CrackBack

I've been going to see Dr.P to try and fix a crink in my neck. I should have done it a long time ago - I feel like a new person when he gets done. I asked him what that popping noise was, he said 'it's the sound of bones breaking'. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to go back because, you know, that can't be good.

That family down the street

Tonight Mia decided she should ride the trike around the block while wearing the clown nose that she got at a birthday party today. I'm sure some neighbors think 'that poor girl, she has no daddy because no one has taught her to ride a bike' and others think ' that poor girl, she has no mommy because no one would let their pretty girl outside with a clown nose on.' Well we love that cute little bugger, regardless of who her parents are.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a limit of 5 fish over 12"

Earlier this year, Shanna and I decided to sign up for a Jack and Jill bass fishing tournament (husband and wife) with Klaus and Mary-Catherine. Today was the big day at Lake Owyhee, with a mind-numbing 4am start at Klaus's house. We had stayed the night at Grandma Linda's, so we just got up and left, and she baby-sat for the day.

We originally planned to take our boat because it sleeps better than the Bullet (M-C is known for snoozing, regardless of the situation at hand), which is important because this was supposed to be fun,...right? But I was concerned that the Lowe was too slow to run all the way up the lake if we needed to, so we ended up with the Bullet anyway. M-C still snoozed!

There were about 45 boats in the tournament. The basic premise is that each couple has from 5:45a to 2:00p to catch 5 fish over 12". If you catch more than 5 keeper fish, you start culling the little ones and keep the biggest ones. Turns out that we didn't have to worry about that minor technicality.... At 2:00, the boats return to a weigh-in and your total fish weight is your score, plus a seperate award for the biggest single fish of the day.

We had a great time trying to stir up some action, with the boys constantly changing lures, and the ladies patiently fishing their favorite color of lizard. But by 9a, we (Shanna and I) only had 2 little keepers so the tension began to mount and the high speed driving from spot to spot commenced. The goggles/mask are standard issue to keep your eyes from drying out and the bugs out of your teeth.

At 10a, Shanna nailed a nice 2 lb keeper to suddenly triple our weight total and then just after noon Klaus put the Jimmy Houston on a 2.5 pounder and things were looking up. Unfortunately, these were the last two keepers of the day as we were unable to find a spot that could produce more than one decent fish at a time.

At the weigh-in, it looked like about half of the couples had a similar day to ours (we ended up 33rd out of 52), with 10 even weighing nothing at all. We weighed only 3.46 lbs total, which is pathetic considering the amount of time we had and the acres we covered, but that's the way things go. The rest of couples had a solid day with 8 - 11 lb bags, and the top three weighing 12 - 19 lbs total. The big fish went to a gal that hooked a fat 6.4 pounder.

All-in-all we had an excellent time with good friends, hot sun and tough water. Maybe next time we'll get that sweet spot figured out and get those livewells packed!

July 4 Weekend - Arrowrock

Jacob, Ernie and myself decided we'd better go fishing at Arrowrock on the morning of the Fourth of July. Amazingly, lake was deserted all morning and the water was as calm as you could ask for. We had a good time fishing, in which we caught innumerable smallmouth that just couldn't seem to get over the 9oz mark, but we all agreed that it would have been a perfect morning to own a ski boat. I already own a boat, so that leaves Jacob or Ernie.....

July 4 Weekend - CJ Strike

Woke the crew up early to go fishing down at CJ Strike. With the blazing hot weather, we wanted to be on the water for just the morning and leave around noon, which worked out pretty good. Still got HOT! Had a pretty good time catching fish and driving around.
Here is the 'narrows' section where the Bruneau arm flows through a canyon to join the main portion of the lake in the Snake River arm.

We went upstream to the Cottonwood campground area where Shanna caught a fish on the first cast of her new fishing rod/reel combo. Now that's a good sign! On the way back, I somehow managed to catch a 5lb catfish on a crankbait. Had me going there for a minute thinking that I had mother hawg....

So the tally totaled 10 smallies, a nice 18" trout, a fat little perch, and one ugly catfish. C-ya, Sam

Chicken wingdinger

Got to use my new fryer for some chicken wings last night. We had a bunch of people over because the boys were going shooting and the girls decided we might as well make it a potluck, so that gave me a good excuse to heat that baby up again. I forgot to take a picture, but the results were pretty good. I took 10 wings, dried them and shook on a little Pappy's chicken rub. Put the wings in the fryer for 10 minutes at 375, then put them in a bowl and added a cup of Frank's Red Hot buffalo wing sauce. Repeated once more for the other 10 wings and viola - a pile of crispy hot goodness. About the only thing I'd do different next time is flour the wings lightly to give them a little more of a coating, and possible shake the spices on after the frying to keep the oil cleaner.
After we ate, the boys (Jacob, Ernie, Michael, Sam) drove out to the desert to make sure various firearms worked as advertised. Everything worked out just fine except for the hitting what you're aiming at part if your name starts with J....

The Big Pseudo Tournament

Joel and I decided to get a taste of the Bassmaster tournament trail, so on Thursday we got up ridiculously early (only 4 hrs sleep!), drove the 2 hrs to Owyhee, fished hard all day long while eating a variety of unhealthy snacks and drinks, then packed up at dark and drove back home by 12:30a. We were so tired that at one point I blew right through a stop sign while Joel talked endlessly about eating bowls of Captain Peanut Butter Crunch (as opposed to Peanut Butter Captain Crunch). Luckily it was out in the country with not another soul in sight, so we just backed it up and went on our merry way playing 'name that song' to a sweet 80's rocker ballad mix CD.

The sun on the hills is the sunrise at about 6:20a. Sam don't see early morning light very often...
Joel's first smallmouth since a year ago at CJ Strike....
Then some more small largemouth...

Followed up by a couple of really nice largemouth by about 1pm. This one was 2lb 4oz...
Finishing up with a 3lb 4oz fish to round out the 'tournament'. We wouldn't have won any money or got any trophies, but we sure had a good time relaxing, eating pb&j and jumping in the lake every hour to cool off. Oh yeah, we caught about 30 crappie in an hour too. Took a couple home to fry, which turned out to be a pretty good idea.

Cuzins continued...

We had a fun week in the sun with Joel and Cheryl. They arrived in Idaho with that trademark Western Washington Lack of Sun skin condition, and left with a beautiful brown tan. Ok, maybe a little burn, but it was worth it!

I'll take two (islands)

Some people have a guest house. I have a guest island. I wonder if I rounded up all my computer junk and sold it on eBay if I would have enough money to buy this little patch of heaven (45mil) !

Cuz thems yur cuzins, that's why.

Loaded up the boat and headed to Lucky Peak for the evening with Joel and Cheryl, Hunter and Miranda. I mean it was LOADED...

We had a good time just floating around trying to keep all hands on deck.

Peculiar passenger ya got there.

Four kids, three scooters, two bikes and one very peculiar minicar passenger arrangement. Aaaah the joys of summer!

Saturday evening at Lake Owyhee

We wandered (if you've ever driven the road, you know what I'm talking about) over to Lake Owyhee on Saturday afternoon with the kids and Zayne and Sheryl. Had a great time catching crappie and other assorted fishlike critters. Mia caught 3 or 4 fish all on her own, and Cooper caught one with the help of the rod holder. We'll give him credit for that one since he's such a cute little bugger. Sheryl put up a bunch of pictures over here. And more here.

I thought for Old Time's sake I'd throw in a picture of the first time Mia ever went fishing. It was in May of 2004 with Carl and Brenna at Brownlee Reservoir. The most important thing she learned that day was that we don't listen to Kid Songs on the way to go fishing - it's ESPN Radio or nothing!

I'm never gonna hear the end of this.

Idaho Outdoors - The Idaho Statesman - Always Idaho
The caption for the photo should have said 'Real Women leave their Sissy Husband home with the kids'.

Summer is H E R E

Just a relaxing Tuesday evening at Lucky Peak....

ProcrastiNation

I got some things done today that I'd been putting off for quite some time.

-Mowed the yard (11 days overdue). Good thing it's been cool or it woulda been completely outta control. As it was, I felt like I was making hay....make one loop, empty the bag, make another loop, empty the bag, and so on.

-Set the garage door code (6 months overdue). Our door opener broke in the middle of winter, and I wasn't here when the dude replaced it so he just left me instructions for setting the code on the outside keypad. It takes two people and a ladder, so it was just one of those things that isn't on the top of the list until a person locks themself out of their house. Luckily we never did, but with a 2 year old running the garage door up and down like a giant pendulum it's amazing we didn't. Hey Bad Guys - click here for the code.

-Went for a run (2 years overdue). Still as dumb as I remember.

-Got my Hunters Education Card (13 years overdue). To shoot at a ground squirrel in the State of Idaho, you must have a valid hunting license. To get a license, you have to present a Hunters Education Card if you were born after 1975. In addition, you can't represent yourself in the Canyon County Courthouse if you're only 17 years old. So in 1991, I did (shoot a pile of squirrels), didn't (have a license), and couldn't (appear in court). So I had to tell my dad....luckily he thought it was a stupid as well and bailed me out with a $100 check to Canyon County for 'Eradication Services'.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I haven't been able to buy a license because I never took Hunters Ed. Joel is coming in a couple of weeks and he heard there was an excess of varmits that needed eradicatin' so I figured I'd better saddle up and get it out of the way. I had to take an on-line study course first, which looked pretty hard right up until I discovered I could open the web site in one window and the test in another. Things got a lot quicker after that. Then on Saturday I had to go to a field day that combined more classroom with a Field Exercise (walk around in the sage brush with a dummy gun and try not to point it at anybody even though it's just a piece of wood and PVC pipe) and a Firing Range Exercise and then a final test. They didn't mention how to deal with this. Was actually pretty informative and I would recommend it for anyone that is new to hunting and doesn't have a good mentor.

All right gotta go.