green. I want to say I am sick of eating fresh lettuce but you know we will miss it when it is gone. Have just went out and grazed on it right in the garden, of course standard and wilted salads. Every sammich too. May try grilling some ? Mrs. says she is just going to slice one of those ruby red heads in half, drizzle dressing on it. I said I am going to throw my halves on the grill real quick then off and dressing. I got a stupid look out of her. BilletHead

Same place, two days one wading and one in the kayak. First morning 5-5 Thursday. 51 air temp when I got there. North West wind. Slipped on the waders and strung up the fly rod. Walked up to the pond dam and looked down the bank. Swirls up and down. Bass chasing bluegill up and down the shore. I could actually see bass backs chasing the bluegill out of the water. I thought this is going to be good and it was. Tied on a big shuttlecock. Had a tough time with accuracy casting the wind resistant thing. I was in the water along parallel to the dam casting into the wind. I could get the line shooting fine but as my line straightened out the leader would not turn over the shuttlecock right. UM need a bigger stick . Still managed fish on the shuttlecock until I broke it off in a fish. I know, I know a better knot and the right drag setting it shouldn't of happened. Instead of going back to truck and getting another shuttlecock I just tied on an articulated worm. This simple fly is the cat's meow or the bees knees you might say. It is the real deal. In a fifty yard stretch I landed a dozen and had another six come unbuttoned. Pretty fun hour and a half. I just slowly walked watching ahead for action. Shot the fly in the general area of that action. Swirls and instant takes if I hit the sweet spot if not there would be a streak and waves to the fly and then the take. Three photos from day one, Mouth full of shuttlecock. Face shot with the articulated worm. Day two 5-6 Friday morning. Air temp at start 57. South West wind. Got unloaded and slipped in the kayak. Strung up the rod and seeing fish working in a pocket of shallow water put on a BilletHead balsa popper. Did not even get into the kayak yet. Made a cast standing next to the truck into the pocket, one strip of the line gave me one pop and smash it took the popper, The morning went uphill from here. Tied on the articulated worm paddled around and worked the bank. Pretty much as the day before looked for action and worked them over. Did catch some blind casting to structure also. Did try a billetHead slider before quitting and caught three on it. Hard to see but you could see fish cruising along the bank. Right in the middle of the photo next to the moss there is one. Should of had the better camera with the polarized lens, Got pretty windy and this caused the fescue pollen to fill the air, I began to snot and sneeze. Gave it up very satisfied, BilletHead

A bit of the BilletHead garden update. Tomatoes and peppers growing great. Second planting of lettuce under tomatoes and peppers are trying to out grow the pepper plants. Soon will need to pick it before it takes the sunshine away from the plants. Lots of blooms on plants too. Have not seen any baby tomatoes yet but we do have baby peppers. The BLT bed. The pork part is not growing fast enough The little piggy is hiding in the salad. Should we have planted some beans here too? You know pork and beans? Lettuce taking over the pepper plants. Baby peppers. And finally the lettuce bed. Need to get these few left picked tomorrow. Gave away three more heads to the neighbors. Will re till and we are going to plant some cucumbers in this bed. BilletHead

Time to revisit "Project Chestnut", Looking good here in BilletHeadville. Compare to August 2014 photos above. We have catkins on some of the original non transplanted trees. This means the first crop of nuts . Some might say I may be gathering nuts like a squirrel, some may say I am squirrel. These are now right at 12' tall. The ones transplanted have grown some but are being browsed by the yard deer. The bases or trunk is getting thicker but tops are not so much. Today we bought some taller wire fencing. Larger all the way around the new cages will be. There will be updates as the nuts form that is if pollination takes, The original nut planting. Catkins where hopefully baby nuts will form. Transplanted trees browsed by yard deer. BilletHead feels like a new daddy again.

Looking good there JD, Well done Quillback. I run about 185 year around but would like to loose ten pounds. I remember that dusting. I also remember the hard freeze a long time ago when it froze the headed wheat and all the fields turned black. BilletHead

You got it Russ! Marty and Pat

Nice and happy birthday Mitch! The BilletHead's

Actually you can and no I have not tried it. Asians us it medicinally and it is sometimes used in sweet and sour soup, BilletHead

Well done JD, At first I thought this may of been a distress signal from your new ship BilletHead

Way to go Slider, Pretty bird and good eats for sure. We seen a bunch of birds this morning trying to get one to the Mrs. They would not call and could not get in front of them. Will try again Tuesday morning, BilletHead

Hang in there they will come. Just watch the color of your juice. If it clouds up change for sure. BilletHead

Eight to ten hanging around now. It will get pretty crazy soon, time to start buying 25 lb. bags of sugar . BilletHead

Our neighbor made flour tortillas. She added some fat, goose fat. Wonder where she got that? . She said they turned out very good. BilletHead

Nice going John Buddy! We got wet this morning in some of the remaining showers. Did see birds but they were still hanging out with hens. Pretty quiet bunch of birds. Will try again tomorow, BilletHead

Way to go Slab! Rained all night but not at the moment. We will go out the bid decision is what mud puddle to set in. BilletHead