Summertime

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Homemade Beetle Spin.

Now my grandson would be chasing LM with that!

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Originally Posted by BuckeyeCrappie

Now my grandson would be chasing LM with that!

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I read that for some an underspin is best, and others a Beetle Spin. I have plenty of underspins, and now a few beetle spins. A man wrote a decade ago about trolling Beetle Spins. Thought I should give that a try.

The trick is removing the clip portion so it doesn’t swim cocked over to one side. You will want it in a vertical alignment. I decided that I should just make my own instead of modifying an existing BS. Saw Gene the Wishing Machine modifying his BS. I also shortened the arms some from what a BS comes with.

From here it will all depend on speed. They say slow is what you want. Just enough to engage the blade to spinning. Too fast and the entire lure twirls and spins about. The other big complaint is when casting the line will sometimes foul up.

Some say that a BS is exactly what you want to toss into heavy cover as it is less likely to get snagged.

They also say that you might catch just about anything on a BS. They don’t really say that about underspins do they ? A big bass might straighten the wire loop out and escape. Big Cats, too. But using a jig the hook is also likely to bend out, so it’s a wash either way. Just have to play them gently.

I plan to swim a pair of these in my spread and see what happens.

Easy enough to make, too.

Great work

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Originally Posted by Micanopy

Sometimes I get motivated to try new things.


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Here I am combining a plastic bait with a marabou feathering. Not very good but definitely interesting. I imagine stored for a period of time the plastic would foul the feather. Exude stuff. I will play around with this idea some more and see where it leads me.


Then there is this.


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Same concept, different materials.



The main issue I had forming these up was the head. There is a slippery neck in there and that makes it tough to wind thread. It wants to slip off and down onto the hook shank. These are the last of my ready made jig heads. All out.


The good news is they say the new mold will arrive today. YEAH.


I have a fan in my garage to keep me somewhat cool, so I can pour away. I cannot wait to see what kind of head I will be getting. See what eyes fit and such, too. Make me up a bunch and try the new clear coat liquid that is also said to be delivered today.

I really like marabou feathers and ordered some new colors. Somehow I lost my purple string. Not sure where it went. Kind of hard to make purple and chartreuse and purple and pink when I ain’t got no purple. Purple and pink seems to be a local favorite amongst the local fish. Of course I really don’t catch that many to know much about what they want.

Went out yesterday, mostly to run the engine and cruise about. I did troll some and hooked a large one, but of course he……wait for it….wait….got away. Hook pulled. He was swirling underneath the surface and finally came to the surface, but he didn’t want to water ski in and thrashed. The hook must have ripped free when he dived back down and did his best to resist.

I did notice that there were lots of shoals of shad. Swimming along busily eating. As I motor boated past I saw crappie leaping out of the water due to fear of me passing close by. So they are following these large schools of baitfish around. There really is no structure for them to relate to, so why not. My baits must not have interested them when there was so much good stuff to be had. I did not see the schools in a panic, so maybe they had been eating all night, and that is why I didn’t catch more fish.

I also saw that in certain spots there was a lot of lake fly activity. There were areas that had floating debris, like leaves and such. Not really sure how that happens to be. Why isn’t it spread out across the lake ?

I have to work today. Later I am supposed to be going to her parent’s home for dinner. He likes to cook inexpensive meals, even though they are well off. His burgers are brown on just the outside and glory warrior red everywhere inside. One bite and they go mush. I am kind of funny about meats. I like meats rare and middling, but anything that is ground I want cooked all the way. See bacteria alight upon the surface of meat and try to multiply. Refrigeration retards any uncontrolled growth, but does not kill the little devils. You take a steak and sear it and you killed all the micro organisms that were on the surface. Take some meat and grind it up and now those micros are spread throughout. Searing the outside of a burger kills those guys, but the ones inside not so much. Same same with sausage. It is one of the reasons why hotdogs come to us already precooked.

I mean I don’t remember feeling sick from eating his burgers, but…… a little more time on the grill would toughen them up and make them more enjoyable for me. Of course I don’t damn dare say nothing to him. He is crotchety and irascible. That means mean.

My buddy bought some fireworks for tomorrow night. I took the woman down and we got us some, too. She has big eyes for those packages, and I must admit they are enticing. The larger packages are $100+. I would walk along side her and go hmmmmmm…..and then try to steer her towards the more reasonable offerings. Which were damn hard to locate amongst the shelves of colorful stuff. We got some rolls of firecrackers, 500 and 1,000 sized. I like those. Then we got some roman candles and some fountains. She likes those. They really didn’t have any of the goofy kid type stuff like snakes and throw bangs. She likes that stuff too because it reminds her of her youth.

I go pickup my appliances today. Can’t fit everything on the truck. I will be buying three refrigerators, two ovens, and a microwave. I have a really nice dolly but still it is a trick for me to manage these things by myself. I used to just grab them and start walking around with stuff like this. Now I must think about how I can manage the lifting without injuring myself. The really good injuries last a lifetime you know. My wife is not able to help. She is kind of puny but mostly her issue is she is easily intimidated and doesn’t really want to try.

I yelled at her yesterday in front of her mama. She had a water pistol and kept shooting me in the face with it. Oh how she would laugh. I kept asking her to please stop shooting me in the face as I didn’t feel it was near as funny as she did. She just kept doing it until finally I got agitated and yelled out to stop. A few cuss works mixed in. Nothing too tame. She said her mother was horribly upset by that, but hey her husband yells at her over nothing type stuff. At least I felt that I had cause. I did have cause, didn’t I ?

That new counter top ice maker is a joke. I mean it does make ice but 9 small cubes every fifteen minutes doesn’t really make for a bag of ice. I been storing it in a container in the freezer but it is all stuck together. I look around wondering what that sound was every time it dumps a load. It would never supply enough for a party unless I ran it for a week or something.

Oh….and did I mention that she hates the stupid thing.

Her mama saw the wallpaper and said it looked nice. At that I challenged her immediately. I think she was just saying that to make my bride feel better about blowing a thousand dollars on the stuff. Then they started in talking about her mama’s walls and such and I just walked off disgusted.

I bet I will just be sitting around at work today. There will be nothing to do. Half day as I get off at 12:30. Not really sure why the boss wanted me in there, but they did. Leave there and get loaded with appliances, and then home for some cold refreshing beer. Yes, I said beer.

Budweiser been having a time, but they also make several other brands that I was not aware of. Corona is not Mexican beer, it is Budweiser beer. Lots of brands are actually Budweiser beers in disguise. I got to examining the selection of beers at the grocery store and spotted one that was cheap. Monte Carlo, and it is made in Guatemala. I tell you it isn’t half bad either. $12 a twelve pack and goes down like most any lager will. Lagers are lagers because they use a yeast that does well in colder environments. Cave environments is where it got started, then brought over here.

Saw a Budweiser stocking boy the other week. Man he looked mad. I decided that cracking a crude joke probably wasn’t going to amuse him much. The only good joke I knew to tell is inappropriate here.

Did I mention that my mold is supposed to arrive today ?

Maybe I will be sick and unable to go eat raw hamburgers tonight and instead stay home and pour jig heads. YES……sick I say. Oh dear……I am not feeling…….

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Not sure about the Corona not being a Mexican beer, unless Budweiser bought them out. I hauled way to many loads of corona beer out of Laredo after it came across the boarder on a Mexican trailer, cross docked to one of our trailers. Corona, Modulo, and Dukakis, all come across the boarder...

Big doings round my dump. The wife got a nice bonus at work and asked if I wanted to get a carport for the boat.





I told you it was big doings. I contacted a local dealer and he is pricing me out for one. My boat is 20’ bow to stern, with a motor hanging off the back and a trailer hitch sticking out the front. I am thinking 24 feet is probably a good size. I will have them install it behind my shed so as to hide it from view when folks visit the dump. Only see that there is a boat in there once you are already in the yard. Hidden from view if you drive up to the gate.

This will keep water out, keep leaves out, and keep the Sun from destroying my lines and lures and such.

I want sides that come down pretty well as I don’t imagine I will be trying to duck under and approach from the side and slice open my head. Wide enough to have a step ladder to get in and out. I might ask it be made taller so I can get in the boat and stand up.

Going fishing tomorrow. By myself. The wife and her twin sisters and their mama are all going tubing down the famous Ichetucknee River.

If you have never been, you really need to schedule a trip. The water is cold and crystal clear and about five feet deep or so. You lay back in your tube and drift past the flowers with a girl so incredibly high. No beer, no nothing allowed as they are very protective of the river.

The park rangers limit access once a limit has been attained, so go early as they open. Relax, eat some food, and then go tubing. They will rent you a tube and they have a trolly that takes you to the drop off point, and back to the car. Then relax and eat some more, then go again.

There are three drop off points. A short, midrange and long trip. I like the midrange as the wife is about done when that ends. I would like to do the long trip sometime.

Last time we were drifting along and this four foot alligator swam right past us. I mean close close. I told my wife that he wasn’t interested in us, that with all the kids he would rather have one of them. Just make sure there are lots of kids around you and you should be fine. They keep attacks real quiet so as not to upset future visitors that do not know about all the alligators. People think cold water- no gators. WRONG….CHOMP CHOMP BABY.

This is the time of year that the gators are roaming the land looking for new ponds and lakes and such to inhabit. The little ones get chased off the lakes where they grew up. On the way home Monday I saw a five footer laying in the roadway. He had crawled about a half mile from Lake Orange, and decided he had gone far enough. Just laid there, perfectly still, half expecting me to give him a ride.

A week or so ago the wife and I were out on the lake and heard two big males singing. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr….they go. First one then the other. I guess this is a way to intimidate their rivals instead of ripping themselves up fighting. Many a gator is missing his leg you know, and they are cannibals. Once the mother is done protecting her babies, she begins eating them. I know, rude huh ? Well the smart ones scatter and escape.

Haven’t decided on which lake I will be floating along on, but probably the one with the most fickle of fish. Hateful creatures that will spot my best lures and scoff. Anyways, gonna show them what lures they ain’t never seen before.

Reminds me of Animal..

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worse case of separation anxiety I’ve ever heard of. My grand pup. Maddox. Ate two plastic grates one metal grate. And the door off a gunner kennel before we broke him. Long haul. He was hanging by his neck in the blinds one day when my son walked back from
mail box. Took a minute but he’s fine now.

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gunner kennel. Lol. Indestructible my rear end.