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May 31, 2009 Newsletter
Teach a Man to Fish, and.... Plus: Every Gardening Year is Different
Well, this past week I got another lesson in catching more fish on our annual (?) camping fishing trip. Folks, if you have the survival mindset without all the bunkers, barrels, and barbed wire, then you can live in the best of both worlds, sneaking in and out of the system pretty much whenever you want to.
Several years ago I learned one of the keys to catching fish with rod and reel was to pick your fishing spots based on where you knew more fish would hang out. Usually, the best time to fish at a place that is listed as a fishing tournament locale was to do so right after the tourney was over. for instance, I will use Elephant Butte Lake near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, as an example. The weekend of May 16 and 17 saw a BASS (Bass Anglers Sportmen's Society) sponsored bass fishing tournament at this location, and we knew that when all the weighing is done, the fish (hopefully, still alive) were then thrown back into the lake at the tourney's main marina. When you know the marina being used, it is highly probable that when you start fishing the day after the tournament, the fish ought to be hanging around in that spot. However, we did not use this tactic. We had no boat! Sorry, but shore fishing doesn't cut it if you want more fish.
If you have no boat available and shore fishing usually doesn't produce the required "catch more fish" "quota" to feed the crew and have a fish fry when you get home besides, then the next best thing is the good old fashioned trot line. You can catch bass or even pike with trot lines, but trot lines are usually used to catch bottom feeders. Catfish, that is. Sweet, juicy catfish. And there is nothing like learning how to build and put out a trot line in order to "catch more fish."
To set up a trot line, first buy hooks ready with hooks suspended from a double-sided string which you will attach to an "eye" in the trot line. To attach the string using both ends, take the string and put the strin gin your left hand over the one in your right hand, then make a knot formation, and then put the string in your right hand over the one in the left hand, and knot it. In other words, make a "square knot." Tighten the square knot. Then, put the square knot through the "eye" on the trot line, and put the hook end through the knotted string you just attached, and pull it until it is tight. Repeat, using 20 to 25 hooks as a legal setup (in some states, it might be legal to set up more, or less). Attach the trot line to string or rope that will attach to something attached to the bottom of the lake floor (and trot lines are usually put in very shallow water where bottom feeders like catfish hang out), such as bushes or trees, at both ends. Make sure you attach (inside a plastic bag, for instance) a piece of paper with name, address, phone number, fishing license number, driver license number, at both ends of the line. Before affixing it in the lake, add your bait. Chicken gizzards and bait-calibre shrimp are good, or meat scraps. You might also want to attach the hooks to the line using "stringers," metal clips that loop around and make it easier to unhook the fish from the line. To get the hooks off the line, undo the knot that put the hook through the line, but not the knot that attached the string to the eye. You can store the hooks-on-string by putting the hook end into the styrofoam card the line came with.
It generally takes two to do this, but if you are attaching a trot line to something on shore already, one person can do it. Another key for the one or two person procedure is that since you are trying to catch bottom feeders like catfish, you MUST put a weight in the middle of the line so that the line will indeed catch fish at or near the bottom. You can use an empty anti-freeze plastic container, large metal weight, small anchor, or well attached large rock as a weight. If you are using a plastic jug, make sure you fill it with something such as dirt mixed with water so that the jug sinks.
In a two person procedure, one person takes the line out and attached one end, and as this person brings the line to the other end, the person, on shore or in very very shallow water, is moving along a straight line with the line so that it won't tangle and won't sink, until the first person is close enough to where he will attach it.
You can put out as many trot lines as you have persons with fishing licenses, for the day or days that the license is valid. I know, one shouldn't have to buy a "license" to fish. But if you are fishing at a state park (as Elephant Butte Lake is, in New Mexico) and you are "deriving a benefit" from the state, you have no legal basis for not buying one, in de facto, de jure, or common law as well as statutory law (UCC). So, just to avoid a hassle and possible large fine or jail time, buy a license for each one who plans to go fishing.
As for the garden... Well, last year it was birds, and we set up our "plain of jars." This year, the birds--with the exception of a blue jay every now and then--are leaving our garden alone. But, would you believe, in late April when temperatures were in the 60s and low 70s, I was pulling heads off grasshoppers that were two or three inches long? When winters are warmer than usual, no lower than the upper teens in coldness, a few enterprising grasshoppers can survive in the cracks of large boulders and other sheltered places. Nor will jars and thin, plastic cake-lid containers keep out lizards, who also like to eat parts of young plants. And beware if you leave jars or plastic on your plants when temperatures get hot, in the upper 90s, and you are not around to water the garden (such as when you are on a fishing trip!): you will bake a few very young seedlings who are not adequately rooted in the ground, because those jars and containers hold the heat very well and whatever moisture was trapped inside the container has dissipated in the heat.
And now for "commentary"...One thing I do hope for, however, is that Americans, who are waking up at last, wake up even moreso, like the folks in Britain have. The Brits have it worse than we do. They are not allowed to own guns that actually can be used (they can own antiques, I think), number one. Number two, they are under almost constant surveillence with or without cameras by the national government and local council governments, as well as paid "busy bodies", whether it be trash bins or smoking cigarettes in their own homes. Some folks think we are the least free "democratic" "western" country, but I think Britain has us beat by a mile. Third, although many clamor for socialized medicine here in the US, they won't consider that in Britain as in every other socialized medicne country, health care is rationed, either by virtue of long waits for needed surgery, lack of dentists in many areas, or by a procedure not being approved by the National Health Service. Fourth, unlike the United States which was built by immigrants, both free and unfree, and therefore truly is a melting pot where diverse folks can get along and are pretty much expected to, in Britain, the various groups of people who went there to escape whatever ravages happened in their homelands upon the break-up of the British Empire, are finding it more difficult to get along. For instance, some of the more radical Muslim groups there want to establish some kind of Sharia law in their areas, regardless of who else lives there. Then you have "nationalist" parties who want to make Britain "white" again. I don't see that happening here, at least for now. Well, at least as far as the corruption of their politicians, the Brits are wide awake, for now, and it'll be interesting to see what happens regarding the next Parliamentary elections there. My point? Is someone going to expose how our own Congress/Senate critters have absconded with taxpayer money for their own pleasures? We all know about the "junkets" these folks take on the taxpayer dime. It'll be interesting if or when someone gets the word out over the Internet (the MSM will never cover it, until they can no longer cover it up) about things like Senator X spending taxpayer dollars to pay off his mortgage or something. The American people ending their denial about a lot of what our ruling class does and has done in our name will be a wonder to behold.
Don't forget, if you have a comment on this or other posts, e-mail me with your comment, and put the name of the article in the subject line.
