Category Archives: Fishing Ramblings – My Fishing Blog

Random thoughts and musings about fishing

Auld Lang Syne and Remembering People

The song “Auld Lang Syne asks “Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?” The beginning of the new year is a good time to remember our past and people that influenced our lives. They should not be forgotten.

Many people impact us over our lives and affect the way we think and the things we like to do. Most important are our parents and family but it branches out to people we go to school with, work with, and meet in clubs and church.

Do you ever stop and think about what influenced you to love fishing? All kids seem to instinctively like fishing and enjoy going, but many never get that chance. And others seem to turn away from fishing as they grow up. But without the chance to go fishing growing up, few will become fishermen after they become adults.

Although I had only one brother, my father and mother had many brothers and sisters and those aunts and uncles influenced me in many ways. Most of them lived within a few miles of where I grew up so I had lots of contact with them all the time.

Uncle Adron, my mother’s youngest brother of five, took me deer hunting my first time when I was 14 years old. He also took me fishing and introduced me to Crème worms, the first plastic worms to come out, back in the 1950s. He taught me where to fish them, how to fish them, and ways to fight and land bass that hit.

Uncle Mayhu lived in Virginia but made annual summer trips to Georgia. I always looked forward to his visits because I got to go fishing with him almost every day he was in town. He and Uncle Adron fished together and let me go along on most of the trips to local farm ponds and lakes. Uncle Adron had permission to fish almost every pond in the county and we had many memorable trips.

I also got to go to New Port News, Virginia and visit Uncle Mayhu most years. He took me to tidal rivers and creeks to catch catfish and bass as well as fishing for saltwater fish in the James River and Chesapeake Bay. Those saltwater trips were great and I was amazed at how many fish we caught, and the variety. Many I had never seen or even heard of in central Georgia since there was no saltwater fishing within many miles of where I grew up.

Uncle J.D. owned a hardware store and he sold fishing and hunting supplies there. I bought many of my fishing and hunting supplies there at a very steep discount. It seemed something extra was always included after my purchase, too.

He also had a farm where we shot doves and fished in his pond. He gave me and army surplus gas mask bag the first time I hunted there when I was about eight years old and I still use it to this day, over fifty years later, to carry essentials when I go deer hunting. Old and ragged now, I carry it for the memories although newer more fancy bags are left at home.

Uncle Roger was a salesman for a big outdoor distribution company and always seemed to have something for me when I visited. From boxes of bullets to a brand new bass plug, he seemed to delight in my thrill of getting those items and using them. He did not fish much but loved to hear about the fish I caught on things he had given me.

Uncle Walter, daddy’s brother, took me saltwater fishing the first time I ever went. He loved going to Carrabelle on Florida’s panhandle and fish for trout. We went and stayed a week and the wind blew so bad we were able to go out only one day, but I fished in the boat canal and caught dozens of topsail catfish.

Those men will live in my memory as long as I am alive. I cherish the things they taught me and the trips I took with them. And they helped instill the love of fishing I have that will also live in me as long as I live. My mother loved fishing, too, and was probably the biggest influence on me, and that is a strong motivation in my life.

Family is important. At the end of the year, remember people who have influenced you and honor their memory. In fact, do that every day, not just at the end of the year.

Christmas Time Growing Up Country

Christmas was always a wondrous time growing up in rural Georgia in the 1950s and 60s. We had little compared to today but we had great fun and I have fantastic memories of those Christmases long past. I hope today’s kids are experiencing things they will always remember, too.

Until I was 12 years old I lived in an old farm house that was heated by an oil burning stove. It sat in front of the old fireplace that still had a mantle so that is where we hung our stockings. And they were stockings. We always talked mom into letting us have one of her worn out stockings – and back then, they were stockings, one for each leg – to hang. It would hold a lot!

Oranges and apples were always in them and I enjoyed them, but more fun were the boxes of sparklers, caps for the cap gun I played with for years, some fish hooks and sinkers, and other small items. Sometimes there were small toys, too, but they were usually quickly lost.

Santa always left some great outdoor gifts. Every year I got a block of ten boxes of .22 bullets and several boxes of .410 shells. I got a used .22 rifle when I was about 8 years old and it was great, but when I was 12 there was a brand new Remington semiautomatic .22 with a scope on it under the tree. I still have that gun and shoot squirrels with it.

The .410 shotgun was a hand-me-down and it killed many squirrels and a few doves and quail. My brother still has that gun. He got it when I started using dad’s 12 gauge shotguns. He had three, an old pump Winchester he had growing up, and two semiautomatic guns.

That old pump gun was temperamental. It had a hammer and a very light trigger. So light that sometimes it would fire when a shell was loaded and the slide slammed shut. One day I was sitting on a tree lying in the woods and bumped the butt against it. Fortunately the gun was pointing straight up since it fired. I learned then to never cock the hammer until I was ready to shoot it.

I still have that old pump and the two semiautomatic shotguns and use them when I get to go bird hunting.

Family and friends were very important and we always spent time with my uncles and aunts and dozens of cousins. We usually visited them the days after Christmas since we were in Florida the week before Christmas. One of my aunts lived in Ocala and dad’s mother lived with her. We would head down there the day after school holidays started and spend several days with them.

I loved Florida, from visiting Silver Springs to picking oranges right off the tree. Strange thing was, the oranges in our stockings looked a lot like the ones we had picked and brought home. I also loved digging in the soft sandy soil in my aunt’s back yard. I spent hours digging holes – and filling them back up.

Christmas lights were great and we got to see a good many on our trip since we drove straight through both ways, and it was about a 12 hour drive back then. We passed one house in south Georgia that had a very pretty yard and a pond in front of it. My mom said it was her dream house. They had some lights around the house that the pond reflected and they were beautiful.

Christmas lights were very subdued back then compared to now. No light icicles hanging from eaves, no big lighted statues in the yard. Most house had a single Christmas tree in front of a window. A few had lighted trees outside and very few had other lights. Many houses did have manger displays, the real reason for the season, and it seems it was more honored back then.

I did get to go hunting during the holidays, from trips by myself to kill squirrels to running my friends pack of beagles for rabbits. I loved both. Deer hunting was a few years in the future back then. I didn’t go deer hunting until I was 16, just a couple of years after the first season opened in Georgia.

We also hunted Christmas decorations. An old abandoned field a couple of miles from our house had a lot of cedar trees in it and they were perfect Christmas trees. We also went to an old home site and collected Smilax, which I found out later is green briar. It stays green all winter and was thick at the old home site. We made wreaths out of it and also framed our door with it. It was very pretty since everything else was pretty drab after the leaves fell off the pecan trees in the yard.

I hope you have some great Christmas memories and make even more this year.

Fishing Reflections and Hopes for the New Year

Its hard to believe this is the last few days of 2014. Every new year gives hope of better things for us, and if we work at it, each new year will offer them. The end of the year is a time to reflect but also to plan, and to make resolutions to better yourself for the future.

Reflecting back, not over just the past year but over all the past years, I realize I have been blessed with a wonderful life. I had two parents that loved me but did not smother me. When I read about “helicopter parents,” parents that hover around their children all the time even to the extent of moving to the town where they go to college, I grimace.

My parents took care of me but allowed me to be free. I spent countless hours out in the woods and on ponds by myself or with friends my age. That taught me independence and to think for myself, something I fear kids now days will never have the change to learn.

I was taught to work for what I wanted, and to keep my wants reasonable. Never in my life would I bite off more than I could chew, as my dad used to say. I can’t imagine using a credit card without paying off the balance every month nor can I imagine depending on others to support my wants. That is something else I am afraid the current generation will never learn.

I know I am the only one responsible for my decisions and the mistakes I make. I call my mistakes “self inflicted wounds” and know to not blame others for them. Anyone can succeed and become almost anything they want to be, as long as they work at it and don’t blame others for their problems.

I often shake my head in amazement when hunters and fishermen blame their “bad luck” on others, or things they can’t control. The wind changed direction and the fish quit biting? Change your pattern, don’t cuss the wind. Someone is sitting on the point you wanted to fish? Go to a better one.

For the new year I plan on living by the things I have learned and that I know will work. I love bass fishing and am determined to think while fishing a tournament, not just go through the motions. If my favorite way of fishing isn’t working I will do something else.

If deer just won’t come by my most comfortable stand I will go to one that is not as comfortable and change my luck. I won’t blame bad luck when I turn my head too fast and spook a deer, I will just move more slowly when scanning the woods. And I won’t climb out of my stand as soon as my feet get cold or I get uncomfortable. I will stay as long as possible to improve my odds.

This next year I hope adults will take the time to work with kids and teach them to hunt and fish. One common character of the students that got into trouble and were sent to my school when I was principal of the alternative school was they did not have parents or other adults that took time with them.

I will never forget the way the kids eyes lit up and how excited they got when one of my teachers organized a scout troop and took them fishing. I hope every kid will have an adult that will light up their eyes. And it seems that kids spending time outdoors somehow insulates them against the things that get so many of them into trouble.

There is an old saying that God doesn’t count against you the time you spend fishing. I hope so, and I am determined to go fishing every time I can, and to enjoy every trip. Even if I make mistakes and don’t do well in a tournament I will try to enjoy the time fishing and learning from my mistakes.

This coming year the counselor and two teachers, with the help of some students at Spalding High are trying to organize a bass fishing club. I will do everything I can to help this club be successful, and encourage members of my two bass clubs to work with them, mentor them and take them fishing.

We live in a fantastic country with unlimited opportunities for anyone willing to take advantage of them. Too many folks scoff at that idea for some reason, but it is true. Nowhere else on earth can anyone achieve their goals like they can here.

I hope parents will be parents, and teach their children to work for what they want and to not blame others for their problems, just like my parents taught me so many years go. The possibilities are unlimited.

Fishing and Hunting Wishes for The New Year

I like to make New Year’s resolutions that are more like wishes since I really don‘t follow them like I should. The beginning of a new year is always a good time to think about what we want to do better in the coming year and how we can improve ourselves. When making wishes about the outdoors it can be a lot of fun, too.

For everyone else my wishes don’t require much work. They are just things I hope people do and have fun, and maybe think about a little. If you like these New Year’s wishes adopt them. If not, make your own and enjoy the next year.

For all fishermen I hope you catch the biggest fish of your life and thrill to the excitement of landing it and sharing your catch with friends. I hope you go fishing one day and land so many fish you can brag about it without exaggerating. But I also hope you go fishing one day and don’t get a bite, and realize at the end of the day that you still had a great day and there is nothing you would rather do.

For hunters I hope the deer have huge racks, the birds fly into your shot pattern, the turkey fall in love with your calls and the squirrels move around to your side of the tree when you throw a stick to the other side. I hope every time you kill an animal you stop for a minute and regret that it had to die to fulfill the hunting tradition. May you always clean and eat all of your kill, enjoy the bounties of the outdoors, and realize it is part of the natural world.

For bass fishermen may you release almost all the fish you catch, especially the big ones, but may you also take a few home to cook without any bad feelings. Realize fish populations are a renewable resource and you can keep some without hurting the future.

May every child have an adult that will take time to show them how to safely load and carry a gun, and how to be careful every second they are using one. And may that person take them squirrel hunting and let them experience the excitement of stalking a bushytail while it scampers around feeding on acorns. Maybe that training will pay off when it comes to big game at some point, too.

I hope every adult has a kid they can share a day with and let their excitement and exuberance remind you of how it feels. Maybe sharing that feeling with them will re-kindle some of those feelings that have seemed to fade in you over time. And sharing the day will make memories for both of you that will last from now on.

This year I hope you enjoy all the toys that can make being outdoors more fun. Fish out of a big fast bass boat and use a GPS to find a honey hole. Use the most modern rods and reels spooled with high-tech line and throw a $25 lure to catch a bass. But also sit on the dock on a pond with a cane pole and a can of worms and watch a cork float in the ripples, waiting on it to quiver and go under.

Don’t go hunting and concentrate so hard on killing a trophy buck you miss the cardinal that lands in a nearby dogwood to eat berries. Watch a squirrel and try to figure out why we call them gray squirrels and they look gray but don’t have a single gray hair on their bodies. And look up when you hear the distant trilling and think about the huge distances migratory birds travel when a flock of sand hill cranes fly over.

Spend some time flying down a big reservior at 70 miles per hour heading to honey hole full of bass but also spend some time easing along a small creek, dabbling a hand tied fly in the pools for bream and small bass. Enjoy the beauty of every fish you catch, noting the bright colors of a spawning bluegill and the intricate patterns on spotted bass.

Take time to smell the outdoors and note how it changes with the weather and places you visit. Catch a whiff of wood smoke on a freezing cold morning while out on a lake and feel warm just from the smell. Listen to the sounds of nature and note how fog mutes them and seems to make the whole world hush.

If I could make these wishes for all who enjoy the outdoors I would try to make sure they were good ones. But most of all, I hope and wish everyone gets to spend time fishing and hunting and enjoying nature.

Would You Want To Go Fishing Every Day Of the Year?

I grew up in Dearing, Georgia, a wide spot on Highway 78 in McDuffie County, Georgia between Thomson and Augusta. Our claim to fame was a caution light at the crossroads at Iron Hill Road. My house was on a small farm a quarter of a mile from that caution light.

Town consisted of six small stores that included a gas station, a tiny grocery store and four stores where you could buy anything you needed, from gas and kerosene to frozen food and bullets. They were true country stores and many shopped in them for clothes, fishing supplies, canned food and cigarettes. Hoop cheese was one of my favorites and you could get any size slab you wanted.

The proprietors of two of those stores also drove school buses. They would run their routes in the morning then open the store. When time to run their afternoon route their wives kept the stores open while they were gone. I rode Mr. John Harry’s bus from kindergarten through my senior year in high school.

One year Mr. John Harry and Mr. Joe Frank made a pact they were going fishing ever single day the next year. And they did. They would fish every weekend but also kept a rod and reel on their bus and often stop at a farm pond or creek crossing on the way home in the morning or afternoon for a little fishing.

This New Year’s Resolution sounded like a perfect one for me and one I wanted to make each year since then. When I retired in 2001 I tried but never was able to fish ever day. Something always messed me up, like surgery on my thumb or a trip on a cruise ship, where there is water, water everywhere but no way to fish!

For several years my efforts ranged from missing seven to 25 days. That is not bad out of 365 days in a year, but not perfect. Then in 2009, I fished some every single day of the year! I finally did it.

My rules were fairly simple. I don’t have to catch a fish every day, but I have to fish somewhere that I could catch a fish. So no fishing in the bathtub or in a rain filled ditch. And there is no time limit. Some days I stand on one foot in my bass boat for ten hours casting for bass, others days I sat in a folding chair on my dock for ten minutes catching bluegill on pellet fish food.

Some days tried my determination to fish every day. On a week long trip to St. Louis to attend an outdoor writers meeting, I stayed at a hotel. There was a small creek with a pond on it on the hotel property but I was told no fishing was allowed. I let everyone know how stupid it was to have an outdoor writers meeting at a place that didn’t allow fishing, but their rule made me explore the Bush Wildlife Area just outside town, a beautiful place open to the public that included over 20 ponds that I could fish. The Budweiser beer people made this place available to the public and is a fantastic resource for people in the area.

I found out the third day of the conference no one watched the pond for fishermen so I did wet a line there, too. I saw some small fish around the edges but didn’t catch anything.

Another tough day was when I had a doctor appointment in Mobile, Alabama and had to leave early in the morning for it. I drove out to my place at daylight and fished for a few minutes before leaving. I was determined not to let anything mess up my record that year.

I fished when it was so cold I had to dip my rod tip in the water to melt ice from the guides to days sweat dripped from my nose and ran into my eyes constantly. And I fished in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Missouri and caught largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass as well as crappie, bluegill, green sunfish, shell cracker, bullheads, flathead catfish, hybrids, stripers, rock bass, gar, carp, bowfin, walleye, muskie and northern pike.

I kept logs on my old web site forum listing each day fishing and what I caught. It is a good way for me to keep up. It was been a fun year. I actually fished every day between November 2, 2008 and the end of the year. That was 424 days in a row. Maybe I will get tired of fishing some day, but not yet!

Gotta go fishing – Day 3 of 2010!

What Is Your Best Outdoor Christmas Gift Ever?

What is the best Christmas gift you ever received? Mine all seem to deal with the outdoors, from fishing and hunting supplies to camping gear. Getting up on Christmas morning and discovering what Santa had left me was always thrilling. And there were always presents from my parents, too.

When I was 15 my parents gave me and my brother Mitchell 300 spinning reels and matching Abu Garcia rods. I used my outfit for many years, catching anything that swam in ponds and lakes around my house, including bream, catfish, bass and crappie. I still have that old Mitchell in my garage. Long past its usable days, I keep it to remind me of those great times.

There was always a variety of hooks, sinkers and corks in my stocking, and they were real corks, the kind you had to split with a knife so you could put it on your line. Fortunately I got a knife pretty much every Christmas, too. I used my pocket knifes for everything from splitting corks to cleaning squirrels, and we played games like mumbly peg with them, too.

After Crème came out with “rubber” worms I got a pack of every color they made. Red or black worms were your choices back then. And there was usually a Hula Popper, Snagless Sally or Creek Chub lure to cast for bass. I wore them all out.

I got a BB gun when I was six after having my tonsils taken out and every Christmas after that for several years I got several tubes of BBs under the tree. When I graduated to a .22 rifle and a .410 shotgun I always got a brick of .22 bullets and some shells.

Those ten boxes of 50 bullets in a carton meant many hours of shooting squirrels, birds and targets. But they didn’t last all year so I had to go up to Mr. John Harry’s store fairly often and buy them one box at a time, for 50 cents! And I got a couple of boxes of .410 shells to shoot rabbits and shoot at birds. I could always hit rabbits much better than doves and quail with that single shot gun.

Clothes were always under the tree but I didn’t pay much attention to the school clothes. But my eyes lit up when I got a camo jacket, a set of Duckback briar proof pants and coat or boot sox. I knew I would be doing things I loved when wearing then, as opposed to when the school clothes were worn.

Things were more simple back then. There were lots of fun things from cap pistols and rolls of caps to boxes of sparklers. And fruit was included in the stockings. Bananas, apples and oranges as well as pecans were always there. Strangely enough, the oranges looked exactly like the naval oranges in the big bag we had brought back from our annul Christmas visit to my grandmother in Ocala, Florida. And the pecans looked just like the ones we had been picking up in the yard that fall.

Each year there was one big gift, too. One year I got a shooting range thing that had ducks that revolved on a pole and I shot at them with a gun and rubber stopper bullets. And I will never forget the bicycle I got one Christmas. It still makes my heart ache when I think about it.

Daddy was the Ag teacher at the local school. One afternoon just before the holidays I went out to the shop. There were two bicycles hanging there. Daddy had bought two old bikes, repaired them, sanded them and painted them. I knew immediately they were for me and my brother for Christmas.

When I got my bicycle I was disappointed it was not a new one and I was a little embarrassed about it. But I rode that bicycle everywhere, going squirrel hunting with my .22 on the handlebars or fishing with my tackle box in the basket and my rod and reel across the handlebars.

It was few year later, when I was a little older and wiser, that it hit me that daddy could not afford a new bicycle for me and my brother. So he found something he could afford and worked many hours to make them look brand new. I realized how much love and care went into those bicycles and I am ashamed of my self, even after over 50 years, of how I felt when I first got it.

Decorating the house was always fun, too. And we used home-made ornaments mostly, from stars made with left over foil to toothpicks stuck into sweet gum balls and painted. There was the annual trip to the old house site overgrown with what mama called Smilax, what I know now as green briar. It stayed green all winter and we outlined the door with it and put a red home-made bow on the door.

My job was to find the tree, so all fall when hunting rabbits and quail I watched for the perfect cedar growing in old abandoned fields. There were always hundreds of them and it took a lot of effort to find the perfect one. When I did we would go to it the week before CHristms in our old truck and cut it down. I still love the smell of cedar in the house this time of year.

I think Christmas has changed too much in my lifetime. I hope you will still share some of the old ways this year.

What Is Special About Late November and December Fishing?

Fishing in late November and December can be special. But it can be very variable, too. One day you can fish in a short sleeve shirt, a couple of days later you need a snowmobile suit. But fish often bite and big bass seem to feed more this time of year.

Some folks say you are crazy to fish in the winter, that it is too cold. But it is never too cold for some of us. And if you dress right you can be comfortable even on the most miserable days.

There is something special about sitting in a bass boat, watching your breath steam as you wait for a tournament blast off. Then you pull down your face mask and take off, so you don’t even feel the bite of the cold air while running down the lake at 50 plus mph. Encased from head top to toe tip, you are warm.

The biggest problem is when you stop and try to fish. There is really no good way to fish and keep your hands warm. I have never found any gloves I could wear that both kept my hands warm and allowed me to cast or feel my rod. Switching from a spinning reel to a bait casting reel every 20 casts or so seems to help, and hand warmers in your pockets allow you to warm your hands, or one at a time while holding the rod with the other.

You need to fish slowly in cold water anyway, so you can cast out a jig, put one hand in a pocket while it sinks, and move it with the rod tip while still keeping that hand in your pocket. And you can even move your jig by moving the boat slowly with the trolling motor without ever taking your hand out in the cold.

Everything on the water seems to be more intense this time of year. The smell of a fire on the bank is so nice it seems to warm you a little and invite you to get closer. Without all the pleasure boaters around the sounds you miss in the summer are noticeable. The splash of a loon diving. The lap of small waves against your boat. The scurrying of a squirrel on the bank. All are enhanced.

I will never forget one cold December tournament at Jackson. Soon after daylight it was a little foggy, making the water almost surreal. I was in a cove in Tussahaw Creek and could smell pine straw burning on the bank. Then, from a cabin, came the haunting melody of a blues song. I have tried for years to find out what the song was so I could get it, but it probably would not sound so sweet under other circumstances.

Even the birds on the bank and over or on the water seem more colorful. A cardinal hopping from shoreline bush to bush is the brightest thing in sight. A mallard drake with his bold green head is stark contrast to the steel gray color of the water. And a seagull’s white body stands out against the sky and water, and you watch it carefully to see if it dives and points the way to feeding fish.

Until the winter rains muddy the water fish are much more colorful, too. A spotted bass hooked in clear water shows sharp contrast in its green markings and black belly spots. Even a largemouth seems to have more defined markings.

Bass fight hard until the water gets extremely cold, too. A spot hitting a crankbait will make you swear it weighs five pounds until it comes into sight and proves to be a two pounder. I think spots hit at full speed, almost always going away from you, and that intensifies the jolt.

Hybrids and stripers feed much better in cold water. Hook a six pound hybrid or a 12 pound striper and you will wonder if your tackle can hold it. And it won’t if you don’t have your drag set right to let line strip off your reel against their hard runs.

Crappie feed and you can catch a lot of them on minnows or jigs. They don’t fight as hard as some fish, but no fish tastes better than a crappie caught in cold water, cleaned quickly and cooked within hours of being swimming in the lake.

You are aware of the dangers though. Your heavy boots and insulated clothes will pull you under fast if you fall in. In addition, the heavy clothes and boots make it more likely you will stumble or trip in the boat and fall in. And the ice water will cause your muscles to stop working very soon after falling in, even if you can somehow stay on top. That is why I always wear some kind of life jacket in the winter.

Even with the problems and dangers fishing in the winter is well worth it. I will be on the water while other folks watch football by the fire. I would have it no other way.

Internet Routers and Other Computer and Phone Hardware and Software

I have had a Linksis 2.4 GH router for many years. Recently I got a Windows 8 computer and everything worked fine with my old computer on Windows Vista. WHen my wife got a new computer, a Dell like mine with Windows 9, every time she turned it on it crashed our router. We are ordering the router below to see if that solves the problem – Dell says it can’t be the computer! We will see.

Update – I ordered the router below and received it in two days. It works! I have two Dell Windows 8 computers, an old Dell with Windows Vistas, a Dell laptop with Windows Vistas, a Samsung netbook computer with Wiondows XP and a Lexmark printer all running through it and it is handling them all fine. And it seems faster!

Lexmark printer ink I use.

I dropped my IPhone 4s and broke it so I upgraded to an IPhone 5. Of course the power cords from the 4s don’t work so I had to order new cords. I had plenty of the USB plugs for outlets and cigarette lighters so all I needed were the cords and they are not too expensive.

I also put my new phone in an Otter waterproof case. It costs $90 at the Verizon store – should have waited to get it from Amazon! I am on the water a lot so waterproof is important. Of course, if I drop it in 30 feet of water the phone wills still work but I could not get it back but if I fall in with it in my pocket, or get soaked in a downpour, the case should protect the phone.

What Are Rockworms and Doodle Bugs?

“Doodlebug, doodlebug, where are you.” Some people will know what I am talking about when they read those words. They, like me, have sat on the ground with a straw trying to get a doodlebug to come out of its hole.

The house I grew up in was way off the ground on pillars of rock. The soft, dusty dirt under the house was always dry, a perfect combination for doodlebugs. There were many funnel shaped depressions scattered around in the soil from them. I spent many hours as a child wiggling a straw in the hole, trying to get the doodlebug in it to come out.

I do not ever remember seeing a doodlebug until I was grown. When teaching life science, I found out they were really ant lions, a small but ferocious looking bug that lived in the ground. Their holes were actually traps!

Ant lions are the larvae of an insect that looks like a dragon fly. They live in the ground, eating small insects they can trap, until they mature and change into the flying stage of their life cycle.

After learning about them while teaching, I looked around and found some at my house in Griffin. Their conical holes were just as I remembered. I found some ants nearby and got one on a stick. When I dropped it into the hole, it tried to climb out but kept slipping back. Suddenly grains of dirt were being flipped out of the bottom of the hole toward the struggling ant.

This dirt hitting the ant made it slip even more. It fell to the center of the hole and something under the dirt grabbed it! That looked like something out of my wildest nightmares, being grabbed from under the ground and slowly being pulled down.

The ant struggled, but it was in a firm grip. It quickly disappeared completely. The last thing I saw of it were its antennae waving as they slipped under the ground.

I got a piece of paper and managed to scoop up the hidden critter. It looked like a small beetle with huge jaws. This bug sits under the ground, waiting on an ant or other small insect to fall into its trap. When it feels the struggle of its prey, it starts flipping dirt at the ant to make it fall. When the ant hits the ground right over the hidden jaws, the doodlebug grabs its dinner!

There was an Outer Limits TV show while I was growing up that showed a similar theme. Explorers landed on another planet and members of the crew kept disappearing. They finally found out it was critters living below the sand, pulling them down for a meal. I wonder if the writer of that show got the idea from doodlebugs?

Nature is not always nice. Animals die. I often tried to imagine what the ant must feel like, being grabbed and pulled down from below. Then I realized ants do not have feelings or emotions. They do not think. It would be a terrible way for a person to die, but I do not think ants have the same fears as I do.

Rock worms are cousins of doodlebugs, but they live in the water. Their jaws have pinched many a fisherman on the Flint River when the worms were used as bait for bass and catfish. They live in the moss on rocks and catch small water bugs and minnows for their food. Doodlebugs look like small, short rock worms.

I am glad rockworms and doodlebugs don’t get any bigger. If they did, it might not be safe to walk on soft dirt or wade the river!

Check out your back yard for doodlebugs. They are a great example of the ways nature works. Observe other interactions in nature and realize we are part of it. Spring is a great time to be outside, looking at the wonderful world we live in!

Sitting In A Tree

Sitting in a tree for several hours at a time, waiting on a deer to come within range, gives you a lot of time to think. When you first settle down in the dark, watching the sky slowly lighten, all your thoughts are on deer. But when it gets light enough that you stop seeing antlers on every stump, your mind may wander a little.

For a few seconds it may linger on the problems of the world. Ebola, IRS scandals, Russia invading Ukraine, terrorists attacks on our embassies, terrorists killing people in the US and Canada and all the other top news items don’t hold your thoughts long. You may clench your teeth when you think about how hard you work to be able to hunt a day or two while the government takes chunks of your money to give to folks that don’t work, but your natural surroundings make those things pass quickly.

Your main concentration is on trying to do everything right so you don’t spook a deer, and watching for any tell-tale movement that indicates one is nearby, but you do notice many other things. You do see movement and every flicker draws hard examination, but it is almost always a squirrel or bird. Why are they called gray squirrels when they have only brown, black and white hairs? But they do look gray. Those are the kinds of thoughts that pass through your mind.

Even the trees and bushes seem sharper as the sun comes up. You can identify almost all of them from the bark, leaves and shape. That comes from years of study looking for food sources. And a falling leaf is interesting in the way it changes direction. They all have their own paths, some falling straight down, some spiraling, some fluttering like a wounded dove.

A thunking sound makes you smile. You know it is a big white oak acorn hitting a limb then the ground as it falls. After all, that is why you are set up here. White oaks dropping their acorns all around will definitely attract whitetails.

A distant train wails and you know why so many books and poems claim this is one of the most forlorn sounds. It reminds you of passing time, leaving a place you love and someone leaving you. Then a murder of crows go wild and their cawing calls bring you back to the reality of the woods.

You watch your breath in the cold morning air, noting the way it moves, knowing any scent you have that will spook a deer will go the same way. A squirrel comes out of its nests in a nearby tree, stretches and scratches, then starts barking at you. No matter how well you are camouflaged he sees you. But this is his home. He notices a new lump in a tree just like you would notice, as you came out of your bedroom, someone sitting on your couch.

And you can only hope you are high enough and well hidden enough so a deer doesn’t spot you before you can get a shot. That is why you are 50 yards from the trail you are watching. You only have a few narrow shooting lanes to it and that helps you hide, but you know you will not have long to get off an accurate shot through one of them.

And if you notice little flickers of movement from squirrels, birds and falling leaves you just know a deer will see you raise your hand to scratch your nose or if you move your head scanning around. So you make all movements very slowly, even if your nose is about to drive you crazy. Movement definitely draws the attention of a deer. Maybe that is why they seem to bed down and not feed when it is windy. There is just too much movement. And scents get blown around and are not reliable.

The sun makes interesting, changing patterns as it filters through the trees and leaves. You have set up so you won’t be looking through your scope directly into it, knowing a stray ray can blind you, and you hope you are at the right angle so it doesn’t interfere with any shot you get.

A crunch in the leaves makes you turn your head slowly to check it out, but you know before looking it has to be a squirrel. Deer can walk through the woods without making a sound. You can be looking at a spot, glance away and when you look back a deer will be standing there. It did not make a sound, it is like it popped out of the ground right there.

All these things and many more are the reasons you hunt. You can’t ever become “one with nature,” but this gets you as close as possible. Even if you don’t see a deer the time flies by and, as you climb down to the ground, you can’t wait till the next time you are up in a tree, thinking.