wolc123

No, I use a live well in my bigger boat in the summer at home, or a stringer in row boats at my in-laws up in the Adirondacks in the fall, when the water is cool. I am only 30 minutes from the boat launch at home. I throw a couple bags of ice in the livewell, at the ramp, and the bass are usually still swimming upright when I get home, even on the hottest days of the summer. As soon as I get home, I toss a running garden hose in the live well. That keeps the bass fresh and healthy as they await their turn at the club and fillet knife. Years ago, I preferred to keep just the 12-15 inchers for eating, which sometimes made for a long day on the water. Since the arrival of the round gobies, growth rates are way up, on the Upper Niagara (my home water), Lake Erie, and the St. Lawrence. A 20 incher these days, is as just as young and just as tasty, as a 15 incher was, before their arrival. That cuts down on my fishing and sorting time, because I usually quit after the first limit is onboard. I only released one bass at home all last year (that was just over 20”). I am “guilty” of releasing lots of them in the summer up in the Adirondacks, because I don’t have a good way of keeping them fresh and healthy up there at that time of year. We had bass for dinner tonight and it was excellent. My wife baked it in the oven (upper Niagara smallmouth for her and the kids and St Lawrence largemouth for me). She dipped the fillets in egg and then Panko crumbs (similar to bread crumbs but gluten free). I lost most of my interest in fishing for perch and walleye, after I figured out how to care for and cook bass.

Much of it had to do with cooking techniques and the way the fish is handled prior to cooking. If you deep fry the fish in oil, then I agree that perch or walleye are better, because the meat contains very little “fish oil”, compared to bass. With the healthier cooking methods, like grilling, baking, or broiling, then I like bass better because it has more fish oil in it, which keeps it moist thru those process, whereas perch and walleye tend to get too dry. Eating bass is a win win deal because fish oil is actually good for you and deep frying in animal fat is bad for you. Most folks have no clue how to handle bass meat though. The fish should be kept as healthy as possible and the meat should still be twitching when it is removed. Letting them die, full of guts, in a cooler is asking for trouble. It should also be vacuum sealed if frozen. Get it now ?

this years first ? or one of the two from last year ?

Probably not, but I might have an early morning or evening or two open. Do they bite good in late May / early June ?

Every time I do get out, I look forward to coming home. I have yet to visit a state that can even come close to holding a candle to upstate NY. My biggest problem with any of them south of PA, is the oppressive heat. In these days of global warming, the smart folks are moving north. That’s probably why we are seeing our land prices going crazy.

It all evens out. Those are very small prices to pay. Not having to deal with oppressive heat, wild hogs, rattlesnakes, too many bugs, hurricanes, forrest fires and heavy traffic are big plusses for us upstate NYers. Also, you would be hard-pressed to find a state where low-cost & legal freezer-filling, from the woodlands and waters, is any easier than it is right here in upstate NY.

I like a 3 ft high barnwood wrap the best, and have killed a number of mature bucks from behind it, from several different stands. Before that, I tried a few other things including camo burlap, and old snow fence with leafy branches weaved through it. Both sucked big time, compared to the barnwood. The burlap flaps in the breeze and takes a lot of maintenance, as does branch-weaved snow fence. Neither of those makes as good of a wind break. The barnwood blends in with the woods very well, blocks the wind almost completely, hides most of your movements from the deer, and makes a good safety rail and gun/crossbow rest. Best of all, it is virtually maintenance free.

We are heading up to the NW corner of the Adirondack park, for a little ice fishing, over Presidents’ Day weekend.

Larry got a nice buck on the tail end of his bout (I may be eating some breakfast sausage from that for lunch right now in fact), so maybe you will get your January trout. Prayers sent that you get well soon anyhow.

You really notice it when you put both in a crockpot together . That is the only way I have ever cooked rabbit or squirrel. It is easy and good (especially the squirrel). The squirrel has a bit of a nutty flavor, while the rabbit tastes more like chicken dark meat. I usually add some potatoes, onions, cream of mushroom soup, and s was little water. I didn’t see any back in the woods this afternoon, but my sister said they were all over her bird feeders this morning.

Not too many folks have a clue how to prepare bass.

That’s right and I also like venison better than beef and bass better than walleye and Genny better than Labbats. The temperature just broke 32 degrees, so I am out after some dinner right now.

As long as you don’t mind the heat and the hurricanes. I can’t stand the heat, and could never live year-round, south of northern PA. Also, I can’t imagine that the fishing in Tennessee is even close to what we have here in NY. Watching bass tournaments on TV, even the pros seem to struggle to get limits down there on lots of days. They seem dumbfounded, when they fish tournaments up here, and get a taste of some real bass action. As far as the hunting goes, maybe some decent antlers down there, but you can’t eat those. The farther south you go, the smaller the deer bodies get on average. It has to be tough on them, competing with all the wild hogs. Throw in more ticks and rattlesnakes, and you couldn’t pay me enough to live down there. It don’t get too much better than we have right here in NY, as far as the hunting, fishing, and weather climate comfort go. I’d be ok with an occasional weekend getaway down there, in the spring or fall, but that’s about it.

I have done mixed bags in the crockpot multiple times, and the squirrel always tastes better to me. Only problem is, that they are smaller, so it takes more of them for a meal.

If it warms up enough, on one of the next few weekends, I may try a little. I do love squirrel in the crockpot. It is way better than rabbit. I will have to take my pellet gun to the stand where I took this picture of one while I was crossbow hunting there last fall. It is too close to some buildings to use a firearm.

The bulk of our family of four’s protein comes from wild game. On a good year, my venison comes in at close to $ 1 per pound, after subtracting most input costs. We were never able to approach that level raising domestic beef, pork or chickens. The best tasting wild game that I ever had, was moose tongue, on a hunt up in Quebec when I was young: Corn fed button buck liver is a close second, and I would put ruffed grouse breast in the number 3 spot. Baked Largemouth bass fillets are right up there also.

January 15: Too cold for me to go outside today, but nice inside by the wood stove. I tied up a half dozen 1/8 and 1/4 oz bucktail jigs. I think this tail was from a doe that my buddy shot during the winter 2020 ML season. Those jigs are my favorite smallmouth bass bait (hooks are cheap and they work good). That was my last bass from 2021, with one in his mouth. I was going to pour the jig heads from the 4/5 oz 16 gauge slug that last years 9-pointer caught in his rib cage, but I found another use for that.

January 8: There was a light dusting of snow at home, on the nw corner of wmu 9F this morning and the ground is starting to freeze. I cross country ski’d to the back corner of our place. A few fox tracks around “twin’s” butcher scrap pile up front, but the coyotes have not found it yet. There is still some corn left on the stalks of my back corn plot and it looks like the deer are hitting it hard now, and eating some of the nearby purple top turnips. They are also feeding out in the wheat fields by the looks of the tracks.

January 1: Morning hunt: I reached my “trailer park” stand, near the se corner of wmu 9F, about a half hour before sunrise. This stand is “crossbow only”, because there are 5 or 6 double-wides within 400 ft of it. I only have permission to hunt from one of the owners (the one I park next to). There is a 7 acre swamp between this stand, high and dry on the back corner of my parent’s woods, and the remainder of their place on the next road. I had high hopes for this stand in 2021, since the only other time I hunted the location was back in 2018, when I blew a chance at the largest antlered buck that I had ever seen on my grandpa’s old farm, in 40 years of hunting it. That was on the last Sunday of crossbow season, when the big 8-point had busted me in close, while I was taking a sip of hot cider from a shiny stainless steel cup. After that, I moved my little hang on stand to the front of the swamp, 525 feet from the nearest trailer, and wrapped my cider thermos with black electric tape. I sniped that buck from just over 100 yards, with my scoped bolt-action slug gun the next Saturday morning, but he had busted off a few of his points by then. In 2021, I hunted this stand once during crossbow season, during the “deerless” 10-2 timeframe, and December 30th for the evening hunt. I saw nothing on either of those hunts. When I called to check in with my parents after, they told me that a deer had come out of the woods behind their house, to feed on a clover plot, at 4:20 pm. I broke the seat on the tiny ladder stand on that hunt, so I brought along a board to span as the rails, and it was not too comfortable. I saw a big tom turkey fly down, just after sunrise, but that was it for the morning action on New Year’s Day. Evening hunt (My last hunt of the 21/22 Holiday ML season): After a long lunch with Mom and Pop, I headed out to my new stand on the edge of the woods, that overlooks the clover plot behind their house. There was a steady rain, so I had a finger condom over the muzzle of my T/C Omega 50 cal, which had been loaded since the start of the late ML season. I put up my tree umbrella, when I got up in the stand. This is one of two new tree blind stands, that I started building in my shop last winter. They have floors made from plastic decking, pt lumber 2x4 frames, and pt landscape timber front legs. The 3 ft walls are made from barnwood and the frames are lagged to the tree. This one is on a cherry tree, to which the tree umbrella is attached. The cushioned, adjustable swivel office chair in it cost me $ 8 at a barn sale last summer (usually I garbage pick those). I had 2 remaining target bucks on this evenings hunt, “forky”, who I had passed twice previously (the last time was on opening day of gun in 21), and the twin to a button buck that I had killed from this stand one evening during the early antlerless season. I had also killed what was maybe their grandfather (a stout one-time 11-pointer that had broken a couple points off and was down to just 9 remaining) from this stand on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving in 21. Several folks here have said they have killed deer from under a tree umbrella, when it was raining, but I’d have never believed it, had “twin” not stepped out 2 minutes ahead of schedule (4:18 pm). The drumming of the rain on the umbrella covered the sound of his approach. He popped out of the thick brush, 20 yards from my stand, without warning. Some say that bb’s are the “dumbest deer in the woods”, but he was quite alert. He kept looking up at my orange hat, which is probably all of me that he could see, above the barnwood wall. Each time he briefly turned away, I inched my gun closer to his direction, but he kept looking back at me. When he passed behind a big tree, I snapped the gun into position. I fired, behind his shoulder, when he bent over for his last taste of clover. The smoke cleared and he was DRT. I didn’t think it was the bb twin when I fired, because his head looked too long and his frame looked too big. I thought it was forky, having already shed his salad forks. I had watched those two tangle on opening day of gun season, while I was in the house eating lunch with my parents. Forky stuck one of his little salad forks into twin’s chest, and rolled him up over his back. I noticed that twin’s brisket wound was still a little pussy, when I gutted him this evening. I didn’t salvage any of the brisket meat on that one. His liver sure was good though, and twice as big as his brother’s was, back in September.

Has there ever been another NFL playoff game where a team scored a touchdown on every possession ?

I have, but they are a pain to process and don’t seem to work that great. It seems like I got a lot of incomplete fills on the smaller sizes using those. My mold makes 1 each of 1/32 oz thru 3/4 oz sizes. 1/8 & 1/4 oz are what I use the most of. I use a few 1/16 oz when they are real shallow, and 5/16 oz when real deep and/or on faster drifts. A buddy of mine, who owns a pattern shop, gave me a bunch of good soft lead that pours real nice. I won’t be needing any wheel weights for a while. My mold actually has “avoid wheel weights” printed on the outside. One thing nice about pouring your own heads, is that you can change hook sizes. I usually bump them up at least one size from the standard, which is labeled on the mold. Hooking percentage improves on bass with the larger hooks. It also improves with the lighter weight heads.

It’s a good day for making jigs and I just tied up a half dozen. The temperature is about 80 degrees in front of the wood stove. I found another use for the 4/5 oz of lead that my buck caught with his rib cage last fall. If I ever get sick of that antler ornament, I will make a few more jigs from it.

I like the bot-fly holes, because they give a typical rack just the right amount of “character”. I find most non-typicals somewhat grotesque. Super-symmetric typicals (like the little split-brow 10 on the right of the holey-9) look fake.

One of these Saturdays, after it warms up a little, I am going to run up to Lockport, for a shopping trip. It’s good to hear that Runnings has access to those again. Do they still have a one box limit ? I am down to just (14) of those left, so I could definitely use a few boxes. No big deal if I can’t get them, because I have a very good supply of 16 gauge foster style slugs. They still work very well, as long as the deer are within about a hundred yards.

I was thankful that global warming lasted thru the end of the Holiday ML season anyhow . It was nice being able to hunt in some comfortable temperatures. It was also cool to finally get to kill a deer from under my tree umbrella, while it was raining, on New Year’s Day. It is so damn loud under that thing, with the rain hitting it, I’d have never believed that would have been possible. With that rain playing a snare drum on my umbrella, I never heard the big button buck approach, until it popped out of the brush, 20 yards from my tree. 10 minutes later: (note the missing finger condom).