Trapping ’15-’16

I went to the class in west Tn a few years back and thought about getting into trapping so I bought some snares. Made them all up nice and pretty, then they sat on a a shelf. Clarance offered time and again for me to go with him on some of his runs, but we could never get my schedule to line up where I could go. Well, last year a student started in my Ag program at school that does trapping for his Supervised Agriculture Experience, SAE, project. He told me yeah, I can give you some pointers.

Awhile back he brought some victors out to my farm and showed me how to set them for coyotes. Long story short all I caught were fox squirrels. Then it happened. Somehow I ran over one with a truck and my neighbor ran over one with a bush hog and tractor. Well, I knew I needed to replace them so I ordered some MB550 rubber jaws to replace his two and have me 4. Finally got them rusted, dyed and waxed and ready to go.

Fast forward to last week. Buddy I go to church with says his coworker has beavers in his creek and needs them gone! Then a lady were building a project for in the shop says she’s got a red fox at her place. Wednesday before Thanksgiving I call my student up and I go to pick him up. Dear. Lord. He’s sitting in his driveway with enough stuff to fill my truck up. 330 conibears, long springs, 4 coils, and dog proofs.

We we get to the place with the beaver and find fresh sign. Tree that’s gnawed but still green, with fresh shavings all around. He shows me what a food pile looks like in the. Reel and then asks me, what do you see at the tree. Beaver coming up one side and sliding down the other. So he asks me, how would you set this. I say a foothold on the climbing side and a conibear on the slide side. We set them and out up guide sticks. (Side note – conibears make be a bit nervous!). We move down to the bridge and find coon and bobcat tracks. Set two dog proofs and a 550 dirt hole set. We go to the next farm and set some 550s and snares for the fox and call it a day.

We go to check the beaver farm and hit the bridge first. Caught a coon! It’s small but a coon none the less! Dispatch him and move down to check the beaver traps. As we get close he starts grinning. I said, what’s the deal. He points and says “ripples.” Look over the bank and there he is, one mad beaver in the foothold. He says, where’s the other trap? I look around the other side and all the guide sticks from it are gone. Then I see it under water, another beaver! DOUBLED UP, we dispatch the one and check the other farm but nothing.

Brushed and skinned out the beavers and coon and now they’re in the freezer. This year, for now at least, I’m planning on learning to catch and sell my fur green. Next year will be learning to flesh and dry, in the hopes that I have a work area for it!

Normandy July Night Tournament

Definitely didn’t go as planned!

Put in at the ramp and the motor wouldn’t start for some reason. Had to use the trolling motor to get back to get Austin. Jiggled battery and all connections were tight. Unscrewed and rescrewed wing nuts. Motor fired up. Blast off at 630, supposedly. Motor won’t fire again. Shook battery box and fires up so off we go.

Acting funny so figure well go to the bridge and set there. 645-10ish we sat there tight lining minnows, jigs, casting, everything we had in the boat. Not a single fish and not a single bite. Had a million minnows under out lights, and literally SAW crappie busting through the schools, but never once touched our baits. Started shallow and worked our way deep. Nothing. Austin was cold and we and wanted to try somewhere else so I though go up the creek and get out if the wind. Motor fires this time and we head up there. Passed Ed and got to the cove on the right. Saw a ton of fish on the depth finder so stopped there and put lines out. Something. Nothing.

Started to troll towards another spot to get the handle on my new TM, and suddenly EVERYTHING on the boat goes dark. I figured we’ve drained a fully charged battery with this new TM. Sit there mad and realize the interior LEDs are still on. We still have power! Turn everything beckon and try again. By now its 1130, were both fed up, cold, wet, tired and still not a single fish. Decide to call it quits early and head home. Especially since Austin lives an hour northeast of Murfreesboro! Turn the key…….and nothing happens.

Ended up having to put my starting cables on my deep cycle just to get the motor started and back to the ramp.

Got back to the ramp at midnight as the bass guys were taking out.

Hope everyone else had a better evening.

Ps when we got home I put my charger to both batteries to test what they were at and the starting was at 98 and the TM was at 78! Hmmmmm

Priest 6/12/14

I swear I was crappie fishing! First time this year trolling cranks. Left out of fate sanders and headed down lake. Started trolling jigs and had the first largemouth hit on a white. Decided to try a crank and since it hit white, tried a pearl bandit. Bam! Swapped everything over to white colored Bandit 200s and went to rolling along. Ended up with 2 largemouth, 15″ and a 13″, one catfish (still trying to figure that out) and 11 crappie. I lost four at the boat because I wasn’t using my net. Stupid on my part I know!!!! All in all not a bad 5 hours I’d say.

Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh

Boats down AGAIN!

Leave for FFA camp first thing in the morning and I’m running the boat dock. Well I figure before I drag my boat up there I need to make sure she’s running ok after the water in the fuel and lack of oil in the gas incidents.

Put in at Mona on Priest Friday afternoon and she fires up. Go up river and the idles a bit high. Think nothing of it. Go to move back down river, turn it on, push the lever forward to drive, and all it does is rev the motor like I lifted the starter / throttle arm. VROOOOOOMMMMMM!

Try it again with the same luck. Doesn’t work either way. Forward or reverse.

Trolled back to the ramp and got it on the trailer and dropped it off at the mechanic’s.

Said it could be anything from a spun prop to a broken drive shaft.

I was so made I about pulled the plug and sunk her where she floated!

Kayaking the Stones – Memorial Day

Well my anniversary gift is early from the wife. Matt and I have talked about buying kayaks for the past several years but never have. Academy had them on sale so Carisa and I rode up to look at them. She went to keep me from buying one. Matt found the Pelican Apex 100 and got them to price match at $179! He got his things together and Carisa said “go ahead and get yours, happy anniversary!”

Needless to say they were put to use today. Floated from Walter Hill to Mona with Matt and a few friends. All in all a great time. Little light rain, then a down pour, but still a great first kayak trip. Now all I have to do is get it ready to fish from!!!!

2014 Cat Count

5/4- 6
5/7- 13
5/21- 7
6/26 – 3

Jugging

Well it’s been quite awhile since I’ve post but its only because I haven’t caught hardly anything……until now! The pressure has been up at 30 and steady and the fishing has been horrible. I’ve been told if the sticks are floating on end, the fish won’t bite. I figured it was an old wife’s tail until I started studying the pressures. I’m leaning towards believing it. The crappie have only been one or two and deep. Hardly anything shallow. Everything’s been 6′ and deeper.

Matt and I have started running two jug trips so far. First night we had 6, Wednesday night we caught 13! Had some boat trouble, but think I have it straightened out. Ended up the other night with 8 crappie, only 2 keepers but they were 12 and 13.25″!

I think in going to make a running post to keep up with all the cats I catch this year.

Priest 4/12….Fish are where????

Went with Austin today out of Fate Sanders. Here’s the thing though. With water temps of 50-55 and 55-58 I was hammering the crappie. Well, by my standards, not Mervs. 😀

We would boat maybe 35-40 fish a day and have 8-12 keepers. I’d spider rig anywhere from 8-16 FOW with both minnows and jigs. Bam bam bam.

As of last weekend and today, water temp of 60-63, I can hardly catch any! Last Saturday I had 8 fish all day. Today, 11. We fished shallow, 1-3 FOW casting the banks. We casted to mud banks. We casted to sandy banks. We casted to gravely banks. We jigged shallow structure with minnows. We jigged structure in 5-8 FOW of water. We spider rigged in 12-18 FOW. We cast into useless water hoping and praying for something! Mind you the something ended up being an 18″ stripe! The fish we caught today,, mostly,were in 12-15 FOW spider rigged over a hump or structure.

Thing is, I was always told that these water temps they should be shallow and on bed.

Has the water level of priest being low, coupled with the storms we’ve had messed with it this bad, or am I just this bad?

Also, I was recently told if the sticks are floating end on end, then the fish won’t bite. I’m assuming this deals with barometric pressure,but not sure how….

Priest 4/8

Went this afternoon after school. Put in at Jefferson springs and went up river.

Priest 4/5

Went Saturday morning with Uncle Michael as he’s never really been much of a crappie fisherman. Mind you, he can pull bass from a hat, but not done many crappie trips the past few years. Ended the day with 8 fish boated and 3 keeper crappie, 1 bluegill. Went up Stewarts creek and fought wind most of the morning. Very windy. Moved back across and to the trees behind Fate Sanders. Very slow day but had quite a bit of rain the day before. Mom and dad were out on the lake as well. Caught a 13″ largemouth. First good size bass in awhile. Nice day but should have been better. I’m ready for some stable weather.