Amen TD. My favorite services are usually sunrise services which we regularly attend on the water or the chukar ridge top. One of my favorite places to attend this service is Alder Bay, Vancouver island, BC where my folks spend the summers.
Two reasons I feel a bit of a kindredness with you. Number one would be that you fit my definition of a conservationist. Having been raised not only in the outdoors but as a farmer and rancher I never cease to be amazed at how uneducated many people really are to basic biology. I believe sustainable harvest is not only a key component of basic management but also the key to recruiting new people to participate and enjoy our heritage. The Lord’s bounty does not come shrink wrapped at the super market. While I do believe catch and release has it’s place I think many people have a fanatical, illogical approach to that. Catch and Eat wins the hearts and minds of non sportsmen and women as well.
The second thing is that you are definately a sunrise service kinda guy as well. Time to step down off my soap box.
I could use education on photo resiszing. I have many I’d like to post but can never seem to get the file size to work.
Shoot me a PM. Need to know what photo software you have…if any. There are a lot of good photo programs out there, and you probably have something either from your new computer install or from the camera you use. I am sure we would enjoy seeing your pictorial contributions.
**I use the ACD See program. Very fast for auto exposure, tweaking color, cropping, resizing, etc. [#0000ff]**Maybe you could come over and I could show you better than telling you. Like a lot of things, it is easy once you know how, but like a foreign language until you break the “sound barrier”. [/#0000ff]
Hallelujah and Amen to the sunrise services. Folks who miss sunrises…for work or pleasure…miss the best part of the day. I have always been an early riser. I tell folks that I get up at 4 and wake up at noon.
Having been married for thirty years now I just love what you have said TubeDude. I love it! I love it and I love it! Love the sayings of a married man in relation to his wife. The kind only a married man can really appreciate. Wish my wife loved to fish.
Its simply amazing how many large bluegills and whitties a channel cat can swallow. I’m stumped.
My step dad once caught a female 8 pounder from the Colorado River in Arizona, he was using a palm-sized bluegill and she swallowed it whole—all the way down to her stomach. He was fishing for flatheads not channel cats.
But I never thought they could eat *that *many fish.
Goes to show that cats can not only be efficient hunters but thats why the going can get tough on larger channel cats. They can get their stomachs full thats for sure.
This reminded me of when I was a kid and my buddy and I used to fish park (reads glof course) ponds in Arizona for cats. We had a pool cleaning net and used that to catch 2 -3 inch bluegills and used them as live bait either under a bobber or with an egg sinker. Caught allot of nice cats that way.
Way to go, Pat and Delores!! That makes me really wanna go out there and freeze my bagonias off to chase big cats, even though I don’t have the right fear for coldwater tubing. I think I might go soon and just stay until my feet get too numb.
With daytime temps getting over 60, the water temps will warm up fast now. Won’t be long until you can tube in light waders without freezing your “bagonias”. Might put a chill on your daffydills or your twolips though.
Let us know when you wanna go cat rasslin’. I think we will probably have a couple of “Gorilla Floatillas” down there this year. One will be on the night of the FULL MOON IN JUNE.
You’ve got me there, can’t say as I have ever swallowed a bluegill whole. I do have a couple of actual fishing questions though: when you fish a minnow, how do you rig them? Do you nose hook them, tail hook them, in through the mouth and out the skull? What is your preference? Second, what about weight? do you want the right on the bottom with heavier weight, do you use a fishfinder rig? Go weightless? or just use some split shot pinched on the line to get them “bottom-ish?” I am sure you have answered these questions a thousand times and I could probably find the answers if I looked hard enough, but maybe you have some fresh info. Anyway, I await your sage wisdom.
I usually fish minnows either on the bottom, with no weight…or below a bobber, using a “bobberhead jig”. Most of the time I just cast out the minnow, with only a hook and a swivel about three feet up the line, as the only weight. This is enough to get the minnow to the bottom in up to 20 feet of water.
**How I hook the minnows depends on several factors. First is the size of the minnows. Smaller minnows on bigger hooks require that I run the hook in and around the spine to cover most of the hook but still leave the point exposed. **
I generally prefer minnows from 3" to 5" in length. If the minnows are fresh and firm, I hook them through the gill collar (see attached pic). If they are softer and/or the fish are stripping the minnow off the hook, I hook them back by the tail, sometimes wrapping the hook point around the spine for extra holding. Either of these methods lets me pull them slowly over the bottom, with minimum snagging on clean bottom. The fish do not seem to have a preference. But, if you are not hooking up well by pinning the minnows up front, change to hooking them i the tail. Some days they seem to prefer biting one end or the other. The critical thing is to make easy lob casts rather than power snaps. Otherwise you will go through a lot of minnows and the seagulls will be happy.
When I fish “fly-lining” (no weight), I leave the bail open on my reel and hook a loop of line under a clip. When a fish picks up the bait, it pulls the line from the clip and can take line freely off the reel…until I pick up the rod, flip the bail and set the hook.
Thanks for the scouting run. Looks like you and TB had some of chits and giggles. Have ya warmed up the smoker?
Looks like its nearly time for us to warm the ride up and swap over to open water mode. [sly]
Google has a good free program for photo editing that you can download.
It’s called Picasa.
You can download it here:
It allows easy resizing, lightening, darkening, and a bunch of other things, and is very simple to use. My wife told me about it. I usually just us mspaint, a free program that comes with windows (it’s under accessories).
It’s not as user friendly though, and is more basic.
Thanks very much for the information. As always, your answers are complete and palatable for people who can be a little slow. The pictures are great too. Thanks again!
I think I’m heading down there this Saturday, but not sure yet.
The Gorrilla Floatilla in June sounds awesome, and I will be there this time. Haven’t done that at night for a long time. I caught a 6 pounder a couple of years ago and that was a blast! I’ll get a sitter for the kids if I have them that weekend…
Shoot me a PM. Need to know what photo software you have…if any. There are a lot of good photo programs out there, and you probably have something either from your new computer install or from the camera you use. I am sure we would enjoy seeing your pictorial contributions.
