Sully

Friday catblogging is SO 2004...but since we've gotten a new kitty, I think it's fitting today.

Meet Sully:






We got him before new years. Some friends of one of our nieces had seen him wandering her neighborhood and took him in, but couldn't keep him. We had planned to take a longer break from pets after losing Pavlov, but with this guy on the verge of being sent to Animal Control, we couldn't resist. He spent most of his first week hiding in the basement and has warmed to us slowly. Given that now he has no problem jumping into our bed at 3 am and begging for food (sorry dude, no dice), I'd say he's settled in.

He's not a cuddly cat like Pavlov, but he is very playful. It'll be fun having him.

Green Burn?

An article from the Michigan Messenger today examines plans for biomass power generation plants afoot in northwestern Michigan. In spite of the economic development that might come along with these plants, residents of the affected areas aren't altogether keen on this venture into sustainable power:

Mancelona is facing severe economic stress. The auto parts manufacturer that was the town’s major employer closed last year. Yet, despite the community’s pressing need for jobs, at a public hearing on the company’s air permit application last month, locals focused on potential environmental problems associated with the plant.

The town is also the site of an immense plume of groundwater contamination, and locals raised concerns that plant operations could spread groundwater contamination into the air and that emissions and truck traffic associated with the proposed plant could further degrade the area.

“I’ve seen too many lies in here,” area resident Stuart A. Rogers Sr. said during the hearing, “ … these plants don’t produce 30 jobs.”

In Traverse City, officials have suspended the proposed biomass plant to evaluate other energy options.

It's a complicated issue, touching on air pollution, deforestation, broader patterns of land use and, of course, economic recovery.

My suggestion: Open the plant in southern Michigan and fuel it with exotics like buckthorn, honeysuckle, and multiflora. Cut down some of the overgrown forests in so-called game areas and improve hunting opportunities.

This unlikely and probably unrealistic. But it would address an ecological problem. People are worried that there isn't enough forest to sustain the proposed plants up north. Down here, we may not have as much forest, but we have too much of the wrong kinds of forest. At least in this hunter's view.

Going In , Going Out

I have wanted to begin writing here again. But at the same time I've been studiously avoiding it. There are various excuses, though the root cause is that I simply am not up to the introspection that usually comes with writing, even in its mundane forms. (Why this is I'm not clear on myself.) That explains partly why my posts last summer and fall tended toward tightly factual accounts of fishing or hunting trips.

Keeping up on the surface of things has been an effective short term survival strategy. But I am more and more conscious feeling hobbled, spiritually and mentally, and I fear too I could acquire a permanent internal limp.

Relax. That's as far as I'll take the navel gazing today. I don't know if I'll venture into any of these matters here later, though writing about anything, if I'm at my best, often forces some attention on my inner life, even if I never address it directly.

To update you on the really important matters...

I did have a nice grouse hunt over break, seeing two and shooting one. Didn't end up with any ducks in my bag after three more trips, but found some promising spots for next season and have plans for lots of scouting between now and then. Stockerfest on the Huron river is less than three months away now, and the trout opener less than four.

I probably find more grounds for optimism in the outdoor life than in anything else. Many people claim to have been saved from despair by nature. I wonder if this is simply because it holds out so many possibilities for what do do next?

The First Hunt

I'll jump right to the point and say I didn't shoot anything yesterday. Not that the day was fruitless. I found places I won't bother going again and a few places I definitely will.

Drove to a small lake at local game area, arriving just short of 8. I'd wanted be there well before that, but I always underestimate the time it takes to drive to that area--near Picnkney, actually. The lake was beautiful, ducks or not, even in the steady rain and the wind that sheared yellow leaves from the oak and polar trees in clouds. No houses stood along its sides--just reeds, shrubs, tall trees, and shallow, mucky backwaters. To my untrained eye, it looks like a decent place to set up for waterfowl. I didn't, since there was a truck with Ducks Unlimited stickers parked at the landing. I had no idea where the guy was set up, and I didn't want to stumble around his blind.

Next I made my way west to another small lake on public land, and followed a small creek with a fairly swift current to where it entered the lake. I expect that would be a nice spot for the late season, when lakes begin to ice up. But step into the lake to test its bottom told me that trying to retrieve a duck there would be suicial. I went in to my knee, with no sign of stopping, in half a second. This will be a problem with many southern Michigan lakes. Getting a float tube may be a good idea, provided I can find a spot I can reach w/o walking through half a mile of osier and multiflora.

I tried to take a shortcut to avoid some of the tangle on the way back to my car, which led to the low point of the day. I lost sight of the landmarks I'd seen going in and ended up walking in circles for over an hour. At one point I could see a road intersection across a narrow strip of marsh that was heavily posted. I passed it by a couple of times, not wanting to trespass, but finally I went for it--I would have welcomed being picked up by the sheriff at that point. I was actually very close to my car when I came out of the swamp--a relief, though it made me feel that much more the idiot.

After that I turned back toward Ann Arbor, poking around in a few marshy spots along the way, each of which had that same soft marl bottom. I did jump a couple of wood ducks in a small river, though I wasn't carrying my gun at the time. The river flows near a rental cabin in a state park, and I suspected it might not be open to hunting. I was right, though I walked along it for a ways just to see if any birds were there, and sure enough...

I returned home wet, chilled and very happy. No, happy doesn't cut it--I was deeply conscious of being alive, and of the goodness of that. Not that I don't appreciate life, but sometimes the value of the condition is easier to grasp.

I have a feeling most of my duck trips this fall will be like that, just poking around. But returning home with that feeling will make them worth whatever disappointments they bring.

Just Ducking In...

It's been a series of day-late dollar-short weeks. So the blog goes on the back burner. But I do miss it, despite being at a loss for what I might say lately.

Anyway a couple of new finds to pass along.

First, Modern Ice Fishing joins the FTR blogroll. It looks like new venture, but it may prove useful to some readers during the approaching cold months.

Also, I've been persuing the tailfeather-kickin' duck blog Shiawassee Kid. The man's in the middle of a long ND waterfowling odyssey. Wish I was there.

Why have you been reading a duck hunting blog, you may ask. As it happens, I'm taking my first duck hunt tomorrow. It will be as much a scouting trip as a hunting trip. I'll cruise a few local wet spots on public land and see what's there to see. I may get the gun out, I may not. But I'm pumped (pardon the phrase--I shoot an 870).

The weather does look ducky.
Here's to feathers in the coat tomorrow.

BREAKING: New Record Brown?

The Ludington Daily News is reporting that a Grand Rapids angler caught a 41 lb 7 oz. brown trout from the Manistee river this morning. DNR biologists have verified the weight. This would top the current world record by more than a pound. Certification of the record is pending...

Cute Overload

Cuteness is a quality relative to scale.

The University of Victoria is taking a soft approach to get rid of a warm and fluffy problem — the hundreds of feral bunnies that call the campus home.

School administrators are looking for someone to trap and sterilize about 150 of the rabbits and put them up for adoption as part of pilot program.

The rabbits, which come in a variety of colours, appear to be the pet store variety, not the wilder Peter Cottontail sort. According to university staff, however, the lives of the estimated 1,500 campus rabbits can be dangerous, difficult and short, with cars, dogs and the occasional sadistic student bringing things to an abrupt end.

They are also a nuisance, digging holes in sports fields and gnawing their way through gardens in surrounding neighbourhoods, according to Patty Mack, president of the Mount Tolmie Community Association.

"They are awfully cute, but it has gone to the point where there are just way too many of them," Mack said.


The rest.

And if the foster-bunny plan doesn't work, we are approaching the season of tailgate cookouts...

Diver Down

Man found lurking in toilet again


By LORNA COLQUHOUN
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2009


Four years ago, Gary Moody explained his presence in the bottom of a pit toilet on the Kancamagus Highway by saying he was retrieving his wife's lost wedding ring. Now Moody -- who dodged jail time in that incident -- is facing three new charges related to incidents at a campground toilet in the White Mountain National Forest.

The rest.

"Again"? And I thought I'd met some odd people in campgrounds...

Happy Labor Day; Au Sable 9/4

Being free myself from the chains of labor last Friday, and surmising that the day might provide some first-rate fishing, I made a day trip to the Au Sable.

I planned to spend most of the day on the big water below Mio, but I remembered heavy trico hatches on the north branch over a labor day weekend a few years ago, so I went there first. My car thermometer read 41 degrees when I pulled into an access above twin bridges just before 9AM. Tricos did come, around 10:15, but the hatch was very thin. Feeding activity was lighter than when I'd fished the same stretch in July, and the fish that showed were exceptionally spooky. I put down the first two pods of fish I cast to after two or three casts. I approached a third on hands and knees, setting up behind a large sand ridge that ran between a weedy backwater and the run where the fish were rising. It was difficult to get a good drift over the fish, since there wasn't room for a backcast that would load the rod (even my whippy 4 wt) and generate enough forward power straighten the leader. Kneeling and catching the water with the elbow of my rod arm when I cast didn't help with accuracy either. But I did manage a few good drifts and didn't put the fish down with the bad ones. During the twenty or so minutes the hatch lasted, I managed a couple of smaller brook trout and a shiner.

I headed downstream to Mio for the afternoon and evening. Bob Linsenman told me that white fly soft hackles were still the ticket, so I hopped downstream from access to access fishing one in tandem with other nymphs or emergers. The midday action wasn't red hot, not even as good as it had been the Friday before. I took three planter rainbows, lost a few others.

That wasn't the most regrettable part of the afternoon, though. While fishing in front of the Davis rest area, I heard a roaring coming from upstream and I turned around to see two jet skis rounding the bend. They weren't moving fast but they're kicking up a wake that could easily (and possibly did) swamp a canoe and making enough racket to drown out every drunken tuber on the river. After they passed a cloudy ribbon trailed along the river's edge for almost five minutes, erosion from their wake breaking on the bank. Soon they were headed back upstream: more noise, more silt. I hope jet skiing isn't becoming popular on those waters.

Around 4:30 a nice BWO hatch began and fish began feeding avidly. Over the next hour and a half I caught about 10 trout, 10-14" long. When the bwos faded, I went to the McKinley bar for a quick supper and got back on river a bit before 7:30. The white fly hatch began shortly, and using an emerger, I took 8 or 9 trout about like those I'd caught on olives. When they stopped hitting the emerger, I looked down for spinners and saw none.

Last year on a superb night of white flies, I switched to a spinner pattern far too early and missed a lot of trout I should have taken, but didn't switch back because I didn't want to have to re-tie the spinner on in the dark. Last Friday I decided to keep the emerger on until the spinner fall was obviously in progress, but a succession of trout ignored it. When I did see the first spinner, I immediately went to change flies, but I fumbled tieing on the spinner in near darkness (there's a stretch between twilight and full dark where the vest light is of limited help). I only heard about two rises once I was ready to go, and my casts in their direction produced nothing. But having done well earlier, my regrets were mild.

I sometimes feel guilty about these day trips, burning a lot of money and gas for a single day of pleasure. Sometimes I don't even catch much. But this one was worth every penny and every pound of C02.

Au Sable Big Water, 8/27-28

Got onto the water Thursday and saw numerous risers--took me a while to figure out what they wanted, but once I got the BH soft hackle white fly, I took 7 or 8 rainbows and browns up to 14". Mostly missed the evening white fly emergence, which started earlier than I'd expected--probably on account of the cool weather. In camp that night, the fire was not just about atmospherics.

Friday was slower--managed five trout, including one 15" brown, in the afternoon, all on olive emergers, but rain drove me from the river in the evening.

Camping at the Loop was an unsettling experience, as usual. Details to follow.