Wanderer

I remember those stupid punch cards. I was in junior high and had to “program” em in class. I hated em and thought I’d just avoid using computers altogether!

Been sick at all since starting to use it? Friends of mine have been using it for a few years religiously for one reason or another. They keep a jug of it next to the coffee pot.

The Gammi’s are good! This is a pic of my rig. I just run 20 lb fluorocarbon to the snap and change hook sizes as needed and run the Gammi circles. This didn’t turn out like I expected but this pike had my rig all the way around his lower jaw and didn’t cut the flouro. It’s the same leader I used all last year, landing up to 30+ inchers. And what do you do when you forget your tip up? Make the next best thing with what you have. A twist tie and candy wrapper was my flag for the weekend.

Either quick strike or circle is my choice, with a lean toward the circle hooks. I think my landing success rate is even a little higher with the circle hooks. I caught one pike yesterday on a circle hook that bled and I was really surprised. That almost never happens.

Another month and it will be 12 years on here for me - and I might’ve been posted topless once in all that time.

I learned how to encrypt all digital media near my fishin’ holes. Hopefully that explains it.

10 years is a notable anniversary. Congrats! I was checking to see how many I recognized. A fair amount. Then I saw you did catch me.

Probably archery again for me. MN only planned for now.

I don’t recall where I read it, but I do recall that WI didn’t get as aggressive as they could’ve/should’ve and now they’re so far behind it they’ll likely never catch up. In my mind that’s a lesson that should be learned. Deer are awesome. I love seeing em and love hunting em. I get wanting to have an awesome piece of ground in a premier deer hunting area to be a premier deer hunting property. If I had a Million dollars type of thing. But letting this stuff go without an effort to stop it has the potential to ruin it all in a decade or two. Its easy for me to say shoot em up to subdue the spread cuz I’m not married to hunting one piece of land in one part of the state. And not married to being strictly a deer hunter either; there are plenty of other opportunities for chasing game around here. But I just can’t get behind the “It’s too late to even try anything” method of denial. When it comes time for me to be worm food there might be such a drastic decline in the quality of our deer herd I won’t want to hunt. Big deal, I’ll be done. But my kids and grandkids may be left to just talking about the good ol days when you didn’t have to worry so much about getting some good, clean, healthy free range meat on the table. Will it even be worth it to hunt? My crystal ball really only works looking backward.

I’ll admit I’m not schooled on the prions, but yeah, I have similar thoughts on the matter. To spreading invasives: Another train that pretty much left the station, BUT blaming it ALL on boaters is off the mark IMO. They get spread naturally as well. You can’t deny it when you’re wading North Dakota potholes on the prairie and see the main vegetation is Eurasian Milfoil.

Which is sad... There is such a thing as too much of a good thing; even with deer. And to risk the health of the statewide herd to avoid short term loss is short sighted in my opinion. The DNR would be curtailing one of their very valuable revenue stream if they trashed the entire state’s herd to the point of discouraging participation. It makes no sense for them to do that intentionally.

Here’s my plan for the day: my wife will be working a double, so why not shake the first ice cob webs off? Getting the gear ready this morning for some fishing after work.

What an uphill battle. Makes me almost glad I don’t hunt the SE anymore. Not that CWD hasn’t shown up in Central MN either but there are too many positives showing up down there. I hope the private landowners get on board now. Maybe in 5 years they could take a bow, and sigh of relief the problem didn’t get further out of hand. The deer will come back.

My planning is usually all about expanding on places and techniques I’ve learned about either the last time I was out or have learned about since the last time. For example: @Tom Sawyerhelped me better understand shallow water pan fishing last year and icing some cats. It was fun! There is a never ending bucket list of lakes to try that I haven’t gotten to yet; species to learn more about and new to me techniques that I’d like to work on lakes that I’ve already been on but think I could improve success. Don’t get me wrong - I love to catch fish as much as the next person, but I get more satisfaction out of finding something new than just going to a known spot time after time to rip some lips. Usually this means more mediocre trips in terms of numbers but when I find the new honey hole it’s all worth it. The thing is though, there’s pretty much always something in the bucket for dinner when I get home.

I’m sorry but today against the Pats is a great example of why I don’t typically give these guys my weekend daylight hours. What a mess. I DO think they were robbed of a touchdown though.