Bears Butt | BearsButt.com | Stories, Ramblings & Random Stuff From an Old Mountain Man

THE SECRET LURE CATCHES MOST OF THE FISH

By: Bears Butt

About noon or so, up pulls this red truck into my driveway. Actually up backed this red truck into my driveway and out of it came Weasel, Austin and Brian…they were on their way ice fishing and needed to borrow some of my stuff. I had been invited, but decided to stay home because of “stuff”….you know…”stuff”.

Well, they took the things they needed and headed off. Soon after they left, Winemaker came home from what she was doing. Her first comment to me was, “Why didn’t you go ice fishing”? My response, “Because there is ‘stuff’ that needs to be done”. “What stuff”? was her response. I had no answer.

Almost immediately at that, my phone rang….it was Weasel…Hey! Dad, you are missing it…We have caught 10 fish already….You need to be here…I’ll see about that with your mom…maybe I will come up, maybe not.

I turned to Winemaker and said, That was Brandon and they are catching fish like crazy, do you mind if I go? Not at all, I thought you would go while I was gone earlier……

I’m all over this now. A quick change of clothes, throw stuff into the truck and then realize we should probably eat lunch.

So we had a great lunch of leftovers and then I was outahere!

By 1 p.m I ‘m on the ice with them and they have a BUNCH of fish laying there. KEEPERS! And all bluegills! Half the size of dinner plates. I have not seen bluegills so big in a long time. I’m excited to get into the water and they have drilled a hole and cleaned it for me…I told them they only invited my for my quarters. And was quickly told there was not any betting going on, just fish catching. Too fast of action!

So, I dropped in with my usual….nothing….in the mean time, they each catch a fish….I stay with my usual…nothing. How high up? One crank….I drop down and one crank it….nothing. They each catch another fish….OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..I see that they each have the “secret lure” on! I pull up and grab my pole with the secret lure and bait up!

I drop the secret lure in and hit the bottom, one crank…BAMMMM! Fish on!

Of course the fish is small, but you get the idea! Sometimes you have to sort through the small ones to get the keepers!

This guy was about 8 inches long and didn’t have enough meat on its bones to make a bite for a meal and so it went back. LOTS of them went back!

And when we got back to the truck two hours later, there were at least 25 keepers in the bucket and Austin was about to have his best fish meal ever! Fresh caught Rocky Mountain Blue Gill!

As you can see from the picture it looks like the “secret bait” is a whitish blob. You can pick those up almost anywhere good fishing stuff is found! (smiley face)

I only fished for 2 hours and had a blast. I probably caught 10 or 15 fish and only one keeper. But everyone around us caught fish. Even those without the secret lure! So, don’t think that just because you don’t have one of the secret lures you can’t catch a fish or two, don’t let that stop you from going fishing! DO! There are only so many more days of ice and then we will have to wait until next December to enjoy it again!

Happy Fishing…Oh, we were at Mantua!

Bears Butt

January 24, 2014

Written on January 24th, 2014 , Fishing Stories

BOX ELDER HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING

By: Bears Butt

Yesterday Winemaker and I were sitting in our usual spots enjoying our morning coffee when she said, “It sure seems cold in here this morning”. I checked the temp and sure enough it was only 63 degrees…brrrr!

I went to the thermostat and it was set on 68, just where it’s been for a hundred years, so I kicked it up to 75, pulled the cover off it and blew out the dust! I thought maybe a spider had crawled in there and gotten himself between some contacts or something.

And so the day went on…later I told her I thought I could hear something strange with the noise the furnace was making…you could hear and feel the blower working, but then there would be pulsing noises like it was trying to fire up and then it would shut itself off. This would occur about every 10 seconds. On…Off…On…Off. She could not hear what I was trying to describe….until this morning!

When she heard it her first comment was….”We need to call Scott and get him to come and look at the furnace”!

Scott Pettingill is his name and he lives in Brigham City. He owns Box Elder Heating and Air Conditioning and he was the man who installed the furnace and central air in the old house. I have worked with Scott quite a bit over the last 10 years or so. A good, reliable and reasonable heating and air conditioning man. He knows his business and doesn’t bite the hand that feeds him! If you want fair and honest! Scott is the man…435-723-3151

It was about 7 a.m. at this time and so I texted his number asking him to call me when it was convenient. My phone rang less than 15 minutes later. I told him we had an issue with the furnace and he said he would be out about 8 a.m.

At 7:55 Scott pulled into the driveway! Grabbed his small bag of tools and headed for the basement. He stood there listening to the noise the furnace was making and said…”We have a water problem”!

Our furnace is going on 19 years old and it is of a type that creates condensed water and that water drains into our floor drain in the basement. Scott knew right away the water was not draining. Something had it plugged and the way the furnace is designed, if something in the workings of the furnace is not right, the sensors tell it not to operate. So, as a little bit of water would drain through the plug, the furnace would ignite, then when new water built up to the stop point, the furnace would shut off…thus the On again, Off again stuff.

Scott found a drain plug on the main drain, opened it and drained out some very ugly stuff! That ugly stuff was little bits of rust mixed with water and over the years it has been building up until it completely covered the main drain pipe outlet. Who would have thought?

So, with all the BS’n and stuff, Scott was here about an hour….his charge? $40!

The furnace is working just like new, the house is warm and the thermostat is set back to 68…Winemaker has a big old smile on her face, I have a big old smile on my face, MaPa’s is looking at us wondering why we have big old smiles on our faces, and Scott is off to another job!

Does it get any better than that?

Bears Butt

January 24, 2014

Written on January 24th, 2014 , Uncategorized

BEARS BUTT SAW HIS SHADOW TODAY!

By: Bears Butt

We were heading up toward Hardware Ranch the other day and I saw a Bald Eagle gliding down the canyon. I made a comment that he was a little early to be migrating through at this time of year. Usually they don’t show up until around the second week of February.

Of course Winemaker informed me that I don’t always see the individual ones that come through early, I only see the masses of them as they glide around at the peak of the migration.

As for my thoughts on the subject, I think I observe lots of things, and I still think this one eagle is early. So I believe that this sighting is an indication of an early Spring! That’s what I’m saying and I’m sticking to it!

At the ranch, while we waited for the others to show up, we observed a small band of six wild turkeys on the hill side. Several of the Toms were fanning their tails out and strutting around like they were meaning some business. That is another indicator to me of an early Spring…Strutting Toms!

So there were two signs in one day!

This morning while we were eating our breakfast, a bird flew down and picked up a stick that was laying on the brown grass and flew off with it! What does that tell you?

And even though we have not heard from Punxsutawney Phil, the ground hog over in Pennsylvania, I’m here to tell you winter’s back is broken and you best get your Spring stuff ready to do! Bears Butt went out and got the paper this morning and saw his shadow! Only six more weeks until you see a 70 degree day!

This just might turn into something big, so mark your calendars! People just might be flocking around Bears Butt’s den waiting for him to come out and see his shadow….who knows!?!

Bears Butt

January 23, 2014

Written on January 23rd, 2014 , Uncategorized

2014 FEEDING ELK AT HARDWARE RANCH

By: Bears Butt

Today was a beautiful day to be up in the mountains and especially at the Hardware Ranch to assist with feeding the elk. This picture is of the hungry herd of elk that are currently on the ranch. Marni, the assistant manager says the herd can vary by up to 100 head from day to day, plus or minus. This looks to me to be between 200 and 300 head.

We arrived about 9:30 a.m. and the temperature was brisk, but not extremely cold. The ranch manager, Brad, was out feeding the elk that are in a holding pen awaiting brucellosis testing. And soon he would load the feeding wagon with 5 large, 800 plus pound bales for today’s feeding.

Tracker, Bones, Winemaker and I waited patiently as we knew there was to be some kids from the Mount Logan Middle School coming up to help.

We immediately saw a small band of turkeys near by.

Before the day was over, we saw close to 30 birds in varying band sizes. All of them look very healthy!

It didn’t take long before a lady with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources showed up to help as well. She is actually a graduate student working on her doctorate and she had been called late last night to go up to the ranch. Her main job was to pick up “test” food that had been left on the ranch for the elk to pick through. The Utah State University students studying wildlife habitat (I’m guessing at this) are looking for alternate food supplements for elk and had eight different mixes of various food products out in feed bins among the elk. Her job was to pick up the feed that was left in the bins and bring it all back for weighing and comparative testing. We would do our part to assist her with that task as well as the feeding of the elk.

Pretty soon the students from the middle school arrived and we were all set to go. All of us were involved in some way. The object of having the kids there was to give them first hand experience in the feeding program, but also to teach them a few things about the ranch, about elk and with this special feeding program being tested, they even got a bit of High Tech stuff to learn. I really enjoyed listening to Marni, the “Doctor” and the students teacher fill them with good information and also test their thinking by asking pertinent questions.

These kids are all in the sixth grade and the program they are working in calls for them to have all their other assignments completed in all their other subjects before they are even considered to go out and play on a day trip like this one. These happened to be all boys today and they were all very willing to step in and do their part.

Marni was called upon to drive the tractor that pulled the 2 tons of hay out to the meadow where the elk were herded up. The first order of business however, was to load the catch pen up with fresh hay and get the trip wire set to close the door behind the elk that venture into the catch pen.

If you can see the open red gate in this picture, that gate gets closed once the hay is loaded into the catch pen. The bars on the gate keep the larger bull elk from going into the pen. Brad told me that if you get big bulls in there, they start to fight and will hurt the other animals and even cause enough damage to the other animals that they would have to be put down. So they don’t want to catch big bulls. Mostly cows and calves.

Inside the pen is a long string that is attached to a boarded and hinged panel. When one of the elk inside the pen happens to “trip the string”, the panel closes, covering the red gate and their avenue of escape is cut off. Then it’s a simple manner of getting the group of captured elk to move through a small chute and into a larger holding pen.

When they have captured up a given number of elk in this pen, they will then take the time to catch each one and take blood samples to be tested for brucellosis and other diseases. The animals will be aged and weighed and even tagged before being released back into the wild.

I have to say, our Utah Division of Wildlife Resources people don’t have much time to relax. There is always something for them to be doing! The search for “the right answer” is never that easy! Keep it up folks!

Now for the fun part! Feeding the big herd of elk!

As the wagon began to move, it was our jobs to pull off slabs of hay from the bales and kick them out to the sides of the wagon and on the ground for the hungry elk. The elk know the routine, but they also know that people mean trouble and so they kept their distance. Today, Marni drove the wagon in a zig zag pattern, quite close to the capture pen. I think the theory is to have the whole herd close and maybe more elk will get inside and get captured.

With a good crew like this one it didn’t take long before we ran ourselves out of work. 5 big bales all strung out across the ranch and 200 to 300 hungry elk taking care of it very quickly!

So, we needed a picture of the kids from the Mount Logan Middle School:

Hey! But who is the guy in the dark shadow?

When the elk were all fed, it was time to move down to the troughs and pick up the left over test food.

The kids were interested in learning about this special testing and it was up to “Doctor Alex” to tell them about it.

With them gathered around one of the troughs, she explained just what the experiment was all about and what the person who thought it up was hoping to see come of it. I hope that person finds the results they hoped for.

We went on and cleaned up the troughs and then “headed back to the barn” (now we know where that statement comes from)!!!

What a fun morning to be at the ranch!

I know for you, Brad and Marni, it’s just another day at the office, but when I look at these pictures and concentrate on the scenery, I just have to say “What a beautiful office to have to work in”!!!!

Thanks for having us up there and please invite us back soon!

Bears Butt

January 21, 2014

Written on January 21st, 2014 , Just more stories

FEEDING ELK AT HARDWARE RANCH

By: Bears Butt

Winemaker and I have been invited by Tracker and Bones to join them in helping feed the elk up at Hardware Ranch this morning! I’ve never done it before so it will be a fun time. Winemaker will be in charge of pictures and I’ll post some up when we get back!

In the mean time it looks like a gorgeous day to be out in the mountains!

Bears Butt

January 21, 2014

Written on January 21st, 2014 , Uncategorized

BEARS BUTT’S WATER SPITTER

By: Bears Butt

The other day I told you about this little device called “The Spitter”, I have decided it should be called “The Water Spitter” and I’m about to tell you why I think that.

I also told you that someday I would like to try my hand at making one and trying it out on the ice. Today was that day!

I found a 2 pound coffee can out in the shed, and also found a small coiled up piece of small copper tubing. What more do I need?

I drilled a hole the size of the copper tubing in the side of the can, very near the bottom, poked the copper tubing through it from the inside out, leaving about 4 inches sticking out and then carefully coiled up the copper tubing inside the can about 4 coils. Draped the rest out over the upper edge of the can almost directly above the pipe coming out the bottom of the can.

Then I soldered the pipe to the can as best as I know how to solder.

I have an old metal kitchen pot I use to boil animal skulls in and I grabbed that, put a rock in it and then filled it about half way with water. I set the can with coils on top of the rock so the small tube coming out the bottom of the can is under water and the tube extending over the top of the can came out and over the side of the big pan.

It doesn’t look too impressive, but I just wanted to see if it would work or if I had been scammed again!

I put in a few briquets and lit them up!

When the coals got hot things began to happen on the outside of the tube!

Not much but it did appear like it just might work.

A little steam!

More water flowing! Now we are cooking!

And there you have it! It works!!!!! A “Water Spitter”!!!!!

This baby will be going ice fishing soon!

Bears Butt

January 20, 2014

Written on January 20th, 2014 , Uncategorized

THE FISH ELEVATOR

By: Bears Butt

Fish finders!

There are all kinds of devices out there to assist fisher people (men, women, kids) catch fish. I’ve shown you a few lately and will continue to show you new stuff as I encounter it. The latest thing is something I was telling Weasel about but I could not remember what it was called. I found it again today, but unfortunately there have not been any Youtube videos posted, so, you will have to copy the web link and paste it on a new tab in order to see what it is all about.

It’s called “The Fish Elevator” and you can order yours on

http://www.thefishelevator.com/

Before going on and buying one, you probably want to see how it works. There is a series of “catches” on the main dot com web site listed above, but the second video shows this guy catching a very big fish, which is nice because the fish elevator guys needed this as a testimony to its usefulness.

It’s a pretty cool device and it’s funny nobody thought of it sooner.

http://www.thefishelevator.com/video.html

Enjoy!

I’ll go find some more interesting stuff!

Bears Butt

January 20, 2014

Written on January 20th, 2014 , Fishing Stories

GIZMOS…IT’S WHAT IS HAPPEN’IN

By: Bears Butt

Looking at this picture makes you realize there must be some very tall people who like to ice fish! So, once you have the hole drilled through the ice, there is no way for you to get your line down into the depths of the water unless you clear out all the slushy stuff and ice chunks left from the drilling process.

Most of us have a scoop like this one:

They work really well, are very inexpensive and some even have handles that will float should you drop it in the hole. Mine don’t…but I’ve never dropped one yet.

Well, I ran across a new devise that makes the job of scooping out the ice quicker. Watch this video:

Pretty slick I’d say!

So, here you are ice fishing, is it cold outside? Usually and of course the water in your open ice fishing hole will begin to freeze over. You are constantly using your ice scoop to keep it open. Again, in my searches on the web, I run across a lot of great ideas and here are a couple more.

These would be very useful if you are fishing when it is EXTREMELY cold outside, or where you might be using two or more poles, maybe even one of them with a Jaw Jacker setup. The Jaw Jackers don’t allow you to clear the ice in the hole without undoing the setup and moving it away from the hole. This idea would free you up from any ice buildup whatsoever.

Now you know how to make one, what do you do with it?

I took this picture off the internet. So, it shows keeping the ice clear from two holes and I suppose if you were using one hole for your fish finder and the other to fish from this would work perfectly. It certainly makes sense to me and reminds me of a time fishing a tourney, where we had to try and keep our fish alive until an official could come and measure them. We drilled a hole in the ice about a foot deep, near one of our ice fishing holes and channeled the water into that hole. We called it the “Hog Trough”! Another story.

Back on track. So the distance from the coffee can to the hole would probably have to be fairly close, like maybe a couple of inches…just guessing.

As usual, one thing almost always leads to another and so I did find something called a “spitter”. This is a take off of the coffee can idea, only more elaborate. I just might have to make one of these “just because”…mostly to see if it actually works.

With this being a patent pending idea, I would have to modify it quite a bit and my initial thought is to use the coffee can idea and incorporate the coiled tubing. It appears to me that the lower end of the tubing would protrude out the bottom of the coffee can and would suck cold water up and the heat from withing the coffee can would cause the cold water to get hot and spit out the upper end of the coil…thus the name “spitter”….The spitter end would be aimed at the hole you wanted to keep open and the hot water would surely keep the ice from forming. Great idea!

Some of you are probably thinking….What happened to grabbing your ice auger and a bucket with your pole and bait in it and going fishing? Good thought, but gizmos and stuff are what this world is all about…why keep it simple?

Bears Butt

January 19, 2014

Written on January 19th, 2014 , Fishing Stories

FREE HOLES

By: Bears Butt

It’s Saturday and time to take some kids ice fishing. I seriously thought it would be a day like New Years Eve day, but not so. Too many other things going on in the kids world. So, as of last night it was Weasel and I with three kids. This morning I awoke to a message saying one of the three kids has backed out, and that might cause one of the other two to back out as well. We will see.

Whatever, and even if it means just Weasel and I are going fishing, so be it!

The game plan calls for Hyrum again, since Pineview didn’t pan out like we thought it would. Hyrum is full of small rainbows and tons of small perch. Any perch over 10 inches that decides they want to bite will be pan fish!

I have a pocket full of quarters and am ready to go! Bring it on! And for any of you out there willing to meet us up at the lake, I will drill holes for free! That’s right, free, the only stipulation is the holes have to be within 30 yards of where we are set up! Come on!

Bears Butt

January 18, 2014

PM REPORT!!!!

Wow! What a great day to be out and about outside! A wonderful day of fishing and after I tell you just the time line that we were out you should be able to understand just how great a day it was.

Can you imagine taking two young kids out fishing and staying from 9:30 until 4:30….ON THE ICE?????? No way! Kids are good for one or two MAYBE three stretching it, but not SIX HOURS!

So, what keeps kids on the ice for that long? Fish! That is the bottom line…fish!

So, it was about 3 that the first talk started coming from the youngest, Cody…when are we going home? Then about 3:30, Kenzie pipes in with, It’s boring, when are we going home? The fish are not biting, let’s go? When are we going?

My response was…in about two hours…you should have heard the whining then! It even made Cole chuckle. By the way, Cole came up to get some free holes! And he hadn’t even been on Bears Butt Dot Com!

Well, as for the fishing! It was fast if you had the right lure in the water….everyone caught at least one fish…well….maybe not Cole….Everyone caught at least ONE quarter fish (we put a qualifier on size today)….well…maybe not Cole….Some of us caught two Quarter fish….Of course not Cole, but he was a good sport about it and gave up his quarters freely (Thanks Cole, you can join us anytime!)!!!!!

So, let’s see some of the fish we caught today! Perch and trout…that is what we caught and lots and lots of bites!

Not too big Kenzie!

Not too big Cody!

Now there you go girl! Nice trout! I’ll pay a quarter for you catching that one!

OH YA! That perch is worth a quarter Cody! Good fish!

Oh my! Grandpa, Bears Butt, how did that fish get the hook into its mouth?

And of course the day would not be complete without showing what Weasel’s $40 Jaw Jacker caught…his first fish on it!

Now that shows you just how “sensitive” you can set those things!

My home made “Butt Jacker” did not even trip, however I did catch a fish while it was set up and ready to strike, the fish just wasn’t big enough to make it go off…design error on my part.

We had a wonderful day on the ice and after the whining stopped about 3:33..the action picked up and suddenly it was 4:30 and time to go!

What a great day with over 75 fish iced and all of them turned back except those that will be used for catfish bait later in the year!

Thanks guys for the great time!

Bears Butt

PM report January 18, 2014

Written on January 18th, 2014 , Fishing Stories

RELIVING A LONG AGO HUNTING TRIP

By: Bears Butt

It was a very long time ago when Utah decided to create a muzzeload rifle deer hunt, we were restricted to certain areas within the state to “play” and on this one particular season it was on the Wellsville Wilderness area, quite close to where I live.

The Wellsville Range is beautiful and very much unexplored. It is steep, very steep and it appears from a distance to not have much cover, i.e. trees and such, but I dare someone to venture up there and try to reach the top and have the same attitude once they have reached the summit as when they were at the bottom looking up, about the brush and stuff they have to hike through to get to the summit. All dares are welcome.

So, here Wapiti Dung, Tracker, No Grimace and I were hunting deer. A beautiful Fall time with no bad weather in the forecast and nothing but fun ahead of us.

At this time No Grimace did not have his name, we called him “Rick”…well, because that was/is his name. You have read, or should explore on this site how No Grimace got his name and the rest will be history. This story is not about that, but about something very special that happened on this overnight trip of ours through the wilderness of the Wellsville Range.

Brother Bob, “Just Bob”, dropped us off at a very nice little meadow just a bit north of Mantua (Man-two-a ‘long a’), Utah and we proceeded to hike from that point over to another point where he would pick us up the next day.

We were carrying all our gear in make shift backpacks. Hunting stuff, sleeping stuff, eating stuff…all our stuff for the hunt and over night. Each of us had our assignments to help make it through the ordeal and not everyone needed to be burdened with bringing extra.

One of the things we were each assigned was our lunch for the second day, the day when Just Bob was to pick us up….a LARGE CAN of Vienna Sausages each and of course along with them one will always have some Ritz crackers or at the very least some Saltine crackers.

We were assigned the Large cans, not these little wimpy ones with only 7 units in it.

Count them, their small……..

Now today, 2014, I don’t think they make cans of Vienna sausages as big as they did back then. These cans were short, like todays cans, but big around. They would hold at least 10 Vienna sausages (the picture above shows 13).

When we got to the spot where we would break out our lunches, we stopped and did just that…broke out our lunches.

All four of us had the same thing…a large can of Vienna sausages and some crackers….it sounds very good and it was….at least for the first one and maybe even the second one and for some, even the third one. And then the little sausages which we have come to know of late as “Monkey Dinks” began to fall into that area of “marginal propensity to consume”…they didn’t taste all that great. We were of the mind set that you should not waste stuff, especially food and so we ate………………..and ate………………and ate………and tried to convince ourselves that these little guys were good and good for us….and after a short break….we ate some more.

My mind escapes me if any one of us actually finished their can of those bad boys, but I can tell you I left some for the raccoons and I think I left more than just what was in the can for them as well. Raccoons like the taste of crackers after they have been consumed with Vienna Sausages….nuff said.

So, every year, at least once, I like to take a Vienna sausage on a toothpick and partake of it, just to remind me of how nasty they really are. BUT WAIT!

Today, I found a thread where Vienna Sausages are now being produced with Bourbon flavoring! Oh Ya Baby! Gotta try those bad boys!

And for you Breakfast freaks that need the taste of Maple Flavoring…they have even come out with one for you….Vienna Sausages in maple flavored sauce!

And another that caters to the spicy hot folks out there:

There are other flavors as well and it looks like they are trying to do anything they can to get people to keep eating them. I’m sure there are some out in the world that just love these things and it’s obvious to me they have never been on a back pack trip with nothing to eat but a large can of them with a hand full of crackers.

I’m sorry, but it almost makes me want to throw up a rainbow right now…I gotta go!

Bears Butt

January 17, 2014

Written on January 17th, 2014 , Hunting Stories

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Just some of my old stories, new stories, and in general what is going on in my life.