Fishing With Face

Quote: Face

Suppose I'll just have to go catch it, now.

We have found the answer: Walleye or pike?

With a nod to Schrödinger, the answer is yes.

Weather had me out. Somethin' about it smells funny. Smells like...Newfoundland. Forecast is mostly sunny and stable for then next 10+, but I can feel it. Winter is coming. Been feeling like s#$% and it felt off fishing wise as well, but what the hell. Beats the couch. Let's go see what broke him off.

The water was brown and murky again, but there was still a good 18" visibility. Better than I hoped for. Wind was blowing a bitch which made danger-close maneuvering a bit dumb, but waves don't have a chance to materialize. Of course, since it was the hot bite last time, the boy hollered for the spillway straight away. So straight away we went.

He asked if he could use my lure, seeing as he broke his off. Sure, no big. But I went and forgot there's no shallow gear on the boat. I did grab a piece or two on the way out for this trip, realizing we might come upon the unknown, but I never though of losing my main lure. As such, all I had to throw at this spot was a rusty orange piece about as old as me, with hooks that could probably hold what we'd find here without crumbling. Whoops. Still, being out and starting to fall into the day felt good. I'll toss some garbage a bit.

Think it was my very first throw I pulled a bass out from under a log. Crept over it and then ripped it, he came right out from under. Plinked off almost immediately, but who's gonna be mad at a first throw hook up? I tell the boy to keep throwing at that ledge while I try to manage staying in one place amid the swirling wind, and he's off and running, in his element. I bunged up the hook, but running out of time found us settled up against a mud bar. Fears vanished. I repositioned and set about casting when the boy hooked up right by the boat. I think his brain broke. He yelled out for the fish, got it out of the water, and just kept yelling "It's a....BASS!...It's a....BASS!", like he kept restarting cuz he knew it was wrong but could never find the right word. I couldn't believe it. Little s#$% just got his cycle, and at 10yrs old...



It was just too perfect. Into the livewell it went. The boy was over the moon and I broke. The voices stopped. We were into it.

It wasn't 10 minute later he got another, this one pushing 18". Two, big osprey scars striped its sides, well healed. Too perfect. Into the well. I switched to a small spinner and kept tossing, the boy eventually pulling a dink smallie out of the weeds some almost hour later. Wanting to "have time to go get the pike that broke him off", we called it at the spillway. It was a solid hour there and it wasn't even 3 yet. Let's cover some ground.

We headed toward Pike Island but kept seeing other places that just looked too good to pass up. We marked and passed 3 or 4 of them when we just gave up. Hell with it. Pike Island we'll hit, but let's hit every single thing between here and there.

It was tough; this is a scary lake. It's much like the Catt in that it pounds a whole bunch of trees down itself, but the Catt strips them and tosses them ashore. Kinzua floats em until an arbitrary set of circumstances are met and plants em. Not to mention to topography. One place we were 10' from a tree in 23' of water. 20' forward, same thing. 20' forward and it's 5'. Now try to get back to the channel as the crow flies? 1.2' the whole way back. It's like all the points were carved by Tim Burton or some madness. 8hrs on the water and put maybe...17min on the motor? Lol, I didn't go faster than I could Flintstone stop all day long, and almost all of it by way of the plastic motor.

With no clue about this water, we just started chuckin'. I switched to a shallow crankbait, kid still throwing my J7 Rap. Hooking weeds, hooking trees, but not really getting snagged or having that hard a time. For the first time in many years it was like being a kid again, and felt like what I felt then was what my kid was feeling now. Even he was pressing the limit, casting right under trees, snapping it through. Not in it for the catching, the cheap high. In it for the fishing. The adventure. The contest. And with the kid repeating his mantra of "Just gotta keep patience" (whatever that means lol), we just kept flipping. Then bang. Was maybe, what... 7 minutes?



There was, as stated above, a nearby channel of considerable depth. But dude caught this in 18" of water at like 1500hrs. I don't get it.

We banged that ledge for another 30 without another hit when the boy got anxious to get to Pike Island. We didn't so much as get up to plane when we came to where the channel hooks back up in an acute angle, the outside piled in tens of feet of blowdowns. Couldn't resist. The boy saw it too so we hooked over and started tossing.

Man, I wish I had gear. Steep drop chock full of trees, tucked in a quiet corner. The boy hooked into something of size but lost it, while I kept jerking to no avail, no having so much a nibble since my initial cast. I was using trolling plugs now, taking advantage of the depth. Still, nothing. With nothing following his only hook up, we called off and hopped down to Pike Island.

It was slow going. The boy kept claiming hits, but I kept claiming weeds. He did have a few hookups, enough to keep hopes up, but even nibs were few and far between. Still, it just looked good, and we knew fish were here, so... just gotta keep patience.

Pike Island was really more Pike Peninsula and the Isthmus of Pike, so we decided to just work it all the way down and into it far as it went. It was dead perfect for a J7, but I really had nothing else for it. I threw a craw crank, the rusty stick, and even tried a Spook for awhile, but none of them felt right and everything else was too deep running. The kid was likewise frustrated, but was messing around constructively. He was, surprisingly, taking my advice and doing several different weird returns. His perseverance pushed my own and I kept tossing. He kept claiming he "saw one" and I just kept acknowledging. And damn if he didn't do it. I watched him do it, while I was (trying to) stretch the fatigue out of me and he was returning like an idiot. Two big rips, reel in the slack, set the pole down, look to the sky. Grab the pole again and wait. "Let it get a 'good soak'". Rip it in. And let it sit, float back to the surface like it's dead. Then rip i… BANG. I saw it happen. Question ain't 2, it's how much bigger than two feet it was. Green with red tinged fins; t'wans't a monster, but it was damn sure the biggest pike my blood has ever hooked, and would've only been bested by Fall salmon for his personal best in size. Slammed it, rolled with it, took it as far as it could and PEENK! Sent the lure whipping back over the boy's shoulder.

Shout out to dad for the wire leaders.

That fired us up so hard it lasted us the day (which turned out to be the only thing lasting us). I swapped to the heavy artillery and my big ol' husky jerks; that pike was bigger than the 'cuda I've caught, should work just fine and they're all else I got that won't go too deep. Holy hell is a day full of jerkin' rough on the body. All down into and back we went, prolly took 3hrs. Didn't hit a single other thing.



Night fast approaching we went back to the mouth of our dockway, picking off the spots we passed up earlier. It was the same sort of cover and we hit it the same way, the boy pulling out a solid perch and me getting a bitty white bass for my first and only fish of the day. After an hour of nothing and in the dark, we called it a night. The boy hooked up one more time, trolling while I maneuvered back out of the rough.

Got two pike in the pond now, it's weirding me out. They seem to have handled the day fine, settling right in and already hunting the few remaining minnows. Can't wait to see how they act; haven't seen much of anything lately as while every fish is flourishing and the water Erie clear, the plants have likewise gone mental and have covered nearly all of it. I found a freshly dead minnow as soon as I planted the pike and hooked it up on a snap swivel to see if I could coax a feeding. GD bullfrog, which must be 14"+ now, gobbled it as soon as I wasn't paying attention. I hooked it through the meat, too, as it was a big minnow, and he just kept pawing at the fishing line until he ripped the snap through it. Down the hatch.

A very weird, interesting and differently awesome day.

good stories, Face, keep em coming.

Quote: odiousgambit

good stories, Face, keep em coming.

Thanks, OG. How 'bout a shaden break, brought to you by the joys of ponding...



Though the initial leak repair seams to have held all this time, I was still losing water. All spring and most of summer I chalked it up to evap, as constant rain gave way to scorching heat. But as time went on, I could see there was no way. It was leaking, and too badly to chalk to evap. And, bad enough it was eventually gonna sap my pump.

I did do a half drain, drying and cleaning the seams before piling in a heavy bead of silicone some weeks ago. But none of them held, peeling off in a big ol strip, and I never really narrowed it down to the leak being there in the first place. After months of debate (really years of contemplation and imagination) I decided to pull the trigger and make the final adjustment. Though everything is in full bloom and raging harder than it's ever had, I'm pulling it all for a final redesign...

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Having emptied it, I'm thinking the craws were a bad idea and what caused the leak. We brought some real tanks back (as have the neighbor kids) and the flap over the seams is about as perfect as they'd want. As much as rusties move my décor, I can just about guarantee they're why so much of the seam was pulled apart. If they can move steak-sized plates of slate, I'm sure they could push into that tar. And while I didn't count them, there's at least 5 tanks out there, and probably over 50 total, despite the saturation of predators. Redesign will take care of that, fortunately.

I did ruin my lights. The cats completely engulfed one of them, and my cutting of the chunk into manageable pieces cut the wire some 3 times. Good thing it was unplugged. I suppose a coat of sili, on top of the standard solder + shrink, should do the trick. I dunno. GFCI will pop if not, I suppose. Was pretty surprising seeing cats "under the surface". I'm trying to manage them as they've completely exploded from the original bundle of swamp mud in barley sack. The wad of roots they've created was some 5" thick, not a bit of it dirt or fabric. I can't remember if OG said it was just the shoots that were edible, but if these could be boiled down like any other starch, then one patch could last you quite awhile...



All those hyacinth? That's all from the 5 little bulbs I saved over winter. I think not snapping them was the key; they seemed to thrive with a little space between them. Soon as August hit they exploded and started flowering every day, one of the original buds now some 14" in diameter and several plants having 5 or even 6 other sprouts.

Anyway, looking at MegaPond, I've all but maxed it out. While I could remove all the land, grass and everything, 17' x 12' is as big as it's gonna get without bringing in a jackhammer. Sitting there looking at all that folded liner... it's gotta be done. At 35' x 25', it's plenty big one way and big enough the other to cover the entire thing, cricks and all, even with that deep hole. And that deep hole sure does work a treat at allowing the water to settle, which allows all that murk to settle out to the bottom. So, the final plan...

I'm gonna pull it, clean it, and tear off those extra crick strips to get back to the original liner. Save those for patches or something. Where the totes were, dig another deep end, though smaller and not as deep. Then, twist the liner the long way and use the big liner for the whole thing, no seams, and just (hopefully wisely and with much skill) cut a hole in it to allow for Grass Island. That should give me one solid liner, no seams or breaks (assuming I nail the hole), for the whole thing while also using up, both from the added length and added deep-end depth, all that folded extra that made my border look so... meth inspired. Then, in the new smaller deep end, use my old filter setup of pump and foam in tote. The tote will be submerged and not seen, the water intake is on the top only, allowing all the murk to settle without getting sucked up, and it'll get rid of my unsightly original tote setup leaving only the tote housing the electronics. Both cricks will again be piled with rocks (they filter really well, holding the murk underneath them) and a short outlet hose positioned in the outlet creek will continue (better than my last setup) the current to push filtered water all the way across the pond, causing (of course, because this is so gonna work) a return current in the other crick.

Hot damn, but was is it a f@#$arow, and EB just can't wait for the told-you-so. So many totes, coolers, trash cans etc to hold all the hyacinth. Two wheelbarrows lined with garbage bags to hold water and cattails. Further construction bags to hold further water and cattails. Totes of rocks and water for 30some of the 50 craws. Both 150g tanks on the porch to hold the fish. I damn near built a full ice hockey rink, just to hold all the water temporarily as I wanted to save as much of the original, treated, cycled liquid as possible (I tried tarping the one-ton, turns out tarps are permeable =/). I'm pretty sure I've saved at least a third, and I think it might be close to half (pretty much saved everything except all of the deep end), so this should go about as well as a typical water change and end up being a net positive with little fear of illness outbreak.

But man, getting those fish was hectic. I tried thinking ahead, already had the tank separator ready, already knew what fish I wanted where. But once I got to where it was shallow enough to scoop without chasing them, it was such a soupy, murky mess I couldn't wait to get them out of it. First swoop netted I don't even know, must've been 6 of the big ones, a bunch of the minnows squirming out, who knows how many craws tangled up. No choice but to just get em in. I didn't get to sort them but the transfer went well and, so far, they're just sort of chilling without conflict..









All terrible pictures as it got dark, but two things of interesting note - you can really see those eagle scars on the pike in that pic (those aren't dark green 'stripes'), and TWO of all of those bluegill / green sunfish are ones we caught by rod. Every single other one entered that pond the size of one's thumb and have survived on whatever naturally occurring nymphs and larvae there was until big enough to pound my minnows. There's like ten of em. Crafty lil buggers. And I suppose, while I'm bragging... I've had that rock bass for 6 months. My previous record for rockies is like 6 days lol. AND, holy crap, I brought Leonard home in a 3gal bucket! He was this tiny little dink I had to throw half the minnows back for being too big, now he's a good way past 2lbs.

Plants, fish and water safe. There's just the last bit of muck at the very bottom (was able to sweep the top but it got dark) but 10min of cup and bucket will have it ready to pull. The cricks and totes are already out and folded onto the main. Should be little labor, basically just have to hose 'er off and dig out the tote holes about twice as deep. That done I just have to figure out where exactly to cut that hole. I'm sure I can tie that bush up into a skinny little point, I just don't know how I'm gonna locate the middle...

Should be fun. 10.5 straight hours today. If I can do one more like that, I might have it completely done by nightfall.

Lol.

What about a product to stop pond leaks? Apparently there's more than one kind of product. This is one I found.




There's also vids on how to find a pond leak in the first place.

Quote: rxwine

What about a product to stop pond leaks? Apparently there's more than one kind of product. This is one I found.




There's also vids on how to find a pond leak in the first place.

I've not an earthen dam. It's pretty f@#$ed cuz the cloth mat underneath the liner doesn't soak. Or rather, it's not apparent. It gets neither darker nor dirty when it gets wet. Wholly impossible to tell where it's leaking.

Good news/ bad news, I can't do the final version but I've found the leak. Guess it was 15x25 and not 25x35 as i thought. I could make it work but while I could do the earth moving to accommodate, it would mean my hole would have to be dead on balls and I plan to be far too intox for all that mess.

Turns out it was the folds all along. Guess that's why you don't try to fit seams in place and rather find a flat area to work in =p. Both cricks have little tunnels made by the fold, can run a finger all the way through. The rest is so solid I may have to cut it as I'm not sure if it'll come apart.

I still have tar strip and rubber cement from the original build. Looks like I'll just repeat that design but do it right. 30min job takes 22hrs =p

A really impressive amount of work involved there, Face.

These days I really marvel at how little physical work I am willing to do - though I do all our yardwork. I still want to do some homebrewing once in a while, for example, but anymore kind of shrink from the prospect of putting that much prolonged effort into something*. I am, however, determined not to give it up, I like the results too much, gonna do a batch in Sept.

yes cattails are considered fully edible, roots, leaves, pollen, you name it. In survival situations, rip them open to find succulent parts and eat that raw. For me, too hard to access, I'm seldom in a boat.

*to other homebrewers, yes, there are some shortcuts I could take, but I instead still stick to all grain / no extract. I prefer to break it all up into two days

Oh, it sucks. This is really the first I've moved in 8 months. EVERYTHING hurts right now, which is why I'm still here stretching out instead of packing the boat lol. But I share that compulsion-I just like the results too much.

Re: cats, that's good to know. The pic doesn't even show the whole of it, the bottom is matted with those thick roots, could probably cut off a dozen stalks all 12"long. Dunno the nutritional value, but the roots of one single shoot would be far more than I could eat in one day, even if as delectable as mashed potatoes. If there's value to it, a find like that if in the s@#$ would be legendary.

I do the skin test before eating any wild plant. Rub it on your skin. If it doesn't rash or react after 15 minutes or so, you have a somewhat better chance of not dying from eating it.

Quote: rxwine

I do the skin test before eating any wild plant. Rub it on your skin. If it doesn't rash or react after 15 minutes or so, you have a somewhat better chance of not dying from eating it.

After that goes OK, rub it on your lips and check that out for that same time period.

None of this works with mushrooms, . You simply must ID them to a high level of certainty, which includes 100% certainty that you could not have mistaken what you have for a deadly one.

Pond is fixed...



Hard to believe it held water at all. Was one of these in each crick, right in the bed of both.


Big algae blooms shut us down last time. Was just 4 days since the pikes, but our return found the ramp awash in warnings not to swim, drink, touch, or eat anything pulled from the water. "In summer it will be a swamp, and all the fish will kill", indeed. But what's a little cyanobacteria between friends?

Almost nothing of note happened the whole 7 hours we were out. We saw a number of surfaces (probably carp but the mayflies everywhere had me hoping big browns) and a few rockets out of the water (certainly pike), but in all 7hrs we only had 2 hookups, both lost before the boat.

The one thing of note... we were back in a bay, and the lake is surrounded by high hills and as we were in the flooded plains, vision is mostly obscured by trees. I heard a rumbling from afar which I paid no attention to as many folks here have boats with big ol V8's and the sound is kinda familiar. But it caught my attention quick, as dude had to be hauling the mail. Having seen a few rockets already that day, I looked around to see just how fast this guy was going, because it went from a drone to a roar pretty gd fast. Looking, looking, and then I see it come from behind the trees. Weren't a boat, was a gd acrobatic plane flying MOE. He might've been @ 70' when I saw him, just rippin' through the corners of the river-turned-lake. Made the last 80* turn to come by us, ripped down through the trees, and where the river-lake opened up he pulled the stick and was gone over the hill.

This isn't my first time, either. Not that I mind, but... ain't there rules? Ain't there a Babs Jr going "Where tf that plane go?" These guys are about close enough I can read the rim size; that's just "cool to do"?

Just wondering if I need to speed up this private license deal... ;)