wolc123

Sheephead's fighting ability is comparable to walleye. Their style is a bit different, typically staying deep and swimming in circles, without that characteristic "head shake" that denotes a walleye, or the immediate vertical rise that indicates a smallmouth bass. They would probably be stronger if they had a little more meat on them. They are kind of like bears in that respect. Maybe 15 % of their body weight is usable meat. Before I was married, I use to take the future wife down to a hunting camp that I belonged to, with my boat and truck camper, every so often in the summer. The only food we ever took was some onions and bag of potatoes. We were completely dependent on fish that we could catch out of Lake Erie for protein. All but one time, we caught plenty of bass. The guys who stayed in the cabin down there would always come out in the evenings and join us for campfire baked bass and potatoes. That time when we could not find any bass, I kept what I thought was plenty of sheephead, maybe (6) 2-3 pounders. When I filleted them, I could not believe how little meat they had on them. Fortunately, the guys from the cabin turned up their noses and stayed away when they saw I was cleaning sheephead. There was just barely enough meat there for the wife and I. I can not recall if they tasted any different than the bass, but I have not had to eat any since that time, almost 20 years ago.

Trolling has its pros and cons. On the plus side, not needing to detect the strike makes it easier to enjoy a few beers while you are actually fishing. I find that the ability to detect the strike is the first thing I loose when I get a little alcohol in my system. Bobber fishing is also good for that. On the con side, I really don't get to enjoy the fight much of weaker fish (like walleyes), when I take them trolling. Most of their energy is spent by the time I get the rod out of the rod holder, and bringing them in is just about as much fun as reeling in a chunk of driftwood. Most of my walleye trolling experience has been on lake Erie in the mid to late summer. Another problem I have with that is they don't taste as good then. The meat takes on the flavor of the zoo-plankton that they suspend under. Those taken near on the bottom in the spring and early summer taste much better, and getting them on jigs lets me enjoy all of their limited fighting ability. If I do get any spare time and fuel in the late summer for trolling these days, I prefer salmon on Lake Ontario. Those taste pretty good and the smaller ones may not be too bad to eat from a health advisory standpoint. Best of all is that they put up one heck of a fight compared to the late-summer walleyes. I don't target walleyes too often any more because we eat most of our fish baked, broiled, or grilled and bass are a little better cooked that way because the meat has more oil in it, which keeps it moist through the cooking process. Bass are also easier for me to locate consistently. Plus, smallmouth outfight walleyes pound per pound about 4:1, and largemouth about 2:1 and enjoying that fight is the second biggest reason why I fish (just like hunting, meat is always first with this natural born killer). Most of the walleyes we catch now are taken by accident while bass fishing. There is nothing wrong with an occasional fish fry however, and the walleyes are a lot better for that. I am always thankful when a few of those "accidents" occur. Bass gets a bad wrap on the table because most folks have no clue how to handle the meat (much like is the case with venison). As long as the bass are kept fresh and alive, until they are processed, they taste great. A good livewell, is your best friend for that. You can not get away with tossing a whole bass in a cooler on ice all day like you can with walleye or perch. They get very "fishy" tasting if you do that. Vacuum sealing and freezing keeps the bass fillets tasting "fresh caught" up to a year.

I think the only time it showed up was in some farm-raised whitetail that was imported from another state and fed to some folks at a wild game dinner. I wonder if any of those folks who ate it got sick ? I think that the NY state DEC does a pretty good job of regulating the deer herd, without bowing to pressure from trophy hunters as has occurred in many states where CWD is now a problem. As long as they keep up the good work, and keep us meat-hunters happy, it is unlikely that CWD will ever take a foothold here in NY.

It was real good. She made a big batch and I am looking forward to leftovers for lunch at work tomorrow. If you google those ingredients and the name, the recipe comes right up. There were a few interesting spices in it also. My wife is not a real big tomato soup fan, so she added some regular spaghetti sauce, but other than that, and substituting venison for beef, she followed the recipe.

I can relate to that. Two years ago I killed a 2-1/2 year old at the peak of the rut, and I smelled him approaching through the standing corn upwind, long before he emerged about 15 yards from my stand. That strong piss smell is not something I will soon forget, and I imagine that an 8-1/2 would be considerably stinkier He was slightly quartering to me when he stepped out, and the wide three-blade mechanical broadhead passed diagonally thru, entering just behind the a front shoulder and exiting the ham on the opposite side. That made real smelly mess of the gutting job, but I washed it out with the blood from forward of the diaphram. The meat from that buck was very tender and tasty after the carcass was aged for 10 days.

My wife made "cowboy lasagna" from some recipe that she found on-line. It had rice, tomato soup, corn, mozzarella, ground venison, and tater tots (bottom layer) in it. It was very good and the kids loved it.

Bring it on, I am ready for it. I am very thankful that the factory where I work is on shutdown next week. I just got the pool set up at home, and we will spend at least 3 of the hottest days up at the in-laws place on an Adirondack lake. There is no place on Earth I would rather be during a heat wave than up there. They have central air, the lake is nice and cool, the smallmouth bass fishing is very good, and my mother in law is a great cook. One job that I hope to get done at home, and is not too bad even in the middle of the hottest days, is mowing the clover plots. That one would be unbearable without the canopy on the tractor. That blocks the sun, and moving along at about a 10 mph clip provides a nice breeze, even on calm days.

Did you age the carcass prior to processing ? I bet if it had hung for 2 - 3 weeks at 33 - 43 F, it would have been nearly as tender as your average 1-1/2 year old. Even the burger is much easier to chew if the carcass is properly aged before processing. The older the animal, the longer it takes to break down the rigor mortis. The process is similar for any red meat. Another good option for an old tough deer is canning. My buddy did that with a 8-1/2 year old moose, that was butchered immediately after killing , and it was just as tender that way as the 2-1/2's and 1-1/2's that the other guys who were on that hunt got.

They certainly have enough of it to "pattern" hunters. For me, almost every 2-1/2 or 3-1/2 (I am not sure if I have killed any that were older than that) was "tripped" up by an "unexpected" move on my part. The one last year was brought down by my move from a ground blind in a food plot, to a nearby tree stand, with just 15 or so minutes of daylight left. I raked out some leaves, fooling him into thinking that a rival buck was over there clearing a scrape. I do not think he would have stepped out into that foodplot, had I still been in that blind. The one the year before thought it was ok to step out of the heavy cover, after his little buddy made it through unharmed. Little buddy got a rare pass from me and he paid the price. My favorite was the 3-1/2 year old a few years before that, who thought he was safe if he hung out with a flock of turkeys. I unexpectedly dropped the book I was reading and got down from my stand, into the little patch of brush it was over, with a few minutes of daylight left. Had that book not fell when it did, his turkey pawns would have spotted me in my blaze orange camo a mile away up in that stand. The jig was up, when the happy group landed on that brush patch, with 2 minutes of legal shooting light to go. Fortunately, my slug gun was still loaded and his big neck made a nice target from 15 feet away. I had to aim carefully to avoid hitting a turkey with that shot.

I have had it and it was good but it would be a little to cold for my liking, up where they live. I did not like it as good as moose, and would rate the flavor about a tie with elk and Ag-fed Whitetail.

I am a somewhat fussy eater, and because of that, there are a lot more big game animals that I would not hunt, than I would, regardless of my free time or finances. Topping the list in North America would be the mule deer. I killed one myself and it tasted terrible, as has any other that I have tried at game dinners, etc. At the other end of the spectrum, there is no big game animal that I would rather hunt (regardless of my free time and finances) than Whitetail deer on the edges of the Adirondack park, near some Ag land. I feel very blessed to have both the time and finances to do that now, and have been able to score up there a few times over the last several years. They taste great, the scenery up there is the best in the world (in my book anyhow), and the hunting pressure is minimal. That makes for an "unbeatable" combination. Other big game animals that I would not rule out are black bears under 200 pounds, moose, and elk. They all taste great. Every other big game animal is a no-go for me no matter how much free time or extra cash I have. "Antlers" and "challenge" mean next to nothing to me, as a pure meat hunter.

That is more of a solution to the lack of "position" control on the 9N's (introduced in 1939) and 2N's (introduced in 1942). In 1948, the 8N's brought us the "position" control in addition to the "draft" control, like the 9N's and 2N's had. I like having both on my 1951 8N, but the only thing I use the "draft" control for is plowing. Almost every other implement (certainly mowers of any kind) do a lot better with that little lever under the seat set "up" in "position" control. With that selection, there is no need for them chains you need to use with a tractor that only has "draft" control. Draft control can't be beat for a moldboard plow though, as it keeps the plow at uniform depth in the soil as the tractor passes over uneven terrain. I did use the 8N on a bush-hog for a few years and got by ok with it, but "live" hydraulics sure makes that job easier.

The first tractor I owned was a 1951 8N. I bought it from the widow of the original owner in the late 80's. It had 1200 hours on it and still had most of the factory paint. I still have it and it remains my favorite make/model/year tractor of all time. I would not recommend it for the primary task of mowing, because the Ford N-series do not have live hydraulics. That means the hydraulics will not work when your foot is on the clutch. That is a pain with a bush-hog, if you want to stop and chop up some big bushes, or raise it up when you get into some thick stuff. It also lacks live pto, which is no big deal because a $50 overrunning coupler takes care of that handicap. The N's have some definite advantages though, with the biggest one being their durability. Most of them are still in service even though the design is almost 80 years old. No tractors have better parts availability. These were the first production tractors with the three point hitch, and the one on them works better than most newer versions. For Moog's rough mowing tasks, something a little newer like a Ford 600/800 series or 2000/3000 Ford could still come in under budget, have live hydraulics, and would get the mowing job done a lot easier. I would be a little wary with the 1953 Ford Jubilee and the 54 600's though, as Ford's early attempt at "live" hydraulics were trouble-prone. By 1955, they had the bugs worked out pretty good.

$ 4k should get her a good-condition, used 2wd tractor in the 30 - 40 hp range and a 5 ft light-duty bush-hog. I would look for something like a Ford 2000/3000 or 600/800 series tractor. These are durable and easy to find parts for. A light duty bush-hog does a decent job clipping grass and is perfect for maintaining perennial clover plots. If you get unloaded R1 tires on the back, they won't damage the lawn that bad and will do a very good job pulling a disk on food-plots. Older 2wd tractors of that size, with unloaded R-1 rear tires, are pretty handy as long as they don't have a front loader on them, even without power steering.

Here's one he did for a Union General

We launched out of Sturgeon point. it was a sheet of glass most of the morning. I was surprised to see the water visibility was less than 5 feet. They must have had a lot of rain recently down in Ohio. We tried jigs early, but only managed about 6 sheephead, all of which were released (1 had to be 12 pounds), lost a nice smallmouth and landed a 22" walleye on those at about 20 foot depth. The limited visibility really hurts the jig bite. After the wind picked up to maybe 5 mph SW, we trolled hot-n-tot and bomber plugs in 15-20 feet and picked up (2) 18", a 16" and a short smallmouth, plus another walleye (21"). That last walleye exhibited a fight equal to a water-ski. Erie must really be loaded with walleyes this year, as there seems to be "strays" everywhere. I was thankful for a few packages of "non-toxic" Lake Erie fish for the wife and kids anyhow. I am sure I will get my "high risk" stuff next week up on the St Lawrence.

As far as surface baits, I am the same way with those weedless frogs. I probably miss 10 for every one that I hook on them. They say the trick is to wait until you feel them before you set the hook. It is easier said than done apparently. I have much better luck working a Zara-Spook along the edge of the weeds in the early morning. Those trebles hook them almost every time. My go-to bait for smallmouths is the bucktail jig. There is no bait that I have more confidence in. The biggest advantage is that they are almost free, since I make my own and only have to pay for the hooks. The clearer the water, the better they work, and the zebra mussels have worked wonders for that. For largemouth, my preference is a big weedless, rubber-skirted jig with a plastic swim bait trailer. That seems to make the big ones hit around docks and so forth. I also like to slow roll a big willow-leaf tandem spinner bait over sunken weedbeds and have a second rod rigged up (or a second fisherman in the boat if possible) with a wacky worm to pick up the followers. I recall my last day on Lake of the Isles in the Thousand Islands last June. We only had a couple hours in the morning and my brother in law scored his limit on the wacky worm, but I picked up the "big bass of the day" on the spinnerbait, doing just that. That one largemouth equalled his three biggest in weight. I went back out to the edge of the shipping lane in the afternoon to complete my limit with (4) smallmouths on bucktail jigs.

My strangest opening day catch happened many years ago, and did not involve bait or even a rod and reel. A couple neighborhood buddies and I drove my pickup, with a rowboat in the back, down to Chataqua lake on the Friday night before opening day. By the time time we got everything packed and drove down there, it was a little after midnight. We tossed the boat in the lake and I hooked my 9-1/2 Evinrude on the back and clamped on some cheap navigation lights. My buddies drove my pickup over to their folks trailer, which was a little way up a creek that led to the lake. The only thing I had in the boat was a 5 gallon bucket with some tools and safety gear in it, and a life preserver. As I headed out across the bay towards the mouth of the creek, I could hear the motor churning up some weeds. Suddenly I heard a loud bang up front, then a series of quieter thumps. I shined a flashlight up there, and noted a 15" smallmouth bass flopping around on the floor of the boat. I dumped the stuff out of the bucket and filled it with water for the bass. My buddies were waiting at the dock when I got there and were quite surprised when I held up the bass, since they knew I had no fishing gear. I have always been a real stickler for the rules, and not knowing for sure if it was "legally" taken, I released it. I can't recall if or what else we caught that weekend, but I will never forget that bass that jumped into my boat.

My wife also does not like tents. A truck camper works ok for us. The pros are: 1) Can tow a boat with it. 2) Can take the camper off and use the truck for other stuff. 3) No registration/inspection required. 4) No wheel bearings or tires. Cons: not much room inside - good for one or two people, three works, but four is too crowded. When the whole family goes, I usually get to stay in a tent while the wife and two girls stay in the camper. What I like best about ours is that the queen sized bed up top is very roomy and comfortable, and the propane heater with fan and thermostat keeps it real nice inside when it is cold outside. My old one had a propane heater but no fan or thermostat. I used it a lot for hunting before I was married and it was always a little too hot or a little too cold inside. My wife also likes the bathroom with portapotty in the new one.

It soaked in good here, just south of the Niagara county line in Erie County. The last two rains missed us clean and even the grass around the house had stopped growing. That rain woke it up again, so I had to cut it this afternoon.

Have you got any good bass recipes ?

After about 2 weeks with no rain, we finally got a good one yesterday morning. I could almost see the corn grow, when the sun came out in the afternoon. I don't know if it will be knee high by the fourth of July but at least it has a chance now. That rain also kept the dust down while mowing the last of my red clover. I managed to get about an acre and half of buckwheat planted in the late afternoon. I would have put more in, but the seed was a lot more expensive than I remembered from the last time we planted it here, more than 30 years ago. A 50 pound bag was $30 this year.

Keep shooting Chef, maybe you will hit something. The pollution is a bigger problem for you folks in the eastern part of the state. I try and stay within the health advisories that are printed in the NYS fishing regulations book, when it comes to eating fish. I actually separate the packages in the freezer, so that my wife and girls can eat the "less polluted" stuff. That means mostly lake Erie and Western fingerlakes stuff for them. As a man over 50, I am in the "low risk" group, so I get the higher-risk Adirondack, Lake Ontario, and St Lawrence stuff that would not be recommended for them. Without a doubt, we would eat a lot more fish, if it were not for these advisories, and I do feel sorry for you folks who are stuck on the "polluted", eastern side of the state.

Thanks Chef, nothing pleases me more than taking shots for my faith in Jesus Christ. I will keep praying that you find some. I am very thankful that this site places no restrictions on religion. Very few pursuits put one in better position to enjoy the blessings of His grace than Hunting and Fishing.

It sounds like you missed this part Chef. I will pray that you pick up on it before it is too late. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk