Except that they were not very hungry this morning! Pardon me for that spoiler news!

Managed to arise today before the sun was up, and with one foot out the door doing a final weather check I was headed for a favorite bay in Lake Michigan about a half hour from home. The forecast was for thick fog, and that is what I fished in for 3 hours!

Thankfully I could always see shore, as well as easily spot fish. The area is a combination of smooth sand and a cobblestone rocky bottom with occasional submerged boulders scattered about.

Started out trolling and could not entice any takers. Began to putz along in stealth mode making casts and managed the first smallmouth bass via casting. Whew...OK...a sign of life! Water temps here were below 50 degrees, and the fish were extremely sluggish.

The fish were out in great number, and as I observed 2 large schools of bass (several dozen per school), quite a few pairs and lots of solo smallies roaming around I was surprised that only a few would even bother to look at a lure today. I think the water temp played a role in this, maybe pre-spawn reluctance or perhaps the "surgeon general" that takes care of the bass has been advising them not to eat rubber, plastic, metal or paint because it could be harmful to their health! Overall, and I lost an accurate count, I managed to "see" at least 90 to 100 bass this morning cruising along, mostly unaware of me, in between 5' and 15' of water.

Whatever the case, I kept casting, and ultimately started trolling again out in deeper water. There were some faint hearted strikes, but overall I only managed to catch 2 bass today. No worries, it was just awesome to be out on the water!

Went down to Carson City today shoppin and on the way back here this evenin bout a 1/2 mile from thr house there was a black bear on the side of the road. It wanted to cross but we scared it off . It stopped a little ways off and I believe it went ahead and crossed after we went by.
So we get home and I'm unloadin the truck and I turn around and there is another different bear bout 15 feet away from me.
I told it to go on and get out of here but it was a young bear and didn't understand Texan for scram.
After I unloaded the truck I needed to spread some soil around the front yaed and it kept me company for bout a half hour.
I took a few pics of it before it finally decided there wasn't any food for it here and went on up the street to the neighbors house, where it started eatin the grass in his yard and laid down in his front yard.
Eventually it wandered on off. But it REALLY wanted to go in our garage and look for food. I had to run him off from there but he stayed around for awhile to see if he could get back to the garage.

An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000aji feet, when suddenly a Eurofighter with Tempo Mach 2 appears.

The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: "Airbus, boring flight isn’t it? Now have a look here!"

He rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks, "Well, how was that?"

The Airbus pilot answers: "Very impressive, but now you look!"

The jet pilot watches the Airbus, but nothing happens. It continues to fly stubbornly straight, with the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, "Well, how was that?"

Confused, the jet pilot asks, "What did you do?"

The AirBus pilot laughs and says, "I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the washroom, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate fudge pastry.

The moral of the story is:


When you are young, speed and adrenaline seem to be great. But as you get older and wiser, you learn that comfort and peace are more important.

This is called S.O.S.......... Slower, Older, Smarter.

Dedicated to all my friends who are like me, now realizing that it is time to slow down and enjoy the rest of the trip. Whether it be fishing, scrolling these sites, or the hobby of your choice. Take it all in, You earned it.

The Muskrat reminds me of a time I was fishin the West Fork Carson River and I was standin on o big flat rock under this old bridge.
I was castin out in the faster water and I noticed somethin crawlin out of the river onto MY rock.
It startled me for a second and then I realized it was a little Mountain Beaver.
It just wanted to rest a few mins on my rock and take a break from swimmin upriver.
In just a little bit it got back in the current and went on it's way up river.
Was really neat to share my rock with it for a few min. It was only bout a foot away from my feet.

Grass was too wet to mow!!! 🤫🙄 So I went fishn',
Finally the wind died down to just 9-10 mph with some pretty good gusts thrown in . I started out fishing the banks today and that was a no go!! Took me an hour or so to figure out where they were and how to get them to hit.
Once I got that figured out and armed with the frog of the day, I used a Runcle popper black with yellow legs. This is the same style I used early last season and at the Eagle.
The only way to get a hit was to land directly in the middle portion of newly forming pads laying flat on the water. Then slowly with very little movement just twitch the frog and Bingo they would blow up and get it. If it hit short or long they wouldn't touch it.
So I spent most of the day fighting wind to position myself for a really accurate cast. Started off with a nice 2.5# er and ended the day with 14 LM Bass. This is the only method that worked they wouldn't even look at it in open water even between two close sets of pads forming small groups🤔. Got a new term for frog fishn' to use . I call it the 3 h's . Hit, Hook ,and Halfway to the yac. Just part of frogn',I lose a few Everytime out this way. 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🇺🇲🇺🇲🙏

Went fishing 🎣 in Manasquan Inlet this evening on a cold, cloudy day with light north wind and incoming tide. Saw a big bluefish caught when I parked my car. Nobody was near my spot. Caught, tagged and released a 23” bluefish with my brother John’s homemade synthetic pink homemade buck tail teaser on my fifth cast of the day. Then a bluefish bit off my rig. Three people arrived and started fishing to my left and one of the local regulars started fishing to my right. We had three big bluefish hookups simultaneously. I caught, tagged and released my biggest bluefish for this year at 31” 9.10 lb with a plain hook Ava A-17. Missed a fluke and lost a bluefish then quit early because of the intruders. Birds were working the mouth of the inlet.