One Week And Counting

HDS Carbon 12"

Well we are down to the final countdown.  The Okuma Coldwater 350 reel came in on Monday but not before a trip to Cabela's this weekend to use some points and find a nice matching rod to create a effective combo.  Got the reel loaded with my favorite line, P-Line CX, which tends to be one diameter less than most mono's so 12 pound test is about the same diameter as standard 10 pound test which has an effect on both the amount of line one can put on the reel as well.  In addition most trolling depth charts that give you the depth a lure will run vs the amount of line you have to let out is based on 10 pound diameter Trilene XL so the charts will be pretty accurate.  This will come in real handy when we eventually get to fish Lake Erie or do some long line trolling on Mille Lacs.  Admittedly it is pretty slick setup and I am anxious to try it next weekend.  It's getting harder to get all the things done that one needs to and luckily I can peck away at it an hour at a time.  Doing my usual horse trading with my friend, I have just got done reinstalling my depth finders in my boat before upgrading all of the software.  This takes alot of time as the entire system is networked together with either ethernet cables or via the NMEA 2000 network.  Basically I have 3 GPS/Sonar units in the boat and they are all interconnected.  This means that everything can be controlled from each unit provided they are talking to each other.  One of the issues is that it's been a year since these were last done and try to remember how it goes can be a real challenge.  Not to mention the new software upgrades have changed the menus as well as other subtle changes.  After getting everything installed, updated, connected, it was time to try and see if it all works.  Plugged my Ipod into the audio inputs and nothing.  Doing a network check it showed nothing was networked in.  Now what!?!?!?!   Well after you upgrade the software one should go into the network menu and refresh everything.  After doing that still nothing and the though was I guess I know what I am doing this weekend.  It took about 10 minutes but all of a sudden everything showed up that was networked in to my relief.  The music started to play, I sighed a sigh of relief!  Interesting conversation I had with a friend of mine's son, David Grant.  Letting him use my FL28 for a lake trout ice fishing trip to Canada about a month ago, he brought it back.  It was stupid but he commented why I just don't use my phone for the music.....Well, I don't want to use up all the memory...........which he grabs my phone and showed me where to add a high capacity microSD card for more memory.  Dang kids anyway!!  Ordering a 256gb microSD card, it's next on the list of things to learn and do.

Trapline Gopher Traps are Very Effective

Our guy did a great job on Team Walleye's hat's this year, they look fabulous.  The goal this weekend is to get the entire yard fertilized as it is supposed to rain on Sunday.  As well the outboard motors on the boat need to be started, I will probably simply use earmuffs around the water intakes and start them in the driveway.  That should work OK.  Besides spring being the time for fishing opener, it is also time for pocket gophers to be on the move.  Those pesky animals tend to move out of their winter hibernating areas to look for new ground.  You can easily tell where they are because in their process of making tunnels they create these rather large mounds of dirt on the surface.  Back home the farmers hated them because when mowing hay the hay sickle would hit those mounds and dull the cutting blades.  When I was you I used to get $0.50 a gopher from the farmer and another $0.50 from the county as there was a bounty on pocket gophers.  Back where the honeybees are there were a number of new mounds.  Digging my traps out it was time to take action while they are still active.  The Trapline style of traps has been my favorite method as if I say so myself, I am pretty good at this.  The process is to find a fresh mound, find the plugged hole and using a spade dig down till you find the main tunnel.  These traps fit perfectly in the tunnel and I usually put one into each hole, 2 per set.  The final nail in the coffin is to put some peanut butter on a piece of cardboard between the traps then cover the hole with something that keeps the light out.  The gophers smell the bait and being almost blind they walk right into the trap!  After work yesterday I checked the set and to my surprise I had one in each trap, I don't recall ever getting a double.  Thinking maybe of starting my own local Pocket Gopher trapping service, $5.00 a gopher....cash!  Oh well, I'll bet last fall I got over 10 of them on the property.  We'll see.