Way north bass guy

My brother came over last night with his brush hog and got a start on our fields. They haven’t been cut at all in probably 8 or more years, we just want to cut them every other year or so to keep the biggest brush/weeds from getting too big again. Nothing like the smell of vaporized grass/brush ?.

I don’t worry about that, just use some right out of the package and they work fine for me. Now, if you want your baits roughed up, box them up and mail them up here to me, I’ll use my rough old stonemason hands to make em just right for ya, no charge, as long as you pay the return shipping ?.

At 7:30 this morning, all that was there was 4 post saddles sticking out of 4 sonotubes full of concrete. At 7:30 this evening I cleaned up the last scrap of wood. Not a bad days work for an old stonemason. This will be the new year round home for the boat, and some other things as well. 15’ wide by 27’ long, gonna cover in the sides before winter to keep the weather out, but for now it’s at least a good roof over her head. Better than the tarp shed it’s been in for several years now.

Apparently there was some sort of important raccoon union meeting held on top of my truck last night. Tracks literally from bumper to bumper. No idea why, I never keep any food or garbage in the truck for any smells to attract animals.

Got home early from work so I took the kid out on our lake mostly for a swim. In between swimming, he managed to outfish me. We each got a couple nice little pike, and he got a few bass. I was playing around with a crankbait while he swam at the back of the boat, and I had a pike about 40” swipe and miss my bait three times, all about 10’ away from the kid flailing around in the water. Guess he really wanted that bait!

This has been my base camp for the last two days. Wife came down with covid last Saturday, we had her quarantined to the third floor of the house, but it didn’t matter. She probably passed it on to me before we even knew she had it. So far it hasn’t been too bad, just a bit achy, slight fatigue and some congestion. The wife was way worse for a few days, but she’s on the mend now, and I am actually starting to feel a bit better this afternoon as well. I even managed to get out of my jammies today and into some real daytime clothes ?.

Not a big fan of anise smell, but I absolutely love the smell of powerbait. Always have. If I was a bass, I’d have been caught on a power worm in two seconds ?.

As long as you get a good one. I had one once that sounded like a tuning fork every time I hit a nail with it. Drove me nuts, I gave it away.

We just built new raised beds at our place this spring. That’s what we had at our last place and we found them much easier to deal with. Our new place has very heavy clay soil, and it was not good last year when we tilled up a spot to plant for the first summer. Was going to take way too much work to get the soil to decent shape. With the raised beds there’s very little weeds, smaller footprint to water, easier on the back and very little bugs due to them being up off the ground. We have lots of deer here so I built a fence around it, and they are staying away from the veggies this year. Ours is built like an upper case letter E, except with a fourth “arm” too it. This way it’s all connected, we can run soaker hose throughout the entire thing, and you can also reach every spot in the garden by walking the perimeter. Because we’re not walking in it, you can plant your veggies closer together, making for more veggies per sq ft of garden space.

Having worked in construction my entire life, primarily as a stonemason, I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside many excellent tradesman for years. I’ve absorbed a ton of info in everything from carpentry, to plumbing, electrical, roofing etc. I can pretty much do anything on my own, except for any work where large machinery is needed, just cause I don’t have any. I’ve spent the last month or so redoing our barn to make it my workshop. First I had a new driveway put in, so I don’t have to drive across the yard anymore to load/unload the truck. Installed steps to the loft, built new insulated doors and replaced the windows, installed a new sun panel for extra electrical, and just today got it all painted so it now matches the house for colour. Also built some big raised garden beds and a deer fence for that. Next up on the list is a lean to on the side of the barn to store the boat in year round, and a new greenhouse so we can grow stuff year round. It’s a lot of work, especially when I work a full day in stonework as well, but I enjoy it and know it’s been done properly and to my specs, and I also save a ton on labour and material markups.

I thought about getting one of those, but the house flys are so thick here in late aug/sept that I’d have no grass left in the yard, and all the paint peeled off the house I’d use so much salt ?.

I like to read most of the posts, but not so much the line/rods/reels threads. I know what works for me, and don’t really need to see more pics of the same old reels/combos etc. I enjoy a lot of the stuff in the “everything else” section. That’s where you get to see a slice of other peoples lives all around the continent, I enjoy seeing how everyone lives/works/plays in the different areas, and it seems like there’s a real “family” kind of thing going on in there.

There’s some storms heading our way in a few hours, these clouds looked kinda cool over our barn.

Sounds like a pretty good trip. Those musky look like they’ve been in a cage match?, but still nice fish.

Nice job, now go get it all slimy!

I’ve had that happen a couple times with bass before. You want real excitement, try doing they with a 10lb chinook! I was downrigging with another guy one time, and he hooked a lake trout and it immediately crossed and tangled both of our lines before I could even get my line or the riggers in and out of the way. I was untangling the line and all of a sudden it started taking off from my hands. The salmon had hit the spoon and was running, hand lining a salmon is no easy task, but I managed to get it in the boat with only slight line burns to the hands.

Today was our opener ( finally). I hit a fairly popular, busy cottage lake here that isn’t known for huge fish, but has a ton of bass in it. Hit the water pretty early, and was off by noon when the temps got to about the hottest we’ve had so far this year. First fish of the season hammered a buzzbait, and I then proceeded to get on a phenomenal frog bite in the pads/eel grass. I stopped counting after 50 bass caught, and lost quite a few others as well. None were over 3lbs, but man was it ever fun to hammer on them like that and get my string stretched a bit! Even the smallest ones at about 12” long were absolutely choking the frog, and I had a couple small bays where I had a fish on every cast. Now that I’ve had my fill of largemouth on a frog, I’ll have to get back out on Georgian Bay and see if I can find some more fat smallmouth.

This guy ( or girl), was sitting in our driveway this afternoon when we came home. The kid thought it was a cobra ?. Just one of many eastern hog-nosed snakes we get around here. They are a pretty cool looking snake, as when disturbed they flatten their head/neck out like a cobra. This one was pretty colourful, and gave us a nice little show before I finally moved him off the driveway with a branch so I didn’t run him over. I have no problem with snakes around our place, I’d rather have more of them which means less mice, chipmunks etc. to chew up vehicles, boat wiring and everything else that they live to destroy.

I’d say the best option here would be to go see your doctor, and get an appointment with an allergy specialist. I suffer from hayfever ( mostly pine pollen but also actual hay does it too for me), I started using a prescription nasal spray about 15 years ago or more, and it works fantastic for me. Maybe there’s something else your doctor would know about that can help you out, otherwise all the over the counter stuff might just be a good way to throw away money.

I’ve thought about ordering another one to put on the bottom, opposite side of the existing one, but honestly the single one works so well for me that I don’t know if it would be much of an improvement.

Our current knuckleheads: First pic is Jasper Beardly on the bottom ( a very, very old cat we adopted about two years ago) the middle is Sadie ( Rotti/Lab mix), and Jack, the toddler cat. Second pic is Boone, our lovely, very much hair producing Husky/Shepard cross. These pics were just taken as they all laid around me, pretty much par for the course most evenings.

Well, today was the kids first run on the riding mower. He’s been pushing the small one for a couple years now, and now that we have a much larger lawn, there’s lots of room to practice driving. I set him up on the backyard, no trees or other obstacles at all to worry about. Figured he’s got enough things to worry about on the mower, so we’ll give it a few weeks before there’s any dodging around trees and gardens.

Got a good start on our new driveway into the barn/workshop this weekend. Ready to spread some A-gravel on it now, then do a bit more work along the side of the barn, then I can get my boat shed addition built. I’m now also going to have all of my work related materials and tools on one site, that happens to be about 60 yds from my house. That’s gonna make getting ready for work in the morning so much easier, won’t have to try and remember what property I’ve left a specific tool at anymore ?.

He literally just won the open on Ross Barnett like a week ago, and he won the elite on Chicamauga too. I’d say he’s better than you might think.

Got out for a couple hours this morning for some pike after the rains slowed down. This particular lake isn’t known for any giants, but there’s plenty up to about mid 30” long. I didn’t have a bunch of time so I went there knowing I’d at least get into some fish. First hour or so I had a bunch of follows, and they wouldn’t commit, but I finally figured out what they wanted, then I managed about 8 over the next couple hours. Best was right about 36” long. I was solo today so no real great pics.