Somthin Fishy!

[Frosty]

Friends and I used to go perch fishing at Hanson's Dam when we could get a ride and after we started getting driver's licenses. I only tried eating one once, I'm not a fan of bone fish and the water in the lake was S. Cal. warm so they weren't prime perch. 

Max's smile and your catch brings back some good memories, the BEST were fishing with Dad. 

Get Max to show you how to pose when taking pics of the catch, it's a pretty big fish but it's easy to make it look like a monster big one. We ARE talking fishing stories you know.  

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

5 hours ago, Scott NC said:

You look a bit astonished.

I had been wading and fishing all day that day and had caught a load of fish and that was my last fish of the day… not by choice though… I just had snapped a $100 St Croix rod on that fish lol 

Jerry 

Max gets so excited when he catches a fish it’s hilarious, I try to get him outside often and away from his IPad and fishing is a good motivator for him

[Scott NC]

18 minutes ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

I just had snapped a $100 St Croix rod on that fish

  Hate it when that happens.

[Frosty]

I get it Billy a friend of one of the guys on the drill crew came by when we were drilling a creek in Anchorage. His son, Zack, a little older than Max I think was running up and down the creek with a stick trying to fish. I showed him how to find lures caught on stuff in the creek, how to tie a blood knot in the length of fishing line he'd found and we were buddies for life. When he caught a rainbow right in front of where we were set up. Zack got so excited he was tunning up and down Campbell Creek showing everybody his fish till he dropped it and it escaped. 

I found out later Zack was more excited about the knot than the fish. Sooo next time he was out I taught him how to tie a bowline and half hitch. then . . . Knots, kids seem to love knots.

Go figure, eh?

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

3 hours ago, Scott NC said:

Hate it when that happens

Me too! It was like a kick in the gut when it snapped lol

Jerry 

Max loves when I take him to the creek, he got a pair of mini waders for Christmas that I need to take him to try out while it’s still cold here 

[Frosty]

I'll bet Max loves it when you take him anywhere except maybe the dentist. Quality time with Dad is the BEST.

I lost my Fenwick ultra light spinning rod when an acquaintance loaded it in his pickup truck and slammed the door on it. "Sorry, you can have mine." the equivalent of a walmart special. <grrrr>

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Oh man!!!  I’d be so ticked!!!! Lol

[Frosty]

I was and none of the guys who saw felt it was okay, one offered to hold him while I kicked his butt. That rod cost me $60+ in 1967or so.  It'd be like $300 now though there are much better rods now days. Still, Dad and I used to go fishing with our Fenwick ultra lights. We did a lot of scream fishing and you could cast a single egg, 30' easy. 

I gotta stop or I'll get all maudlin and whiny.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

I am no angler so to me $100 for a fishing pole is a bit pricey. That $30 wally world special does me just fine. 

I lived in Louisiana "The Sportsman's Paradise" for a couple years and did some fishing. That fish Max is holding is about as big as anything i caught there. That is why i am not an angler. 

When you take him to the creek you are teaching him to catch crawfish right? Need to take a beer or pop can with you, cut out the top, scoop up some creek water, and boil those crawfish. Bank side meals are always tasty. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

21 hours ago, Frosty said:

It'd be like $300 now

some of the higher end US made rods are over $600 now, I would have demanded payment!!! lol 

kicking butts don’t replace high end fishing gear!!! 

15 hours ago, BillyBones said:

$100 for a fishing pole is a bit pricey

That’s just the rod… the reel I had on it that particular day is another $250 

Believe it or not that’s not even high end!

the Stella or the Exist are $1k reels and people normally put them on high end rods that cost as much 

That said, you can catch plenty of fish on a cheap Wally World combo rig

the big difference in high end gear is it’s lighter, it’s wayyyy smoother action due to better construction and more and better bearings, and casts much farther 

if your just goin down to fish in the creek or pond a couple times a summer there’s absolutely no need for high end gear 

if on the other hand your making a 1000 casts per morning and per afternoon and running different lure techniques then it comes in handy to have specialized gear for what your doing 

I’m not a pro Angler by any means I won one little tournament last summer but it was nothing to speak about, I mostly fish for myself and enjoyment 

the guys using the really high end thousand dollar rods and reels are usually competing in big tournaments for big prize money and sponsorships or just have more money than everyone else and want to show off lol 

Its just like blacksmithing, you don’t need a 500 pound anvil that cost thousands of dollars to forge a fire poker 

you don’t need a thousand dollar reel and thousand dollar rod to catch a fish 

If you’re gonna be fishing year round on a regular basis weekly then you probably might want to invest in some better equipment but it’s not necessary for someone who only fishes a couple times a year 

[BillyBones]

TW, i agree with all of that. Like when i was working in a garage, many people get by just fine with that $25 dollar wrench and socket set they buy at the local box store but for me professionally... well i have seen tool boxes that cost as much as a new car. 

When i lived in Lake Charles i rebuilt the transmission in an F350 that was owned by a professional fisherman. It was a new transmission that none of us had any experience with, after building it, it made it 50 miles down the road before blowing apart. Came down to how the cooler was flushed. Real learning curve. But i digress. The truck had a complete wrap around sticker with a whole slew of sponsors, he had a boat that matched. I was explaining to him what had happened and why the trans failed, along with how we would correct the problem. This was on a Thursday if IIRC and we would not be able to get his truck back till Monday at the earliest. He said something along the lines of he was going to miss a tournament and that would cost him $15,000 just for not showing up. I said i am in the wrong business.  I can see him having a fishing pole that is thousands of dollars. 

When we got the tranny done the second time me an my manager took it for a test drive and got it stuck in a ditch. When the back end of the truck went into the ditch the trailer hitch caught the side so the rear tires were off the ground. Just put it in 4wd and pulled it out but still kind of funny. Oh, and yes we went across the ditch on purpose not an accident. 

[Frosty]

Oh yeah, if it's your living you buy the gear you need, saved time, effort, etc. increases your margin. 

The big difference is Dad was an enthusiast and we had a killer way to catch trout. Fish eggs often get dislodged and drift downstream. The bed of mountain streams is a pretty active thing, rocks, snags, birds rooting, etc. often free trout and salmon eggs. Knowing your prey makes the difference, we'd drift a single egg around rocks, etc. in the stream where the trout lay in the back eddy. The way water flows brings bugs and other loose edibles right to them. Soooo we needed to be able to put a single egg, no weight just upwards of a good eddy where it would drift around on our side to the rock or whatever making the eddy. 

Our gear was a single egg hook on a 2lb. leader, swivel and 3lb test line. That isn't enough to cast without a really light fast rod and good spinning reel. The reel was less important than the rod but Dad liked his gear so we had Shakespeare reels, both spinning, steelhead and deep sea. I'm sure they're laughable antiques now but they were smooth as butter, never rat's nested unless you screwed up. The deep sea reels were two speed, fast retrieve and low gear for hauling in the monsters. That was a different world of fishing.

Anyway, I could flick my rod and put an egg in a coffee cup 25' away about 3/5 times. I used to practice casting with a plastic bead the same weight as a single egg and hook. 

I wasn't all that into it as far as fishing but spending high quality time with Dad was worth doing my less than favorite things and doing them well enough to keep pace with him. We used to work a stream about 20' apart, toss friendly insults and point out a likely spot in the other's area. Some of my best memories were with a fishing rod in my hands. Heck, I had to learn to cook fish, Mother hated fish and refused. Soooo.

One of my BEST fishing memoires was on a Cal, stream in the foothills of the Sierras, east of Sacramento. Cal. The banks were kind of crowded so dad and I were staying close together to keep the others from crowding us too badly which was nice we could berate the other's catch while crowing about the fabulous greatness of our own in a normal speaking voice. We were still kind of too close but it was working. I hook a too small trout and was reeling it in when a snakes takes it and the fight was on! I couldn't tell much about it but it was putting up a heck of a fight, WAY better than the 10" or so keeper trout we'd been catching.

Everybody on the bank near us backs away and I say, "Hey Dad look what I hooked!" He takes a glance and says, "Stop playing with the rattle snake, Butch!" reaches out with his cigarette and burns my line. Poof, snake and trout gone! "HEY, cutting my line just because mine was longer than your whole day's catch is CHEATING!" "HAH, unless you could filet it and talk your Mother into cooking it, it wouldn't count anyway."

The bantering and fishing went on but we weren't being crowded by other fishermen. A new one would step into the gap and others would warn them that I was fishing for rattle snakes and catching them.

That was one of the best of many MANY good times fishing with Dad. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

14 hours ago, BillyBones said:

I said i am in the wrong business

lol you an me both! I’d love to be a pro fisherman but I ain’t got the gear air the boat am truck to travel around to do it! 

I can catch a ton of fish but landing those trophy Bass on a regular is out of my pay grade! 

I only catch the bigger Bass every once in awhile, 

most of mine range from 10”-15” 

but I don’t lake fish a whole bunch, I mostly run ultralight rigs and wade streams 

4 hours ago, Frosty said:

when a snakes takes it and the fight was on

I’ve snagged a few turtles here an there but I haven’t hooked a snake in a stream yet,

although I have had some disagreements with Cotton Mouths before about who had the right of way lol

The creeks and River that I fish I run into them all the time but the Westville City lake is infested with them, so much so that it’s become a serious problem, 

people can’t get in there unless it’s freezing weather for all the cottonmouths they are extremely thick down there, in the grass, in the trees, in brush, in the water everywhere,

there’s been talk of having a purge day to go down and thin them out to make it safe for anglers 

honestly I won’t take Max there for that Very reason, he’s to curious of a toddler and would get snake bit down there 

[Frosty]

You've talked about how thick the cottonmouths are down there and my only experience was with rattlers and you have to surprise them to get bitten. Worse, I've lived in Alaska since 72 and haven't got a snake country instinct left, not a ONE.

AND Deb and I are planning on RVing the lower 48 if gas ever gets affordable again. I am going to have to be super snake conscious until the reflexes come back. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[SLAG]

Frosty,

Good man,

Concerned about snakes in the lower 48?  Use boots and snake chaps.

But you could make friends with the snakes?

SLAG.

[BillyBones]

I hooked 1 snake in my time and it was in a lake. Turtles on the other hand are not exactly common to catch one but definitely not rare. Me and my granddad used to go catching turtles. He taught me how to reach up under the bank and pull them out. Kind of like noodling for catfish but you definitely did not want to be wiggling your fingers.  

Me and a couple of my friends went out carp kicking once. There is a lake here that flooded and when the water started receding it left a bunch of small pools. Those pools were full of huge carp. Some a good 2 1/2' - 3' long. So we started going into the pools and "flicking" them with our foot from one pool to the next till they were back in the lake. One of those guys we buried this week. 

We had a few streams near us that we could run trot lines on. And i have run a few jug lines but i think that was more of an excuse to go to the lake to drink beer and tell lies. 

We actually have a lot of rattlesnakes here. Timber rattlers are not that uncommon to run into. I can deal with them it is the copperheads i do not like. I have heard that there are cotton mouths about but i have never seen one and i did not think this area was a habitat for them. But then again, i was surprised as all get out a few years ago when i learned that we have flying squirrels. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

14 hours ago, Frosty said:

with rattlers and you have to surprise them to get bitten

We have timber rattlesnakes in a few isolated spots here in the county mostly on top of hills in the rock piles, 

we had a problem with them at on of my dads property’s they kept getting up in yard pretty thick, a neighbor stepped barefoot on one on his porch one morning while taking a leak of the porch lol 

We skinned a few rattlesnakes out and mounted them on boards and my Dad keeps a rattle in his fiddle 

Most of the time cottonmouths will mind their own business and just stare at you when you pass by, sometimes they will turn tail and move away 

Other times they can get aggressive and territorial and will actively come towards you I’ve known a few people who got bit and it’s a rather nasty bite 

luckily I’ve never been bitten by anything serious in the water except a regular ol water snake who didn’t appreciate me stepping on him, he didn’t even draw blood though he just let me know he was there 

I always get really nervous when I’m wading through the mud and weeds and the brush is so thick I can’t hardly see where my feet are going 

But like I said the creeks and rivers they are there but not concentrated enough to get really worried about unlike the place I was cleaning up last year, they are so thick there that you have to move slow and REALLY pay attention to wear you gonna step before you take the step 

[Frosty]

How reassuring! I try to pay attention to where I step anyway, so all I need to do is learn a little about the other venomous snakes in an area and I'm good. I'm too old fat and unsteady on my feet to do much tramping around the woods, or very uneven ground. Maybe I'll rig a capture noose on my cane and carry a bag, I've eaten rattler and depending on what they're eating they can be pretty tasty. How do cottonmouth and copperheads taste? 

The big trick to getting around snake country is knowing the snakes and just avoiding the low odds.

I don't know about training snakes but they do learn and will recognize their people and remain "calm" to be handled. And there are people snakes just like, my little Sister Shannon surprised everybody at a rock club meeting when the herpetologist giving the presentation "talked" Shannon into touching one of the snakes. Well . . . she didn't just touch it, she took it out of his hands and she and the snake made friends instantly. You could tell the snake was at ease, it stopped moving around and it's constant "crawl?" and just lay in her arms. After a minute or so the expert asked to take it back, it actually resisted by tightening up on Shan's arm but she stroked it and it let go. Then she asked to handle the rattler, a beautiful Diamondback and the expert reluctantly agreed she could touch it if (yada yada safety talk). When she stroked it's back it turned in the guy's arms and crawled into hers and rattled hard when he tried to take it back. Shan had to put it back in it's terrarium, it was getting aggressive when the expert tried.

It was one of the weirder things I've watched. Shannon said she never knew how good snakes felt, dry smooth and very muscular, she could feel how the muscles made it move on a pretty fine scale.

We used to tease her about stepping on a rattle snake and it'd apologize for getting in her way.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[George N. M.]

You'd think we'd get lots of rattlers around here but in reality you don't get many snakes above about 7,000' in elevation.  I've seen a few garter and other non-poisonous snakes around Laramie and in the mountains but I've never seen a rattlesnake this high.  Too cold in the winters.  However, there are parts of the state that can get pretty snakey and you have to watch your step in places.  The snake populations tend to fluctuate along with the populations of small mammals.  Generally, if I get buzzed at I will just back off and go around.  However, it can still give me a pretty good jolt of adrenaline.

GNM

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

How reassuring

Don’t worry Jerry if you come to visit I’ll make sure you don’t get snake bit! 

I think when cottonmouths get territorial and come after you aggressively it’s probably their mating season or something  

Ive been around them all my life, and usually they just set there and watch you

 if they do wanna pick a fight just hock a big rock at em and show em who’s boss! or wack em up side the head with a stick until you knock some sense into em lol 

but honestly I’ve only ever had to deal with a spunky one a few times

[Frosty]

I'm pretty good around snakes once I know something about them but with you watching my back I'll be safe as in my own bed.

That's along with what I was thinking too, do cottonmouths guard their eggs? The best way I know of to get close and personal with a Goshawk is to walk within about 100' of the nest when there are eggs or chicks. On the upside being stooped on by a Goshawk won't envenomate you and if you just go away they wont stoop again.  We shared the back of our property with a mated pair for about 4 years but things started getting too built up and we stopped seeing them. They got used to us as no threat and we didn't have any more problems.

On the upsides, two in fact. One spring as the trees were starting to bud I was standing on the south upper deck and one of the in winter white plumage cruised past about my level. A hundred feet away but level with me and cruised through the forest due west at about 25-30 mph. It was into the branches in a mature climax birch forest weaving effortlessly through the branches at speed. It was humbling to see such excellence in action. They have wingspans that run 40-46" for females somewhat less for males and it cruised like it enjoyed toying with the trees. Yeah, I looked up the specifics. 

The other incredible Goshawk encounter was kidding season and Deb had the maybe week old babies in the outdoor pen. Suddenly the Does start screaming, the kids run for the barn and a Bald Eagle makes a dive for the stragglers. Then out of the blue, literally one of our Goshawks strikes the eagle and both go tumbling through the air. They recover and fought for a couple minutes before the eagle and the one flying high cover moved on. The Goshawks escorted them about 1/4 mile then returned to orbit over the property for a bit. 

Goshawks are very territorial and won't share with another predator. 

MAN it's cool living in the forest, even with people building and living closer and closer.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Jerry

im not sure if Cottonmouth’s gaurd their eggs or not, 

I’ve had them go from sunning themselves to flat out swimming clear across a stream at me and I’ve seen them try an run people away from a pond 

 I know some people that have had them try and get in the boat with them before as well 

I’ve been meaning to go buy a cheap used beat up .22 revolver and some shot shells for a creek gun that I won’t mind getting all scuffed up and wet 

I talked with the Game warden last summer about that because I fish on state land as well as private land along the streams and I know there’s special regulations for firearms on public property and water ways 

I told him that I have no desire to seek out and kill the snakes or anything else, I just don’t want to be a mile away from the truck in the countryside and get bit and have to make it all the way back to get help,

He said I could carry on the game preserve if I felt my safety was in jeopardy and as long as I held a current hunting license, I told him no problem I’ve got a lifetime combination license

i Still haven’t carried down there on the state game preserve yet but it’s nice to know I can if I choose too,

 

[Frosty]

A snub is a good snake gun you only have to make shots a few feet away and yeah, old and worn out so long as it's reliable is the way to go. Nothing galls the rifling like snake shot.

I found that out the hard way when I first moved here. Snake shot was also being sold as bird shot and not knowing much I thought it'd be good for taking ptarmigan and spruce hens. Yeah right, if you hold the barrel against the bird's head. After trying them out and discovering they're not going to work I did what I always do and cleaned my Ruger single six. The rifling was almost galled smooth and I spent a couple hours with brass brushes getting it cleaned up. 

That one got stolen and I have a Ruger Super Single Six now. The stainless steel needs just a tough of graphite, typical gun oil tends to get really stiff and gummy outdoors around -25f or below and I was living in the woods when I bought it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

The most common snake we have are black snakes, that translates to any kind of dark colored snake that can not be immediately identified. 

My uncle years ago had an old metal shed he tore down and put on the creek bank. A while later he had to move it and asked my help. That was me using a hoe to flip the pieces over while he watched with a shotgun. After about the 5th piece i flip i hear the gun go off. He blew the head clean off a copperhead. That week he was in the paper having killed one of the largest copperheads in KY. Mind you my uncle was just about 5' tall but the photo was of him holding the snakes in one hand over his head and it dangled  to  down around his ankle. 

I do not know if we have goshawks here or not but we do have a lot of red tails. I was driving down the road one day and one was on the side. I got that feeling that is was going to fly in front of me, and it did. It went across my windshield between it and the antenna. It was so close i could have counted the spots on its belly. 

Also saw a hawk once dive into a thorny apple after a dove. 

We have a raptor center close that rehabilitates wounded birds. If able they will release them back into the wild periodically. On those days the public are invited to come and watch. If they are not able to be released they either keep them there, like the eagle that only has 1 wing, or get them homed at another facility. 

Another something about the wilds that i came across this week. Ohio has again became home to fisher cats. There have been a few sightings of them in the northern part of the state recently. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We have a pair of Red Tailed Hawks that live somewhere in the woods near the beginning of our driveway . Every once in a while the male will be sitting in a tree right next to the drive and when we come home from somewhere he will swoop down and fly right in front of us along the drive like he is leading us back home. Debi says that is a good omen.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus