We here in Virginia have not had any measurable rain in nearly two months. One the the local lakes that I frequent has dropped several feet in the last week; that left a lot of the lake bottom high and dry! The local news had a feature showing a man driving his golf cart around where I usually fish for crappie!! Since the lakes in eastern and central VA are supplied by rivers and streams, all of them have felt effects from the drought. Water levels are down everywhere, and the fish and other wildlife is threatened. People are seeing more wild animals as the critters seek water sources near civilization.
BUT it has been raining here for two days now. The rain has been heavy at times, but mostly a light. soaking rain that has reduced runoff. The level of the James River has risen in Richmond overnight and should continue to rise as the increased flow from upstream makes its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
Times like these remind us how dependent we all are on water for our basic needs. We are used to turning that tap and expecting clean water to always come out, as much as we wanted. After nearly a week of mandatory water use restrictions, folks are hoping we can get back to over watering our lawns, letting the tap run for a few minutes so our drink will be a little colder and other wasteful practices. We forget how blessed we are to live where all the water we want is there for us to use how we choose. That is, until that water drys up!
Let's all be more mindful of how we use water, a precious resource for us and everything that swims, flies and crawls along!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Weekend Choices
Sometimes life is full of difficult choices. Yesterday was opening day of early bow season for deer in eastern Virginia. On the other hand, the striped bass (rockfish to folks on the Chesapeake Bay) are beginning their run out of the bay into the ocean.
I went fishing. As much as I love hunting and shooting, salt water must run through my veins. Just the thought of putting out some trolling lines and searching above and below the surface for big fish just gets my heart pumping. I really don’t have good trolling tackle anymore. I had given my trolling rods to my dad years ago when I didn’t have a boat. Dad loved trolling for years, but he had done less and less over the last few years as gas money got tight. When he gave his boat away, he threw in the rods as well.
Still, what I have will work, just not as well as more suitable tackle. I use spinning reels for surfcasting and I have a couple shorter rods for boat use, so I moved the big reels to the boat rods and spooled them with 40lb test Cajun line. I really like the Cajun line because it is easy to see above the water and really disappears in water, especially the cloudy water of the Chesapeake Bay. Because it is nylon monofilament, it is so easy to work with, unlike a superbraid.
Ease of use is important when I am getting rigs ready for the kids and my wife. She can tie knots, but she doesn’t understand why you can’t just tie any old knot any old way on a fishin’pole and have it work. That’s okay – she still won’t touch live bait or a live fish, either. But she has patience and a great sense of feel. Bottom fishing, she routinely out-catches everyone – with a proper rig. . I have learned to pre-tie several rigs ahead of time so I can replace them when they get broken off or snagged.
The boat is ready. I had to replace an anchor I lost on a snag that chafed right through the small 3/8” rode I was using. Why so small? That was so my youngest son, aged 12, could grip it. I have upgraded back to ½ inch three-strand nylon spliced to the chain. Sure seems like overkill for a 10 pound anchor, but that is doing it right.
The engine has been started on muffs and run for 10-15 minutes once a week to keep it clean, lubricated and ready to go. It’s a 22 year old engine, but nothing kills a carbed 2-cycle engine deader than neglect. If it is run on a regular basis, it keeps fresh gas in the carbs and the internals lubed. Even though it has not been in the water for over a month, it will fire right up.
We will be fishing the Rappahannock River near the mouth of the river. My boat is tough, but has too little freeboard to be safe in the bay, even on a calm day. Although, we do have nearly 60 knots available at our disposal and speed has saved my butt more than once on the bay! The rockfish will still be coming down the river for a few weeks yet, since it has been so dry and the weather has not cooled off yet.
I’ll start off trolling four lines, two flat lines in the center holders with a tube eel and a spinnerbait. Go ahead and laugh, but a bass is a bass is a bass! On the outboard rods I’ll go with a Storm shad lure and another soft plastic, probably a Berkeley Gulp minnow or big grub on a lead head big enough to get neat the bottom. If it’s more than 25 feet or so, I’ll add an inline weight or a three-way rig. I’ll be searching the surface with binoculars for any signs of feeding birds or fish breaking the surface; then it’s off to the races! Get the lines in and hammer down!!
I keep a couple of medium spinning rods rigged with a soft plastic, a crankbait like a Rat’L’Trap or a spinnerbait ready to go as soon as we arrive within casting range of the school. I’ll keep the boat outside of the school so as not to break it up or drive the fish down. Troll the lines along the edges of the school and try to work to the front of the school to keep the bait in the strike zone for as long as possible. Watching the birds, the sonar and any other boats nearby and I have a full-time job! No fishing for me, unless I put her in neutral and cast to the school as we drift.
When casting to a school. It’s tough to be patient when you feel a fish hit your bait…but if you let it sink just a little more, sometimes you will be rewarded with a solid hit from a much bigger striper coming up from beneath! Keep your lines tight and good luck!
I went fishing. As much as I love hunting and shooting, salt water must run through my veins. Just the thought of putting out some trolling lines and searching above and below the surface for big fish just gets my heart pumping. I really don’t have good trolling tackle anymore. I had given my trolling rods to my dad years ago when I didn’t have a boat. Dad loved trolling for years, but he had done less and less over the last few years as gas money got tight. When he gave his boat away, he threw in the rods as well.
Still, what I have will work, just not as well as more suitable tackle. I use spinning reels for surfcasting and I have a couple shorter rods for boat use, so I moved the big reels to the boat rods and spooled them with 40lb test Cajun line. I really like the Cajun line because it is easy to see above the water and really disappears in water, especially the cloudy water of the Chesapeake Bay. Because it is nylon monofilament, it is so easy to work with, unlike a superbraid.
Ease of use is important when I am getting rigs ready for the kids and my wife. She can tie knots, but she doesn’t understand why you can’t just tie any old knot any old way on a fishin’pole and have it work. That’s okay – she still won’t touch live bait or a live fish, either. But she has patience and a great sense of feel. Bottom fishing, she routinely out-catches everyone – with a proper rig. . I have learned to pre-tie several rigs ahead of time so I can replace them when they get broken off or snagged.
The boat is ready. I had to replace an anchor I lost on a snag that chafed right through the small 3/8” rode I was using. Why so small? That was so my youngest son, aged 12, could grip it. I have upgraded back to ½ inch three-strand nylon spliced to the chain. Sure seems like overkill for a 10 pound anchor, but that is doing it right.
The engine has been started on muffs and run for 10-15 minutes once a week to keep it clean, lubricated and ready to go. It’s a 22 year old engine, but nothing kills a carbed 2-cycle engine deader than neglect. If it is run on a regular basis, it keeps fresh gas in the carbs and the internals lubed. Even though it has not been in the water for over a month, it will fire right up.
We will be fishing the Rappahannock River near the mouth of the river. My boat is tough, but has too little freeboard to be safe in the bay, even on a calm day. Although, we do have nearly 60 knots available at our disposal and speed has saved my butt more than once on the bay! The rockfish will still be coming down the river for a few weeks yet, since it has been so dry and the weather has not cooled off yet.
I’ll start off trolling four lines, two flat lines in the center holders with a tube eel and a spinnerbait. Go ahead and laugh, but a bass is a bass is a bass! On the outboard rods I’ll go with a Storm shad lure and another soft plastic, probably a Berkeley Gulp minnow or big grub on a lead head big enough to get neat the bottom. If it’s more than 25 feet or so, I’ll add an inline weight or a three-way rig. I’ll be searching the surface with binoculars for any signs of feeding birds or fish breaking the surface; then it’s off to the races! Get the lines in and hammer down!!
I keep a couple of medium spinning rods rigged with a soft plastic, a crankbait like a Rat’L’Trap or a spinnerbait ready to go as soon as we arrive within casting range of the school. I’ll keep the boat outside of the school so as not to break it up or drive the fish down. Troll the lines along the edges of the school and try to work to the front of the school to keep the bait in the strike zone for as long as possible. Watching the birds, the sonar and any other boats nearby and I have a full-time job! No fishing for me, unless I put her in neutral and cast to the school as we drift.
When casting to a school. It’s tough to be patient when you feel a fish hit your bait…but if you let it sink just a little more, sometimes you will be rewarded with a solid hit from a much bigger striper coming up from beneath! Keep your lines tight and good luck!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Britney Spears and responsible hunting??
I want to talk about Britney Spears. Sure, everyone has heard more than enough about her talent (or lack of), her partying, parenting skills (see “talent”), and so on. Besides, we all know she hates hunting and fishing, even though she was raised in the great Republic of Texas…Did she fall on her head or something?
So, why this, here? Simply because Britney Spears is a poster child for a culture gone wrong. She takes credit for all the good things that have happened to her, as if she was the only person responsible, yet she blames all her troubles everywhere EXCEPT where the real blame lies – herself! She has the ”victim’s mentality” – poor me, she says, it’s not my fault I can’t control my own behavior, the press is out to get me, my ex is the devil, etc….okay, maybe there is some truth to the last part. Still, she has it all backwards.
Britney Spears would be just another trashy girl in a trashy neighborhood, except that somebody at Walt Disney gave her a break. Is she really that talented? How does her singing career and voice compare to her fellow Mouseketeer, Christina Aguilera? Now, tell me Britney didn’t get a break!!
The bottom line is, she takes credit for things she had very little to do with, and yet refuses to accept responsibility for her own actions when things do not go as she wanted.
I find that same attitude in nearly every anti-hunter or “animal rights activist” I have encountered. These nut jobs still blame Mommy for all their problems, yet they still live with her; after all, who else would put up with their whining?
Hunters and fishers know that they have very little control over their quarry, and this is the main attraction to these activities! Game and fish go where they choose, and respond in ways that confound us on a regular basis. We hunt and fish because we want to accept the challenge on its own terms, and we accept the results as they come. We work hard to learn our quarry and the laws that protect them and each other. We invent technology to help us, and return to the tools of our ancestors to enhance the challenge.
So why make fishing and hunting harder? Because we want to be able to say to ourselves and our peers that we rose to a challenge, and that the challenge itself was more important that success alone. Too bad our “mainstream media” and entertainment industry lives just the opposite way. Because some guy or girl with a pretty face got paid a lot of money to sing a song or play make believe for a few minutes at a time, the rest of us are supposed to do as they tell us. After, they are “successful”, right? Don’t they have more money, cars, jets, etc. than we will ever have? Since wealth is the American success story, these talking heads must be smarter and just plain better than we are. Remember Leona Helmsley’s quote at her trial for tax evasion,”Only the little people pay taxes.”
Don’t you believe it! How much is Miss Spears’ money helping her now? Can she buy her children back? How about if she lip-synched for the judge? All of Kanye West’s bitching got him exactly how many Video Music awards? – zero!
If these yahoos had been raised as hunters and fishers, they would be a lot more appreciative of the opportunities that America produced for them. Remember Shania Twain had to come to America to make it big in her home country of Canada!
Don’t even get me started on Hillarycare or any other socialized medicine schemes from the left…
So, why this, here? Simply because Britney Spears is a poster child for a culture gone wrong. She takes credit for all the good things that have happened to her, as if she was the only person responsible, yet she blames all her troubles everywhere EXCEPT where the real blame lies – herself! She has the ”victim’s mentality” – poor me, she says, it’s not my fault I can’t control my own behavior, the press is out to get me, my ex is the devil, etc….okay, maybe there is some truth to the last part. Still, she has it all backwards.
Britney Spears would be just another trashy girl in a trashy neighborhood, except that somebody at Walt Disney gave her a break. Is she really that talented? How does her singing career and voice compare to her fellow Mouseketeer, Christina Aguilera? Now, tell me Britney didn’t get a break!!
The bottom line is, she takes credit for things she had very little to do with, and yet refuses to accept responsibility for her own actions when things do not go as she wanted.
I find that same attitude in nearly every anti-hunter or “animal rights activist” I have encountered. These nut jobs still blame Mommy for all their problems, yet they still live with her; after all, who else would put up with their whining?
Hunters and fishers know that they have very little control over their quarry, and this is the main attraction to these activities! Game and fish go where they choose, and respond in ways that confound us on a regular basis. We hunt and fish because we want to accept the challenge on its own terms, and we accept the results as they come. We work hard to learn our quarry and the laws that protect them and each other. We invent technology to help us, and return to the tools of our ancestors to enhance the challenge.
So why make fishing and hunting harder? Because we want to be able to say to ourselves and our peers that we rose to a challenge, and that the challenge itself was more important that success alone. Too bad our “mainstream media” and entertainment industry lives just the opposite way. Because some guy or girl with a pretty face got paid a lot of money to sing a song or play make believe for a few minutes at a time, the rest of us are supposed to do as they tell us. After, they are “successful”, right? Don’t they have more money, cars, jets, etc. than we will ever have? Since wealth is the American success story, these talking heads must be smarter and just plain better than we are. Remember Leona Helmsley’s quote at her trial for tax evasion,”Only the little people pay taxes.”
Don’t you believe it! How much is Miss Spears’ money helping her now? Can she buy her children back? How about if she lip-synched for the judge? All of Kanye West’s bitching got him exactly how many Video Music awards? – zero!
If these yahoos had been raised as hunters and fishers, they would be a lot more appreciative of the opportunities that America produced for them. Remember Shania Twain had to come to America to make it big in her home country of Canada!
Don’t even get me started on Hillarycare or any other socialized medicine schemes from the left…
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