vicrider

Got that Norm. That's why you and Musky Fly Guy are Santa's Gift. You're sending a gift with nothing in return. Makes it a True Gift for you guys. I'm actually doing the same since I probably won't keep a box for myself either. If you check CFRF you'll see I tried to sell some bass fly boxes at give away prices and still have most of them. I'm going to list a bunch of fly boxes with flies for little more than cost of box and mailing since my water time is never going to be what I'd like. I do plan to get out when OK and TX start the winter trout stocking program in the ponds but none of them are very close to me so that too will be limited at best. 

You bet you can, thank you.

Let's get a few more of the old reliables in again this year. A dozen people can swap but it's more fun with many involved.

Nick

I have had a few people (very few) inquire about where I'm at these days. After the ER visits (3), hospital stays (2), and all the shots and pills they put me through my body decided it had enough of that and straightened out for me. Those familiar with Predisone know it's something you can't take long term but dang it sure helped and after taking it for 3 weeks with slowly decreasing dosages I hate to give it up. It helped with my knee pain and thumb with arthritis but more importantly I really helped my lungs to function much better and even off them weeks now I'm able to hold safe blood oxy levels in most situations including walking around house and going things like dishes and tying flies again. I've also brought my weight down and for some reason even though it's not a huge amount (from 360 to 305) my blood pressure is staying in safe ranges without the meds I was taking. This is big for me since I've been treated by Home Health for leg swelling and breakouts of fluids. The Blood Med I was on is Amolodopine which is a contributory to leg swelling so it is much better for me to be off them. 

Anyway, being able to walk around the house and to car and things without dragging a tether hooked to the Oxygen Concentrator is a real blessing. There's nothing quite l ike being on a walker and having an oxygen hose trying it's best to tangle you up and trip you every chance it gets. Overall the treatments in the hospital and ER did a lot to pull me through a bad stretch with lungs barely functioning except on oxygen, heart going crazy high, then dropping down until it tripped the buzzer, and shakes so bad tying was out of the question for awhile. Now I've cut down on meds and with cooler and less humid weather I am actually planning a fishing trip but it has to be float trip. Wading is something that is done for me now.

So, things are MUCH better than the month of hell I went through and hope to be around the board for awhile longer.

Nick

Okay, since I think I'm done with the revolving door I was on for awhile between ER and a night or two in hospital things are looking up and I'll give this a go. I have to order some supplies to do the fly I want but I'll get those ordered and should have plenty of time. Have one fly that is considered a classic but was the fly that was taking 1-2# bluegills in a farm pond in IL and will always be a classic to me.

Nick

Okay, after really looking over my Sooner flies and the fact that I tied them during a rough stretch with poor feathers for wing material I set those aside and tied up a twin to the Cowboy flies but with the different colors. They should go out tomorrow hopefully.

I should have dropped from this swap with all the problems I've been having but stuck because of how far out the deadline was. Okay, I am good on the Cowboys but my red/white Sooner flies are kind of a mixed bag of flies that just didn't turn out great. One of the new meds I take has my hands shake so bad I'm afraid to eat with a fork after I take it but it settles down enough after awhile I got some done anyway. How many do we actually need for the swap? That will determine which ones I send for the Sooners.

Move to OK. They don't care about things like vision or health. I went worried about the eye test and got my license for 8 years with nothing except a picture and my sigature.

Hope things work well for you in future. Wife does 90% of our driving anyway.

Nick

It has been a nasty month for me. Two more trips to ER and another couple nights in hospital. Got shots in my belly for clots and blood thinner and scans and ultrasound and think I had a clot in my lungs. After a lot of various things going one I ended home again but it now looks like I'm hooked to the hose just about all the time. Can't keep my Blood Oxygen count up in the magic 90s your body needs for best function. That and fatigue is with me almost all the time if I do anything besides watching TV. I'm going to go back to trying to take short walks since they were really making me feel better before all this started and also helped keep swelling in lower legs down. Right now I'm sort of a hermit since about the time I leave the house is to go to doctor or ER and need to get out more. Did do a couple of family dinners last week and happy to see the great family of my wife's that live in town with us. 

It is is the number of relatives, two sisters and multiple offshoots from them that brought us to OK and when I came down here I fished at least a couple of times a week, rode motorcycles with several family and friends, and really enjoyed life here in retirement. Now I'm just kind of hanging on and it's better than the alternative. I have decided to sell or give away years of excess accumulation of fishing gear and hunting gear of all kinds since realistically I don't want to stick the wife and kids with this if one of my trips to ER doesn't involve a return home, and no I'm not a fatalist but am a realist.

Congratulations Mark. Like mentioned, the real work starts now. Lots of hauling meat for the winter and beyond now.

A moose story from the past. Myself and two friends of mine were walleye fishing a small lake in northern MN in an overcrowded 12' boat with my very unreliable old Elko 3hp motor. A bull moose decided to cross the lake not too far from us. One of the guys said fire up that motor if it'll run and let's get a closer look. Well we got up behind that bull as he was closing in on the far shore and he kept glancing back with an unhappy look. We were almost to shore when he quit swimming and stood up turned on us. Fortunately we had given him enough room to charge us but not reach us and luckily that old motor kept going and we did too. Funny in retrospect but gave us all a good scare.

Capt. Bob, I'm going to apologize for this and say I'm sorry you've lost a brother who you loved and loved the outdoors...But

"My only brother lived in the MatSu area for more than forty years -- and every year, about this time... would be in the field looking for a moose... He's been gone now for over a year."

I can't help but laugh at that particular phrasing. Did you consider sending out a search party?

Again, I apologize for my crudeness.  Nick

For awhile up northern MN they were all over the place. Fishing one morning I looked down the RR tracks for one of the mines and saw a half dozen grazing. Where I lived I could send  visitors up the county road a couple of miles and there was a pond on the Baptism River with pads and cabbage and there almost a few in there feeding. Got to be enough to have a hunting draw for them but now they've thinned down thanks to some disease from deer. Was really nice to have them up there except for me losing a fishing buddy when he took one on with his small truck and didn't survive. There were a few other incidents where moose were the bad guys.

Since you're talking about hero shots, I know it's silly but I hate seeing the guys holding their fish or their game with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. I honestly don't care if you smoke. It's legal and it's your lungs but damn it just ruins a lot of fine pictures.

Okay, I'm going to stay in if it gets off the ground for us. Got 3 flies tied and things went to hell for me. Last couple weeks in and out of ER, hospital beds a night or two, and bunch of needles and drugs. Somethings I've grown familiar with is, "They don't know what's wrong but we fixed it". They gave me clot busters and blood thinners when they thought it was a blood clot. My heart slowed to abnormal, then speeded like cross country racer, then blood oxygen wouldn't stay up even with oxygen, then a few other things mixed in. All in all it was a bad couple of weeks but somehow my body has found it's way back for awhile but right now my hands are twitchy and fingers jumpy so don't know if my flies are going to drop in quality from my usual mediocre to downright ugly and amateurish but I'll do my best to comply with swap if it gets some steam and at least fills half or more.

Kim, I hate to throw cold water on this swap but I'm going to have to drop and sorry it didn't build up for you. I've had so many health problems of late and now we have a guest in our spare room (fly tying room) for awhile. I am on a bunch of junk to keep me going and hopefully get me back to some shade of normal again they have my fingers twitching and hands shaky like I'm not used to. Takes me longer to type since I hit wrong keys and have to back up and I'm normally a fast typer. Again, sorry.

Nick

I have spoken out many times in the past on different and am in the minority on all of them. 99% of animals that have ever existed are extinct. It would please me if all of those higher up the food chain joined them. Gators, Crocs, Grizzlies, Brown Bears, Lions and tigers Oh My. If you can't stand the thought of them being lost think of the friend of yours who just got ripped apart by one of these creatures. "Course I'm sure the world could do well without venomous snakes, mosquitoes and Covid Virus so it ain't just big things we could do fine without. Gator and croc hunters are my heroes. I had seriously thought about a trip to Mike Chell country to fish the exotics in channels that would be easy access on a walker for me but when I read that it has become necessary to land your fish quickly because the splashing around creates a sound crocs have learned to associate with an easy meal right in front of you I decided to go fish for bass and kill any water moccassin I see.

This is what he was after.

There were signs all over MN Hwy 61 up north about falling rocks on Silver Cliff curve and one day with my wife hauling our 24' cruiser down to Duluth and I was half asleep she swerved to miss a big rock in road but trailer tire got it and was really glad the tires came through okay from that major jarring episode. Not her fault of course but had to holler, then apologize.

Oklahoma Sooners & Cowboys. One for each like last time this swap was done. Sooners kick off Saturday and unless someone takes the field by surprise it will be one of the first years they have no standout player or early Heisman candidate. The old coach left and took last year's Heisman winner with him. No Mayfield passing or Billy Sims or Adrian Peterson's running backs this year, YET.

Put me in coach...Put me in. Been waiting for a reason to get back to the vise, my personal vice. I'll work something out but need to order a few materials and will get right on that. 

Darrell, where you moving too? My daughter just came back from several years in Oregon because of high prices in housing that doubled in time she was there, crime and tent cities, and general living conditions. She was not one of the best for making friends and that hurt too. Now she's back here with free living helping care for wife's siter for awhile with a new job paying almost as well as she got in Oregon and has built in family and friends for support. 

I have a talking BP wrist cuff and I just took it off. I told me Systolic was 106, Diastock 67, pulse 57. It gives an opinion after readings and said, "These readings are ABNORMAL". Right now I'm going through so many meds I can't keep track of it all because my blood oxygen drops into low 80s every  time I do anything besides watch TV. After my bout in ER and a couple of overnights they told me my BP will vary and blood sugar is going to be high while taking all the meds. The one of main concern is Predisone and I am on a high dose for 10 days, medium tapering off for 10 days, and low dose to finish 10 days. Just checked sugar level and at 218 which is danger point and part of reason I'm fighting brain fog. May need to see doc about that tomorrow. That is 100 points higher than I normally see it. Damn this 80 year old body with bad lungs is giving me hell and hope I find a way back to my normal anyway, which wasn't that great. 

Edit to add...Checked blood sugar again after some mile excercising, rest and water. Down to 172, which is not great but better. Looked it up again and it is only after two readings of over 300 you should go to emergency and probably need a shot of insulin to bring it down. Checked wrist cuff again and it was 115/68, pulse 58. "These readings are NORMAL" . The cuff has cutoffs for normal and abnormal of 110 on the low side and 140 on the high side. It tries to keep you in that range. It also has a warning about brachardia at pulse below 50 and it gives me that often since I have a notoriously low heart since I was a kid and my normal is mid 50s and even working to get my heard rate up I'm lucky to see it at 80 where I know guys can hit 120+ easily. I also have a Kardia monitor for finger test to give EKG reading and that always shows normal Sinus Rythym and heart is one of the few strong points I have. My doc is setting me up with a pulmonologist and should hear from them next week and have to drive to Amarillo TX for that. 2 hour drive but it's there or equal distance to OK City and doc says access to clinic and parking and traffic is all easier in Amarillo. The clinic is right next to a stocked park pond and if I'm up for it I'll take a couple of rods and fly boxes along..                                                   

I'm on 2 LPM and have been since starting on Oxy. In the early episodes I was having I'd have to crank it way up to 6 and gasp and wheeze for sometimes a half hour. Of course I refused to go to ER at that time but always came out of it. Later I learned the extra O2 was not all that helpful since it was getting CO2 out and not 02 in that was the problem. I didn't have albureral at the time and that was what I really needed. Now I do a long term nebulizer treatment twice a day and a steroid nebulizer once a day and have had a real attack in years with those. This was more of a an overall condition and not a sudden onset like past attacks that just blew through. It's been a learning process and we're seeming to be back on track but I may need to go to some of the new discus inhalers like Trelegy to keep it in check. Thing is we have no drug coverage and some of those meds get downright expensive. Will have to look at getting on Plan D on Medicare at open enrollment. I'll have to to pay more for it since we never took it when getting on but it might still pay to get on now.

Thanks to all you guys for your encouragement and concerns. It does help

Across the street from me in MN was a cul-de-sac with 5 houses on it. None had as big a lot as I did but had riding mowers. I ran a walk behind so couldn't get in their parties on weekends. A couple of times a summer at least they'd set a bunch of cones and have lawn mower races in the cul-de-sac while consuming considerable amounts of barley and hops. Usually someone would smash into someone else and someone would get some road rash and then they'd retire to the real party. A fun group and proof if it has a motor men will race it.