Things happen fast!  I’m glad we have our rendezvous plans almost finalized…Bones is a slave driver let me tell you!

Anyway, some of you know that Weasel, Dry Dog and I all drew out for cow elk tags on the Deseret Land and Livestock properties for this year.  Well, while I was gone they sent us each a letter explaining the process while on their ranch.

I guess they have to do that in order to have order and control on the land.  No sense having 200 hunters scattered all over the place taking shots in all directions.  So, the letter explains the rules.  Stinking rules…always stinking rules.

One of the rules is we have to follow or hire a guide.  Totally understandable.  We also have to provide ourselves with a 4 wheel drive vehicle and have chains for all 4 tires…again understandable.

We have to be physically fit in order to hike the mountains and haul out our animal…understandable again.  And the biggie is we have to qualify with the rifle we plan on hunting with during the hunt….understandable to the max!

So, to qualify a hunter has to be able to hit a 8X11 piece of paper at 100 yards, 3 out of 4 shots.  That should be easy.

BUT…you have to do it with one of  “their guys” as a witness.  They set up August 10th as the day to do that…not good for Weasel and I as that is the day we are planning on coming home from a short vacation to Yellowstone N.P.  So now what?

I contacted the guy who sent us the letter and he directed me to another guy in Salt Lake City.  I called him…We will have to go to SLC to do our qualification shooting and he wants us to consider this Sunday…July 28…HMMMM…that is Sherry and my anniversary…I think that day will not work.

Another day will have to be set up.

So these guys have things pretty much in order and are on top of things.  We must expect to pay the “guide” a token amount of money, perhaps $100 for his services on the day of our hunt.  I guess we will decide as a tip is NOT required.

So, more to come on when we will go to qualify…the biggest problem is that I only have one elk gun…a 7mm Rem Mag and Weasel and I won’t be able to just use that on our hunt, we need two guns.  I have feelers out for someone who might have one they will lend!

Bears Butt

July 25, 2013

UPDATE:  Fat Duck has a dusty 7mm he will lend us!  I’ll go pick it up today and Weasel and I have plans to hit the Logan range this afternoon to shoot both rifles to make sure they are “close enough” to get us our elk.

Thanks Duck!

Yesterdays fishing was pretty slow, but the Weasel and I finally figured them out.  The day was very much different for us right from the get go.  After all, isn’t it June?  And mid June at that.  We had air temps in the upper 50’s yesterday morning and driving across the lake to our favorite place was VERY COLD!  I was glad I tossed in my heavy coat at the last minute.  And as the day progressed I still had it on at 12:30!  Finally it began to warm up and off it came.

Did that stop the water skiers?  Most of them were smart enough not to try the 67 degree water until later in the afternoon, but when they finally began coming out, there was a herd of them.  When we pulled out, the parking lot only had 4 spaces left to park a truck and boat trailer…very full place and very full lake.

As for fishing, we finally hit on the secret when we decided to drift fish.  I put on 3 split shot sinkers to get me to the bottom, while Weasel drifted his weightless.  He nailed the first trout and missed several good strikes…meanwhile mine just dragged along as I was fishing under the fish.  After a couple of passes, I finally had to give in to the fact that the fish were higher in the water column than I was fishing.  I pulled off one sinker and then started to get more bites then the Weasel.  He soon decided he needed a couple of sinkers on his line.

But with the additional boats cruising by at very fast speeds pulling tubes and skiers, we finally decided to get out of their way.  We headed into a very calm inlet channel and set up catching trout with our last 4 worms.

We ended with 5 trout and one perch for the days efforts and this morning two of those trout are going to be breakfast!  BBQ trout with fresh fried potatoes!  YUMMY!

Earlier this year the DWR planted some trout with tags on them and in yesterdays posting I said it would be a great thing to catch one of them…that is in addition to bagging Weasels quarter…Take a look at this…to both Weasel and I it looked like there could have been a tag in this fishes dorsal fin at one time.

Sorry about the fuzzy picture.  But that scar is where they tag these fish.

Anyway, tagged or not, it didn’t have one in it and so it’s headed for the BBQ instead of the store to collect its bounty!

Bottom line for the day is pictured here.

The Weasel has a look of…”dang it”…on his face…he caught the perch and one of the trout…what did that do for his pocket full of quarters?  Thanks Weasel for the bounty full day on the water!

Bears Butt

June 16, 2013

Holy heck it’s early…4:14 a.m….I haven’t been up this early since the turkey hunt back in ought 13…why am I up?  FISHIN!!!!!  Right on!  Weasel and I are heading for Hyrum Dam…maybe catch a bass, maybe catch a trout, maybe catch nuthin, but we are goin fishin instead of just a wishin!

When my alarm went off this morning at 3:30, I thought, What in the heck did I set if for 3:30 for, when I know I’m not picking him up until 5:30?  And now I know…because I’m old and slow!  I just barely got my face washed, the gear pulled up from the basement, two spam sandwiches made and the cooler packed with sodas and water…now suddenly it’s a quarter past 4…only about an hour left to get done all that has to be done to go…I’m glad I got up at 3:30 now.  Even little MaPa’s is curled up on the couch behind me sleeping, but I’m almost ready.

I had a flash back about the “olden days” when Utah had an opening season for fishing.  It opened (If I recall correctly) about 5 a.m. on a certain day in May, probably Memorial weekend, but I’m not sure.  It was a really big deal to be fishing on that day.  The roads were packed with people getting up the canyons to their favorite places.  The DWR would have all the lakes and streams loaded down with freshly stocked fish.  People would be lined up and down every possible standing spot to fish…literally shoulder to shoulder fishing.  Lines crossed over lines and if someone actually hooked onto a fish the line crossing mess got much worse.  Did I care?  Not one bit…it was part of the tradition at the time.  And part of that was getting up at 3 a.m. to get ready to head out.

One time in particular, I recall one opening morning and my oldest brother had just gotten in from a night on the town…he loaded right into the car to head up to the lake…he wasn’t in the best of shape as I recall, but he loaded in anyway and off we went…dad behind the wheel.  Suddenly older brother started to yell for dad to pull over…that in an of itself deserves a story, but dad finally did get a chance to pull over and the door swung open really quickly and out older brother went with his head down…it wasn’t really pretty.  Those were the good old days…opening day of fishing.  I still remember the early morning foggy mist coming up off the lake water…the crisp morning air…the birds chirping and us crunching our way into our favorite corner of the fishing area, be it lake or stream.  Now, even though those days have some very fond memories to me, I like what we have today.  Go fishing any time of day, any day of the year.

This is Fathers Day weekend and I want to wish every father out there a happy weekend!  Happy Fathers Day fellas!  I hope you get to go fishing or whatever it is that is fun to do.

I have a pocket full of quarters, not that I’ll need them, for todays fishing and I hope the Weasel does to, because his quarters will become my quarters pretty quick.  Also, Hyrum Dam has a stock of tagged fish in it that just might be biting for us…I’d love to catch one and find out what prize I won when I turn it in.  To catch a tagged fish would be a super bonus…first off a fish that is good to eat, secondly a quarter from the Weasel and third a special prize with bragging rights…my kind of fishing.

So, wish us luck and hopefully you too will be on the lake today!

Happy Fathers Day everyone!

Bears Butt

June 15, 2013

Well, this is Fathers Day weekend and most of you will read this maybe on Monday, but for me, I’m writing this on Friday night…seems like the Weasel wants to go fishing in the morning…What with Sherry working at Smith and Edwards, why not?!

We are heading off to Hyrum reservoir to try our hand at some bass and trout fishing… Weasel likes bass fishing and he picked himself up a couple of new lures…myself…I’ll stick to worms and a bobber…nothing better than to out fish old mister smarty with a worm…watch this..I’ll pick up a bass right out frum under that there log…BLAM!!!  Fish on!

So, that’s the plan for first thing in the morning…like 5:30…YUK…what happened to sleeping in?  Oh well, it’s Fathers Day weekend and there might as well be some sacrificing to  make the weekend memorable.

We had talked about all the Grandkids goin, but then Hot Spark got involved and decided it would be best for Weasel and Bears Butt to go out and try our hand at catching and the kids could go out on Sunday…works for me.

Weasel, you had best bring a lot of quarters, cuz I’m gonna kick you some fin!

Bears Butt

June 14, 2013

I haven’t posted anything on here for a couple of days..I apologize if you have been checking daily and not finding anything.  There are a lot of things going on that has consumed my time, some good, some not so good.

A very big thing that has been on going for a month or more is the making of this years rendezvous receipts.  You are going to love these things.  This year marks the 30th year of the Willow Creek Free Trappers having their own rendezvous and with Bones in charge we are going to have a great time…as usual!  Bones is a hard boss, a real pusher and goer and doer.  I suppose it’s a good thing too, because to have waited to do the receipts would have been a big mistake.  Each one has several parts that needs to be done before the next part and there are actually 5 distinct parts to putting together one piece.  As much as I would like to show you one of the finished products I won’t at this time, but they will be well worth your visiting the rendezvous and I hope you are planning on camping and enjoying the whole show!  It’s going to be a good one!

So, that is one thing that is ongoing in my life.  What else?

Fishing!  I was finally able to get the boat out for a shake down yesterday.  The Weasel was open to a “meeting with Willard” and so he put off his clients and went with me.  It is always better for two people to go out on the boat as it helps with launching and pulling out, plus it’s just plain safer for two to go on the boat in case of an accident or whatever.  There are just too many things that can happen to one person while trying to handle a boat…even a small boat like mine.

A guy who is actually a fish and game person in another state told me that 80 plus percent of all boating accidents involving a person being tossed out of the boat, had that person standing near the side of the boat and being thrown out by a wave or just plain carelessness on that persons part and every one of them that drowned had their zipper down!  Now what does that tell you?

So, we went for a boat ride and the boat and motor handled perfectly.  In reality the motor ran better than ever and I say it’s because it is getting more broken in as time goes on.  I don’t think it has even 100 hours of operation time on it and I’ve had it nearly 15 years.  I just don’t use it enough.  Cobwebs on a prop is not a good sign!

With the boat functioning very well, we decided to break out the fishing equipment and try our hand at some fishing.  Might as well, since we are right there and all.

The end result, sun burned arms, necks and faces and two nice cats.

Weasel caught the biggest one, but the quarters were shared one to the other….and even tie on the day.  These two cats made for some very nice fillets and in my opinion they are the perfect size for eating!

Today is National Fishing day and every water in the state of Utah is open for people to enjoy…no fees are being assessed for people wishing to go into the parks and use the facilities.  Also, all over the state are volunteers showing people how to fish, how to take care of the fish they catch and in general having a wonderful time teaching people the art of fishing.  No licenses are required either, but the fish limits are being watched closely by the law folks.

So, if you haven’t made a plan for today, you might want to head over to a local lake and give fishing a try!  It’s a great time to visit some of our state parks and get to see just what they offer.

Bears Butt

June 8, 2013