My biggest distraction while fishing Plainfield, is watching the little fluff ball signets grow up. Can't get enough. Also each island out there has become a rookery for Herons. One has Great blues, one has little Blues and the one by the deep bay has night herons. Noises buggers day and night
Agreed. Since I started to take fishing more seriously 3 years ago I can't believe how "in tune" with nature I've become. God that sounds so hippy.
For real, though, I've seen so many nature "firsts" this year alone that I've never seen before...even when I'm not fishing. The other day, I saw a neon green and black dragonfly...first one ever. Turns out, it was a very common Eastern Pond Hawk. The males are a powder blue and the females are neon green. Who knew? Early in the season I saw my first mink and just this weekend walking in Bloomingdale I saw what I believe my first Luna Moth caterpillar. Good stuff.
Serious indeed. I have a skunk problem as well. Late January this year I had enough. Some of them dug under my front concrete stoop and besides waking me up in the middle of the night with a shot of stink under my window the smell was permeating into the basement. In 2 weeks I had 9 skunks, 7 squirrels, 1 possum, 1 racoon, and a cat. Most received a V-pardon and 1 got the relocation program. Saw another 4 last night but will wait to the season opens again if they start causing trouble.
Woohoodude11 said:
I've seen so many nature "firsts" this year alone that I've never seen before
A first for me this year. I had picked a bucket of black raspberries and I fill the bucket with water after picking to float any spiders or leaves to the top. This year in one small bucket I had 6 emerald ash borers float up. Never seen an adult before but they did kill the 1 ash tree I had.
As I've stated several times, for me it's never been just about fishing. It's all about the aesthetics of the experience - what you call 'the zen' Joe. I learned long ago that the more you know about the outdoors the more you enjoy being out.
Interesting to note though that knowledge does not equate woodcraft. I know more about the various species of flora & fauna we encounter than my best friend. But he is a far better woodsman than I am. But then he spent many years living in the bush in Alaska.
Serious indeed. I have a skunk problem as well. Late January this year I had enough. Some of them dug under my front concrete stoop and besides waking me up in the middle of the night with a shot of stink under my window the smell was permeating into the basement. In 2 weeks I had 9 skunks, 7 squirrels, 1 possum, 1 racoon, and a cat. Most received a V-pardon and 1 got the relocation program. Saw another 4 last night but will wait to the season opens again if they start causing trouble.
Have you tried mothballs? I had some critters living under my deck a few years back. Drove my dogs nuts. Crushed up a bunch of mothballs & swept it thru the cracks between the boards. Critters disappeared. Mothball stink went away after a couple of rains.
The hole they dug was about 10" deep to access under the stoop. I had to use a PVC pipe to load mothballs as far in as I could. I also tried ammonia soaked rags that I was able to get up and into the stoop cavity with curved tubing, then bleach and some store bought repellents. Each time I loaded up the access point I would cover it with dirt and you could still smell the mothballs or ammonia but they would dig it open and then move the rags and mothballs out.
If anyone has an issue I found the crushed urinal crystals/tablets were by far the most powerful. I have those buried now and the covered access point is intact so far. Below is a little story about those.
I worked a 24/7 job in Arizona out in the middle of nowhere. I worked the day shift or floated as needed. The night shift had used the office trailer to cook on a George Forman type grill in the center room. The smell of hamburgers was the first thing that hit you when walking into the trailer the next morning. The lead for our tasks did not like to see people happy. He would often state "If they are not writing profanities on the sh1tter walls about me I'm not doing my job" so he said no more cooking in the trailer. This trailer had an office on each end and the men moved the cooking to my office the next night and cleaned up all signs afterward. Well the next morning the trailer looked and smelled clean. As the day rolled on my team and I noticed our eyes were itching and it got worse every time the air conditioner would kick on. After some quick investigating we found old Tommy the cook at night had stashed a urinal mint in the air conditioning duct to freshen up the air quality after a night of cooking.
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