vicrider

Bob, save my return envelope for future use and donate all my flies to the fund raiser. I have more than I'll ever use anyway now. Love to see other's work but his problems are more important than my looking at them and then storing them.

Nick

cencal, I know you're going through some tough times but keep it together and we'll miss the quality of ties you've done for past swaps. When able to join back in a swap again and you'll be more than welcome.

Nick

I never saw her live but have watched some of her concerts, and not from that long ago, and she brought the life to the stage. She was a ball of fire, fun, and song for her entire routines. She will be missed by many. That she survived the Ike Turner years of abuse and could remain so positive in her life is a wonder and testament to her positive attitude.

Seems like kind of a strange idea but to each his own. You might need to improvise a setup to clamp your vise, then remove it to fish. I'm thinking of a bar across the gunnels that would mount in the oar locks on each side, then pop out and get stored to row and fish. 

There was a musky guide in WI who got tired of people circleing around him to get onshore references to his spots. He'd go to a spot almost guaranteed to wreck a prop unless you knew the area and he'd never caught a fish. He'd use his gaff to haul in this big wet towel trying to hide it from the person picking landmarks behind him. Then he'd carefully pull out and leave that spot to his lurker to bang a prop.

PS...I should edit it this and mention that today people simply drive by your spots and click a waypoint on their GPS and they've got it. His old trick wouldn't work today. Add to that if you're fishing bigger lakes most guys with money have cards with the lake maps built right into their sonar units.

I'm having problems with this site and a couple of others for reasons I don't understand. I have a VPN I have to turn on and off depending on the site. One site I cannot post unless my VPN is turned on. Otherwise it rejects me and says my IPS is blacklisted. I turn on VPN and it's fine. This site I can't see pictures posted unless I turn off the VPN. I can't use "next page" or click between pages here either way, on or off. Damn computers are a giant but necessary puzzle to me.

8 hours ago, Capt Bob LeMay said:

That open mouth isn't a threat display -  it's to allow them to regulate their body temperature - by opening their mouth they can cool down a bit as they lay in the sun - when it gets too hot entirely - they'll leave the water and move up into the nearby jungle to rest in the shade until nightfall brings cooler water temps... 

 

That open mouth with the crushing power of a hydraulic press is thought of by me as a threat display. The fact he's in my range of vision is sufficient threat display to me. And sharks tearing fish from my hand while I'm releasing them is an adequate display of threat by them. I don't want to rock a fish in the water to revive and bring back a bloody stump thank you.

All I know is years ago losing weight could be a struggle but doable. Nowadays I need to lose if I want to get a few years of decent living out of this trip through life but it get progressively harder to lose and easier to gain. Happy you've made this change in your life and able to enjoy things to a much greater extent than you did at 400#. I'm at 330, was 360, and just can't seem to move off that. At 79 excercise and activity seems limited to tying flies and watching the tube and since I blew out my femur just before the Covid lockdown I've had little ambition to do the things I really love, fishing, hunting, camping, it's just easier to do nothing and wait for something to happen. Ya' know what? You need to make things happen, they just don't come to you if you sit in a recliner and wait for them. 

The black bear episode that kind of unnerved me was on the Baptism River fishing for salmon. Baptism was my home river and I "harvested" a lot of salmon and trout for the table and the smoker. One year they closed our town dump and the black bears were pissed and raiding garbage cans and dog food dishes all over town. That fall I fishing the Chinook run on the Baptism was up by "three step" falls, the upstream barrier for steelhead and salmon. I had two nice fish on a stringer to haul out and was just started out when a black bear on the other side of the river started to eye my fish with meal ticket on his mind. I didn't think much of it until he started to experiment with where to cross the river. I figured it was a good time to leave and take the salmon home for smoking. As I headed back down the path he kept grunting and starting across the river toward me. There were places he could have forded but for some reason just wasn't anxious to wade across. He'd slap at the water, start in toward me, then back out. He kept following me and doing this on his side of the river as I headed back for the parking lot. I even went as far as to slide one of the fish so I held it in a loop and could drop it easily if he decided to come across and make a charge. He followed me for a long way on the river until the path dropped away and I was almost expecting him to be in the parking lot but he didn't go that far.

That was the only time in all the years fishing the steelhead and salmon runs out of Lake  Superior on the north shore I ever experienced a situation like that and it was a little unsettling to me. Like I had said earlier I did not fish a lot of places I could have traveled since I had a great dislike of fishing where things could eat me but that was the first black bear I'd had in years of fishing northern MN and WI that made me really nervous. I think a lot of it was because of the dump closing in Finland where the bears did all their feeding and living off the woods was something they weren't familiar with yet. 

If you're still with me I need to tell the story about our dog Ginger and the black bear. We lived at that time in a mobile home that had a 6" by 6' window right next to the door. Ginger was one of the most mild dogs we'd ever owned but a great pointer and retriever for partridge for me. One night he started growling on the porch where his feed was and he never growled at anything. I told the wife to turn on the light and look out and see what she was growling for. She walked over the window, turned on the porch light and stuck her face to the window. At that same time a black bear that was eating the dog food raised up and stuck his face to the other side of the window. My wife made this sound I would compare to sticking a knife in a tire and letting all the air escape. She stumble back and ended up sitting on the couch more by accident then plan. l chased the bear the but watched as he grabbed the bag of dog food in the shed and took that with him. I fired my 12 guage in the air and don't think he ever came back but wife to this day gives me hell for sending her to look out the window.

On 5/10/2023 at 6:36 AM, niveker said:

Holy crap, that's huge.  

I used to fish for them up in the Quabbin, kind of like reeling in an old tire IMO.    

Nivecker, we used to go out to Isle Royale when I lived in northern MN and had the cruiser. Like Upnorthtier said, there's different kind of Lakers. The Siskowet, or we called them fats, would be almost as round as they long, had little fight other than their size, and caught them to 30#s. If you cleaned one (a mistake) the strips of fat between the meat were about equal sized. Then there was the strain out there we primarily fished for that was called the Redfin. It was more like a big pike in being long, relatively thin, and very strong fighter. Most of the time the way we caught them was with heavier bass tackle and braided line when it came out and deep jigging the reefs off the Island. Most of the fish we kept for smoking and canning were in the 15-20# area and I had an old Finlander that would love it when I just brought him the heads for his Kalamojakka (Fish Stew or soup) before I smoked the meat. 

So he eats the angler and then uses the waders for floss. My religion prevents from fishing and wading where there are Grizzlies, alligators, crocodiles, or sharks. I'm a very devout coward when it comes to being around things that are able to eat you. I spent a lot of time in the north around black bears and even had a very nervous time with one of those once or twice. I'm gearing up for one more trip this year that could be my last major outing and I really considered going down to visit Mike Chell if he'd have me and fishing the easy access canals for the exotics available there. Then, after reading a great and encouraging article about them I read how you learn to land them quickly with minimum splashing along the bank beause the gators (or crocs, whatever they have) have learned to zero in on that splashing for a quick meal at the expense of the angler trying to land the fish. Not for me.

alpha-gal syndrome...First thing that came to mind was "alpha"=clan leader..."gal"...Sounds like it turns you iinto the meanest gal on the block. Then of course, google, and the symptoms for me might be even worse. I am definitely a red meat eater of the first class. Almost every meal with the occasion of my monster salad night and even then I include chopped deli meat or fried chicken chunks. Severe reaction to red meat would not work well for me.

I got a #22 Whiting 100 pack of hackle in a purchase and had to use some up. Trail it 24" behind the H&L Variant and watch for a take since you can't see the fly. I used to enjoy tying on #32 hooks some years back but eyes and shaky hands make doing that tough and 32 hooks are not even available anymore.

Flies came today and once again shows the quality you receive on this board when you participate in a swap.

Body is yellow silk floss with 3 rows of herl over top.  I have tied some Crackelbacks with strips of foam spiraled for body and if you want a fly to float a beadhead below it this will do it.

These will be hitting the mail shortly. A simple #!6 dun on a normal sized hook and a mosquito full of blood on a #16 wide gap hook. The dun does use artificial quill okayed by Bob and the parahcute uses red dyed pre-stripped quills.

So here is a pair of panfish flies for the box. The White Miller was a 'gill killer in a farm pond in IL that used to produce regular 1 pound and up fish just wading and throwing the White Miller on a floating line. The catepillar is a spinoff of some swimming nymph hooks I had and a favorite fly called the Crackleback.

Squeezy, that is a spinoff of several carp fly designs. One of these days I may just intentionally try for carp again. The only time I really fished them was when I was a kid or on a river in Kingsport TN just for fun. Giants in that river that stripped me of line more than once before the leader would break and I'd crank for a half hour to get all the line back.

I know one guy who has asked me out on his boat who has livescope. He says he has learned to tell the type of fish and approx. weight while trolling in one of our lakes that has bass, walleye, catfish, hybrids and stripers. He also can sit on a brushpile and selectively show his jig to the biggest fish in the group. Can't make'em bite but knows which ones they are. I need to get out with him soon.

I've seen videos of Canadian brush planes with huge tires that can literally land and leave on a patch of dirt. Big balloon tires let them bounce and take off almost without a runway. I especially like the yellow plane that comes in on the one minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPakbghLe38

15 hours ago, Capt Bob LeMay said:

As for boat motors... that market is upside down in many respects.  I need to re-power my guide skiff (after BRP quit making outboard motors... the Evinrude brand is now gone forever.. ) and went to my dealer more than a year ago now.  I was told not to even consider re-powering unless my motor was bad since I'd pay top dollar plus for one - if we could find one anywhere in the country.  I was told to come back in a year and maybe by then the market supply would have settled down and things would be "more reasonable"...  Here's my situation now... Yes, motors are available now (at least the 115 model I need..) but there's no more "guide program" from any manufacturer, so I'll be paying full retail...  And partly because when you re-power to a different brand motor,  you also have to change out all of your gauges, wiring harness, shift and throttle (adding about $2500 in cost for a modest 115..  lord only knows what it would be for a big motor...) my actual cost for re-powering will be more than double what I"m used to paying (maybe a bit less than 14K, if I get a "deal"... Lucky me...   It will be a Yamaha - and I'll be learning all about four stroke outboards since I've never run anything other than a two stroke motor - and every one of them since 1974 - a Johnson or Evinrude... once again "lucky me"... 

 

What does this mean Bob?

Hard to beat the Renzetti Steve, especially after I changed the jaws from thumbscrew to lever action. Had several and keep going back to the old traveler.

I suppose if you don't drink, don't smoke, too old to chase the ladies anymore, the vise could qualify as my vice. Fortunately there is no "Vise Anonymous" to try to cure us. On a different note, has anyone out there tried the Stonflo Transformer? If there is one more vise I might pop for it is that one but for now I've used just about all of them and Renzetti is my vice vise of choice.

All this talk about truck prices but you're overlooking something. Back when the government was throwing money at everybody during the Covid days they were also putting rules out there so banks couldn't do anything and landlords couldn't do anything if people didn't make their payments. People looked at all that free money floating and what they were saving not paying their bills they ran out and started buying SUVs and luxury trucks and not just for MSRP but "dealer adjustment" of several thousands of dollars. The chip shortage meant dealer lots were short of vehicles and people would pay those thousands over MSRP just to get their new car. Payments? I've made them for years on one vehicle while owning the other one but suddenly the 3 year loans meant payments even the government checks couldn't keep up with so banks started passing out loans for 72 and 84 months at interest rates that the fed keeps raising quarterly.

Repos and default payments on vehicles are on an almost logarithmic curve that is growing rapidly. Once again the subprime loans for vehicles is coming back to haunt the easy lenders who looked at their chance to get all that free money floating around. The auto industry as a whole is looking too much like the housing subprime days of 2008-2009 when lenders were passing out loans of 120% or more of home values to people and getting them in to over priced housing they just assumed would go up forever. I'm glad we bought our outback before the Covid days and my 2004 F-150 is still running fine for us now. Funny about that truck. Any youtube clip you watch with the worst engines out there my 5.4 Triton is always #1 on the list for worst engine but I have 140K with nothing other than minor repairs. Yes, I did overpay for spark plug replacement but a class action suit made Ford cap the costs of plug replacement so that wasn't worse than having a dealer do plugs on any other vehicle. Normally I'd do them myself but not on that engine. Good luck in your truck shopping. No more campers or big cruiser boats anymore for me so I am waiting until more of the manufacturers come out with small trucks to combat the Ford Maverick and see what I can do for under $25000.

PS...Just ran some figures. With average new car interest rate at 6.9% for GOOD credit buying a $100K truck for 84 months pays $1600 a month and total interest payments of $28K, or about what I hope to buy my next truck and more in interest than I paid for my 2004 F-150 4x4 new. I just hope those new compact trucks they're talking about really come in under  $25K starting price anyway.

That ought to fire up the anti-livescope people.