I long line troll, but I also short line troll. It is a little something that I lucked into last Summer. I caught a fish and after unhooking him I pitched the jig over the side of the boat. By the time I finished containerizing the fish, another grabbed that jig. It was swimming right next to the hull. With all the talk of spooking fish I couldn’t imagine one would dare pick off a bait right beside the boat. Well as Summer progressed I learned that some days the baits right next to the boat outproduced those on the way back rods.

So I am dragging ten lines and of course that part is easy, what is not easy is spacing the rods so that when landing a fish nothing tangles. Because the boat remains in constant motion forward, the fish approach the boat at an angle from behind. The back half on each side really needs to be open with no lines there to get a clean shot. Especially when it is a large fish. So I have a 16’ rod up front each side, then an 11’ rod beside that and a little behind, then I have a 6’ rod behind and beside that. That gives six rods in the front of the boat, and four out the back.

If the six foot rod is long lining the fish will foul as they come aboard. However, if I can get those baits down a few feet then there is no problem. The fish being landed goes right over top. So two rods have trolling sinkers in front of the jigs to get the depth needed. This works OK, but I had tried using larger sized jig heads and skipping the trolling sinkers, and they really didn’t do anything much. So I gradually transitioned right back to the trolling sinker setup. Split Shot are not heavy enough.

Well now I have this new jig mold and it pours a nice 3/8th size head. The bullet shape should swim nicely enough. My only issue is that this cavity in the mold will not fit my preferred hook. So I am using the Victory 1/0 hook to make these.

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The baits are Slabonator’s 3” Booty Thumpers. These baits are large and the plastic he uses make them tough. I nipped about a half inch off the nose of the bait and screwed it onto the Screw Lock. I added blades to most of these, but a few I skipped. This blade is larger than I use on the 1/16th ounce sizes, and I bought 100 of them already attached to barrel swivels, shipped, for $20. That makes life nice.

Anyways, these will be my close quarters baits. We are definitely into Spring around here it is time to move back to using large baits again. So I will experiment and see if the larger jig heads work better than the smaller heads dragged behind trolling sinkers. One out each side, straight down with a slight tilt towards the rear.

The back four rods are two long lines dragging jigs about where the same distance as the boat is wide, and then two spaced just inside those with the trolling sinkers, now gonna be large jig heads. These two down lures ride in the swirls the boat produces. I usually do not get many fish on these rods but when I do they tend to be the big fish of the day. Because I will nab a big one every so often I cannot swap these out. I feel compelled to keep them right there.

Being as these four rods are close to the boat it is much easier to guesstimate the depth. If I want shallow I peel out a little line until the jig disappears and done. Deeper is just letting out some more line. Just off the bottom is drop down until I feel bottom and reel up a few turns. Because they are close the fish come aboard green and feisty as all I really do is kind of lift the rod to hoist them aboard.

The bullet head shape is appealing to me and I will be watching them swim alongside the boat for clues as to their performance. The heavier head should prevent the bait from swimming in a cocked attitude. Be a more horizontal presentation.

I have the green baits with Yum Yum Yellow tails, and the white with yellow tails. Slabonator is having his Spring Sale this month so I plan to order a few more colors in this larger sized Booty Thumper. Gonna try to get a purple with yellow tail and a pink with yellow tail. The plastic they use is very nice and leaves the bait with some structure and firmness. This also helps to keep the fish from shredding the thing. In the picture you can see what the larger head size looks like with the 2” Booty Thumper. Not too shabby but definitely not as sheik as the 3” variety.

I also plan to try his curly tailed grubs. I have several varieties and some the tails come off first fish. I am thinking he uses the same plastic mix for all of his stuff, so maybe his curly tails are more durable. Again I am planning to stick with my four color combinations.

Pink head- white body- yellow tail
Yellow head- green body- yellow tail
Pink head- pink body- yellow tail
Yellow head- purple body- yellow tail

Their sale is this month and is 15% off the list price, which is fair to begin with. They really do produce a fine product. The colors are bright and there is no slop left on the bait heads. The tails stay affixed to the bodies and that ain’t all bad. The shipping is good as well.





I did my first cook where I was in charge and I was smoozing the owners of the campsite. They have hundreds of bicycle trail riders show up, campout, ride mountain bikes down trails, and they feed them breakfast, lunch and dinner. I did their first night’s dinner. Chicken, mashed potatoes, baked beans, roll, and banana pudding and chocolate eclair. I also had mac & cheese for the kids and vegetarian beans for them what don’t like meat. I had two young men assisting me and the owner said he was gonna tell the boss what a good job we did. I heard him tell his wife that he should have called us sooner. I strode over and told him we cook a fine breakfast, and can provide packed lunches that the bikers could eat on the trail.

Sure enough, yesterday morning the company delivered 600 bagged lunches to them. I am told the sandwiches were to die for. We also got a second dinner out of them last night. It was pulled pork, mashed potatoes, and beans. With desserts as well. LOL. Them folks sure do like our cooking. LOL

I cooked at that live stock auction facility again yesterday. It was the annual 4H hog sale. We made baked beans, pulled pork sliders, but we also deep fried pork tenders. These were very good and I liked them better than the sliders. We had all sorts of people walking up to mention their enjoyment and I got two of the ladies to commit to calling us for their weddings. One was a big old cop and she could arrest any of us anytime she wanted. There would be no complaints, I assure you. She was quite the looker. Nice lady.

The way the sale worked is people show up and bid on a hog one of the kids raised. Actually, these hogs are like dogs and are pampered like you would not believe. There is even an award for which kid keeps the cleanest stall. After the sale of the hogs, they all get transported away and slaughtered and the frozen meat gets distributed to the buyer at some point.

I asked one young lady if they give her a chance to say goodbye and she said they do. All the kids do that together with their hog and she had done so a few times and said it was tough at first. I admired the kids and wished I had done something like that when I was a lad. Several businesses were buying more than one hog and I heard they gift most of the meat to their workers as a benefit. It walso is great advertising as the parents in the audience see them helping out the kids.



Today the wife and I go for another walk in the wilderness. A privately owned park with a 2.5 mile trail. From the website it looks like it is well maintained. I of course will be spraying our ankles, shoes, pants, hats and shirts with bug repellent. Not for skeeters mind you. This is that time of year we get these little bitty ticks. I once got bit by one and maintained a red spot for the rest of the year. Hate them things as they are so hard to spot. You guys bear this in mind as you go afield this Spring no matter where you are. Ticks are nasty little devils.



The puppy has made it through his challenges and is recovering nicely. A few days ago he tore off after some squirrels and that made me so happy. He still sleeps a lot but is back to tending to his regular rounds. He had pancreatitis and developed diabetes in the process. I say in the process but truth is he was a little fat. I avoided giving him snacks as schnauzers are known for this sort of thing, but he over ate and that was my fault. He has dropped a few pounds and now gets insulin injections twice a day. He is a good sport about it but doesn’t care for any of it. He also has a new type of food which he thankfully likes and eats it all. So I went from planning on putting him down to having my pup come back home and all it cost me was $2,000+. I put that on my credit card and hope to pay it off over the next few months.

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That is him lying at my feet. I wanted to thank all of you for your well wishes and heartfelt prayers. Thank you very much. His name is Zzippi and he is 10 years old now. Curly haired schnauzer in case he doesn’t look like one to you. If you ever met him you would know right away he is all schnauzer. Needs a buzz cut for Spring.