Pardon my Absence

Posted: May 17, 2012 by Ken G in Just Stories, Off Topic
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I haven’t felt like writing much of anything lately.

I’ve also not been reading much of anything lately.

For all those with blogs that I usually read and leave comments, I don’t mean to be rude, but my head is filled with enough stuff and I’ve simply run out of room.

I’ve been out wandering around, doing a fair amount of fishing, finding what I think are cool things, taking what I think are interesting photos, but the words to describe all of this have piled up in my head and I can’t be bothered making sense of it all.

Maybe that’s for the better.

Don’t see this changing for the rest of the month, too nice out to be sitting around inside the house. Maybe I’ll get back in the swing of things come June, or not.

Till then, here’s a few shots of a cast iron frying pan I found next to a deteriorating stove out in the middle of nowhere. Literally, nowhere. Will follow up with more once the pan has been cleaned up, seasoned and put back to use.

It's half buried in the dirt to the right of the stove, in front of the tree. Were decorative shards of pottery all over the place too.

Salvaged one a few years ago from under a collapsed barn. Owner thought it had been there for a good 50 years. Works like a charm now.

No manufacturers marks or anything on it. Just a crudely drawn number 9 on the bottom to let you know the size. That tells me it's pretty old.

Speaking of Butterflies

Posted: May 11, 2012 by Ken G in Just Stories, Off Topic, Wandering
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I was out wandering the other day and stopped at a creek. The main goal was to see what kind of shape it was in after the recent rains. The other goal was to simply wander around a little.

There’s an old abandoned road near the creek. Each time I wander down it a little further. I know it’s trespassing, but it seems that landowners don’t mind gray beards with cameras wandering harmlessly on some parts of their property.

“Getting any good photos?”

I never know till I look at them later. You don’t mind do you?

“No, not at all. Feel free.”

And I do.

It was nice to be out with sky blue skies bringing out the intense greens of the rain soaked trees and grass. Luckily I was also watching where I was walking.

A large black and yellow object fluttered past my head. I knew it was a swallowtail butterfly and assumed it was a yellow swallowtail, but I noticed it was more black than yellow. It landed on a nearby tall blade of grass. I quickly shot a photo figuring it would quickly flutter off.

Since it didn’t move, I took a few more, always expecting it to fly off.

That never happened. It sat there, wings spread wide, soaking in the sun. I kept getting closer, pushing my luck.

It let me get within a few inches of it.

Then, apparently annoyed, it flew off.

As a kid I had a fascination with butterflies. I think it came from frequent visits to the Field Museum. I remember cases full of butterflies, pinned to backing with their wings spread wide like this one. I remember having a book about butterflies, loaded with pictures. That was 45 years ago or so and the memory of names and colors are long gone.

From what I looked up later, this one winds up being a Giant Swallowtail. And that it was, with a wingspan that was easily 5-6 inches. I found the pattern fascinating. It looks some what like a face, mouth open. I’ll assume it sits like this, wings spread, to intimidate predators. I never did find anything mentioned about that being a possibility.

I kind of like that idea though.

Monarchs and the Crazy Squirrel Lady

Posted: May 11, 2012 by Ken G in Just Stories, Off Topic, Wandering
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I’ve been getting out fishing. Creeks, Fox River, secret ponds and a heavily pressured state park. Caught fish at all of them. Some good, some not so good.

Going through one of my bouts of ADD, ADHD, OCD or some combination of all three. Keeps me from focusing on words. Can put down an interesting sentence, but that’s about where it ends. Then I get bored and don’t bother with any more sentences. Partial blame I place on rethinking, reinventing myself yet again. Taking too long this time, but that might be the boredom thing again.

Have been enjoying just wandering around, sitting around and taking a few photographs.

The first week of May we had two monarchs cruise through our yard. My wife and I were wondering if they could be the offspring of the 100 or so monarchs we’ve raised and released over the last two years. We let them go right in our yard and we’ve read that they somehow implant this into their genetic makeup and pass it on to successive generations. Who knows, but it’s an interesting thought.

The other day we went for one of our wanders around the lake at Silver Springs State Park, a five minute drive down the road from our house. We were coming across quite a bit of milkweed sprouting. My wife was wondering if their would be monarch eggs on them. I said, “it’s too early.” Not five seconds later a monarch lifts off of a milkweed plant. Of course this got the wife off on her search.

By the time we made it back to the car, she had collected 36 monarch eggs. In past years, we never even bothered looking till mid summer with most of the eggs found occurring in July and August. This was truly odd.

In case any are wondering, she then puts the milkweed leaves in small containers with a bit of water in the bottom.

In case you’ve never seen a monarch egg, they’re usually on the underside of a milkweed leaf and look like a tiny white speck. Once you find one, you get used to seeing them. You can see one on the leaf off to the left.

Two days later, they already started to hatch. They’re barely an 1/8th of an inch long when they first hatch and easy to miss.

They start gnawing away at the leaves immediately.

They grow fast and eat voraciously. We transfer the leaves into small clear storage boxes with lids we modified to have screening across the top. Fresh leaves have to be added almost daily. Basically they eat and shit all day long. By noon today we had 10 of them hatched. Time to go pick more leaves.

Also the other day, my wife got it in her head that she was going to train the neighborhood squirrels to eat peanuts out of her hand. She did this with flying squirrels a few years ago and thought it would be a good idea to try with your standard variety squirrel. I know she had the flying squirrel sitting in her hand once, but this was the best picture I could find.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but she actually got a squirrel to come up to her and take a peanut out of her hand. For the last two days, she’s been slowly coaxing other squirrels to keep getting closer.

They are extremely curious and know they want that peanut she’s offering, but it’s become a real cat and mouse game around the tree.

I think it’s going to be a matter of a few days and the damn things will be knocking on the screen door wondering where the peanuts are.

In this same tree is a squirrel nest. Back in March, we found three baby squirrels lying on the ground. They had fallen out of the bottom of the nest. They were all breathing, but lying still. We assumed it would be a matter of time and they would all die. The mother squirrel ran around in a panic. I always assumed squirrels picked up baby squirrels like cats pick up kittens, by the back of the neck. They cram practically the whole damn thing into their mouths. She did this and we watched as she carried them all to a hole in a nearby oak tree. We didn’t see them again. Again assuming they all died.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the squirrel was busy rebuilding the nest. One by one she led three baby squirrels back into the nest. She and the babies got so close to us that we could have reached down and picked them up. Since then we’ve been watching the three little ones playing in the tree, practicing to be squirrels I guess. Hanging upside down, making short jumps from one branch to another, but never coming down to the ground or the feeder.

My wife is hoping to train all of them to feed out of her hand.

And yes, I’ve already been reminded that these are pets, not future stew.

But you never know, accidents do happen.

Fishing with Ed

Posted: May 8, 2012 by Ken G in Fox River, The Fishing Stories
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Got out the other day with the Four Season Angler Ed Schmitt. He gets off work just in time to go fish the last couple hours of the day, so I had some time to kill before his arrival.

The weatherman said the rain was supposed to be clearing out. Till that was supposed to happen, it drizzled. I can tolerate that, especially when it’s combined with no wind. The closeness of the low clouds and thicker air lets you focus on the task at hand. Few distractions by the surroundings and the rain gear cuts off my peripheral vision, forcing me to into tunnel vision.

Working over the first stretch got me a couple of immediate hits and the eventual landing of a smallie.

Being forced to always look forward still brought some rewards. The goslings are out. Pairs of adult geese swam protectively with their broods. Heads down as they swam, protecting their young from river currents by making them swim in their wakes. Circling their little ones and always wary of me, the only possible threat in sight. Couldn’t help but think of how many people I know that could learn a lesson from watching geese and their young.

There was a small mayfly hatch coming off the water. Did my best to capture one and then, couldn’t get it to pose for me correctly.

When Ed called to let me know where he was, it started to rain, hard. Not a torrential downpour, but this was definitely not the clearing the weathermen called for. Ed chalked it up to his usual luck when finding the time to get out fishing.

By the time Ed made it across the river I was up to 2/5 on the catch/self release scale. Nothing hot and heavy so far. The stretch we fished for the last couple of hours of daylight is only a couple of hundred yards long, but for some reason it always holds the highest concentration of fish.

After some initial misses for Ed, he switched to something that resembled a crayfish and dredged the bottom of the river, while I stuck with something I could swim through the current. Both choices were the correct choices and we were both casting to the same areas and getting hits and hooked fish. Ed got fish of the day.

A couple of casts later I was able to pull one out of the exact same spot where Ed got his FOTD.

Resulting in one of the few images of this angler seen in the last 7 years.

That happens when you fish alone 98% of the time. Plus I don’t care to have my head in all the shots of me holding a fish. I’m starting to like my arms length fish shots.

Even with the steady rain, it wasn’t that bad of an evening to be out. Of course the rain pretty much ended as soon as our cars came into view and we were done for the day.

Wound up taking about two and a half hours to comb this small stretch. I wound up going 6/8 for the day and I believe Ed landed four. I know he missed an equal amount at least. This stretch is odd that way. There is no discernible difference in over a mile of river, yet this one small stretch always seems to hold the highest concentration of fish. After 12 years of fishing through here I’ve determined that the pattern is that there is no pattern.

You have to be there, fish like you want to catch something and hope for the best.

Looks like we picked one of the better days.

Creek Hopping the Afternoon Away

Posted: May 6, 2012 by Ken G in Fox River, The Fishing Stories
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The plan was to get out in the earlier part of the day and hit 4 creeks before the rains came at exactly 3 PM. At least that’s the time predicted for the coming rains.

I should have skipped the first creek. It was the furthest. When crossing over it, it was ridiculously low and clear, not a good sign. Then, a couple of cars were parked off the side of the road directly in front of the path to the creek. I knew they were a couple of bank anglers. The wading anglers park their cars in the parking lot, about 100 feet away.

We all know that for bank anglers, the best spots are at the very end of a well worn path that leads directly to the water. It has to be a good spot, there’s a path directly to it. I never bothered going to find out if I was correct.

Off to the next creek.

This one was also ridiculously low and crystal clear. Decided to keep the fishing to the deepest spots. At 5 feet deep and able to see the bottom without a problem, deep didn’t seem to matter much.

First hole, I was able to watch a smallie come off a log and inhale the helgie I had tied on. It didn’t seem to care that I was standing a mere 15 feet away and could be seen easily.

In the next hole, the biggest around, the distinctive tap, tap, tap of a rock bass. Missed the first one, got the second, and continued to miss any others.

All the big fish usually here this time of year were nowhere to be found. Just not enough water and too clear. This is the lowest I’ve ever seen the creeks in April. We need rain. I was able for the first time ever to get a glimpse of what is at the bottom of this deep hole. A decent sized tree runs the length of it, but then, I kind of knew that based on snags and lost jigs.

Did manage to hook a couple of more smallies. Only bothered to snap a shot of one.

On my way out I ran into Nat Lawrence on his way in, fly rod in hand. I had Nat out a few weeks ago on a guide trip and I’m impressed by anyone that will drive 60 miles one way just to try their hand at catching a few smallies on the fly. I warned him about how I tagged all the fish in one stretch. He asked about further down. I was more impressed. I hope he got something for his efforts.

Off to the next creek, low, clear and very cold. More dink smallies hiding in the darker spots on the bottom of the creek.

I kept thinking I should try something other than the helgie, but they kept hitting it. Got these two, one after the other.

Same fish, different pose.

From the one area where the two above fish were caught, I could see more swimming around. Nothing could get them interested. They were probably traumatized by watching their friends get dragged through the water by a little helgie and suddenly lost their appetite for little bugs with attitude.

Then I went for a walk. You could tell it was a gray day, no pictures of anything but fish.

The last time I tried to walk around the point at the mouth of the creek was at least 8 years ago, probably longer. It was impossible, there was a deep hole that forced you to hop up on shore. I know I’ve mentioned a flood we had in August 2008. Further upstream on this same creek it completely changed how this creek works. The same thing has happened at the mouth. The hole was completely filled in. With the river level up a bit, it should have been impossible to walk around the large point.

It was easy. The hole was filled in with tons of gravel.

For some reason I had taken off the fish producing helgie to work the mud line between the creek and the river. Probably a mistake. Not even a tap.

Then I heard thunder rumble off to the west. A couple of rain drops dimpled the surface of the water. I checked, 3 PM exactly. For once I wanted the weathermen to be wrong and they weren’t. Never made it to the fourth creek.

Wound up with 7/3 on the catch/self release scale with the one rock bass thrown in for good measure. I could live with that for a couple of hours of fishing. Especially when I went into the whole thing expecting nothing.

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