Utah Fishing ReportsTravis Howard and the Moore’s Family chariot team won todays race! Watch the action below! March 21, 2015!!! Way to go Travis and the Team!
Bears Butt
March 21, 2015
Went to the Weber County Fairgrounds today for a little chariot racing fun. Kenzie and Addie had never been and so we bet quarters on which team would win. It was a fun day! Here is how young girls cheer on their team!
Bears Butt
March 21, 2015
Weasel, Squirrel and I hit the range last night to post up our next to the last league score for the current “thing” we are shooting. I don’t know what the “game” is called but we are shooting a five spot target. Well, the ones that are good enough to do that are shooting a five spot target, I’m shooting at a big old blue circle with black lines separating scoring rings. Each team of 4 shooters posts up 8 different weeks of scores, how those scores are tallied in the end is way outside my guessing abilities but somehow they will decide which team did the best, worst etc. All I know is that my scores have been around 100 with my best a 144 and I think my average is around a 125 to 130.
The whole object for me, so far in my archery career is to get better. I’ve read where someone (or many someones) has said, “shoot 60 arrows a day to keep the zeros away”. It is obvious I need more 60’s in a day because even last night a few zeros crept onto the score sheet. But, even at that, shooting an arrow and getting a zero is better than not shooting an arrow. It’s fun and I highly recommend it for old and young alike!
The lanes were pretty empty last night as it was the first day of Spring and folks were most likely enjoying a backyard BBQ or something rather than coming out to shoot bows. For us it was a very relaxing way to spend a few hours on a Friday night.
I was coerced into playing in this league by Weasel and an old friend from the blackpowder scene, Marv Bunderson. Both Weasel and Marv can, and do, shoot regular scores in the mid to high 290’s all the time and they have handicaps that rival pro-golfers. To say it another way, they don’t have handicaps. Squirrel and I have very large numbered handicaps. His around the 70’s and mine in the 130’s. Personally I like a large handicap, it means I have room for improvement. When I golfed I didn’t have a handicap, mostly because I didn’t compete in golf games, but I still could shoot close to a par game in 9 holes. The game became boring to me and I stopped playing. What’s the point if you only win a nickel, dime or quarter from the ones you are golfing with? Even the beer was not cold enough by the time the ninth hole came around. I digress.
So, with lots of room for improvement in my shooting ability, I stepped up and decided to join this team of good shooters. Their strategy (there is one you know) is to have Squirrel and I join their team, knowing full well we will post scores that increasingly get better over the 8 weeks and of course add to our scores our handicaps and suddenly, the team score is beating the best of the best in the end. A good strategy if you ask me. However, with my fading eye sight, new bow, bad form, arrows that are probably not tuned properly, a brace height that needs adjusting and a myriad of other archery related items, my scores have not been what those two thought I would be posting up….until…..last night!
Squirrel has been improving remarkably well over the weeks! I’ll make up some scores here, but they aren’t far off from what was real. 160, 170, 180, 200, 210, 220, 230 and last night 246!
246!!!!! And 11 X’s! That is only 54 points less than perfect! And with 60 arrows shot, he is less than 1 point per arrow from a perfect score! Add that to his handicap! I’m pretty sure his overall score exceeds 300 for this weeks score!
Me? Well, let’s just say I scored a personal best! My number doesn’t compare to Squirrels, but for me I’ll take it! I felt good shooting and even though I hit the board a couple of time with low shots and put up 5 zeros during the event, I still managed to also put up 5 X’s to offset those O’s. Mark me with a 162! I’m dancing around now! Add in my handicap and I’m close to a 300 but not quite. I think you will see our team up near the top of the leader board for this week!
I learned something last night about shooting instinctively like I have to learn to do….Trust in the equipment…..Keep your form correct…..Follow through with the shot…..Keep your eye on where you want the arrow to end up.
My last shot of the night went like this, as I spoke to myself in my mind: Wynn, this is your last shot of the night, shot number 60. Sure you are tired. Your first shot of this 5 shot sequence went into the board below the target. See it hanging there? A big fat zero and an embarrassing loud BANG for all to hear. Get over it! Your other 3 shots weren’t too bad, now make this one count. It’s your last shot today. Trust in yourself. Look at the big old white spot down there. It’s huge! Let your instincts find the mark. A smooth draw back to your anchor point. That feels great doesn’t it? Oh ya! You got this. Turn the bow slightly until the string touches your nose. The string is now lined up with the arrow…that’s good. Now focus on the white spot. Release when ready and let your draw fingers touch your cheek….nice! Watch down the sight plain as the arrow arches toward the big white circle…..BULLS EYE! A solid X!
As I turned around to put my bow on the stand, the guy who was scoring us was looking through his monocular at my target. He looked up and said….”Show off”!
Bears Butt
March 21, 2015
Today is the first day of Spring 2015! Happy Spring everyone! When I think of Spring I think of fishing and when I think of fishing I think of catching fish. Utah enacted a two pole limit to your fishing and you don’t have to have a special license to use two poles. I wonder if the above picture would be legal and have two of them? I won’t look up the rules for fishing with two poles as I can’t imagine how you would reel in three fish at one time on a pole like the one in the picture. We will just let it go at that.
In America there is a craze that is just beginning to sweep the country. It’s a fishing technique called “Tenkara”. The fishing method is the favored way to fish in Asian countries. I suppose because of its simplicity and inexpensive way to catch fish. In my year in Viet Nam, I watched as all ages caught fish out of a sewage canal using this method of fishing. A pole, line, hook and some sort of attractant on the hook. The fish I saw caught were all really tiny, but they caught them by the bucket load and took them home. Later, as I got to noticing my Mama Sone eating her lunch one day I saw just what those fish were used for….stuffed in a bottle and buried in the ground until they were “just right”. Oh my heck! I could not stand to be in the same area with her. Those fish stunk sooooo bad!
I’m getting off subject. Tenkara by definition means something like “from the heavens” or “from high above”. From that you should be able to figure out that the bait is presented to the fish from above them and with a very long pole the fish shouldn’t see you, the fisherman, as you dangle the bait down to them. I see on the internet there are Tenkara clubs being formed all around and lessons being offered to teach you just how it is done. I suppose it would be best for the beginner to take lessons and learn just how and what the techniques are. But as for me, I would just fall back on my younger days of fishing down on the farm in the crick!
Then again, it sure would be a nice upgrade from a stick to hold onto a 12 foot long fiberglas rod that cost $500 or more. I’ll just bet you could catch a whole lot more fish with one of those than a plain old stick.
Bears Butt
March 20, 2015
The past several days have been a mix of yard work (very little but some), archery and finishing putting up rats. It has been busy. So, let me recap the host of events!
Saturday’s farm work went well. We had another great crew to work the ditches and we finished the big long ditch from the creek, up through the rendezvous area to the pond and then from the pond to the main gate. It was an all morning thing and when Bones and crew brought down the breakfast we had just finished up to the pond. The timing was perfect! And the breakfast was superb as well….eggs and ham! The down side was Ducks egg was soooooo very “yolkie” he got a ton of it on his face and shirt…..GAG! The rest of us enjoyed eating ours and watching him wipe his off.
Once the farm work was done, Weasel’s family and I went to an archery event…..The Utah State Archery finals.
We had signed up for our shooting to start at 3 p.m. and a couple of my mentors at the Brigham Bowmen talked me into playing. Since all this archery stuff is all new to me, they told me there had to be at least 3 people sign up for any given “class” in order for them to create a bracket for that class. So, I decided to play in the “traditional” bracket. I’ve been shooting since January and can hit the target paper about half the time. For me that is pretty good. Mind you, I said hit the paper the target is printed on, not necessarily the target itself. You have to figure that if I can hit the paper half the time, that some of them have to hit in the scoring ring sometimes too. The target paper measures about 20 inches square and the target looks like the one in the flyer. The white area scores 5 points and each ring coming away from the center score 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectfully. Anything outside that are goose eggs. I have learned I don’t like goose eggs but my score always contains several. A hit on the paper itself and outside the rings is a goose egg and I managed to hit there and outside the whole paper many times on Saturday.
The shooters like Weasel who can hit the white area a lot, shoot at a different target. There’s is 5 separate targets.
Their scoring is 5 points in the white, 4 points in the blue and zero anywhere else. They do this so they don’t ruin arrows by hitting all of them in the center of the target. Arrows are not cheap and any hit will cause the nock to break or become too weak to shoot again. Robin Hoods are cool once you have an arrow sticking out of another and they give you bragging rights and something to hang on your wall. Someday I will accidentally have one on my wall, I’m sure, but at a cost of the price of two arrows.
Squirrel shows us how dangerous it is to shoot all your arrows into the white.
Dangerous from his dad’s point of view, but giving him some confidence and bragging rights in his own mind. I think he is not far off from shooting the “five spot” targets!
So, from this you can see that while I was flinging my arrows and trying hard to hit the big blue target, the kids were down at the other end of the shooting line, plunking arrows firmly into the white and blue rings with regularity.
Weasel, on the other hand, pulled a muscle in his back and ended up not shooting his normal 290 plus score. When it was all over our scores looked like this:
Weasel 274, Conner 232, Kenzie 174, Squirrel 242 and me with a solid 132!
Chunking it all through a calculator, with 60 shots fired….. Weasel averaged a 4.5, Conner 3.9, Kenzie 2.9, Squirrel 4.0 and me 2.2 per shot. We all have much room for improvement. And after everyone had shot and the scores and brackets were all figured up. Weasel lost bad! I think he was number 11 in his group. Conner was the number one boy shooter in his bracket. Kenzie was second in the girls of her age, Squirrel stomped his age group and came in with a number one and for an old guy shooting against only one other in my age bracket, they gave me a first. My competition had a bad day and I felt really bad for him. While my arrows were flinging all over the place especially in the last half of the competition (I had 12 goose eggs in the last 30 shots), his were doing the same or worse. Oh well, that’s archery.
So, Congrats to everyone! Kenzie, Squirrel and I shooting in our first ever competition! It was fun and we will be doing it again….only with better results (I hope, I’m working on my game).
Monday came around quickly and Bob and I processed a bag of 50 rats that he had stored in his freezer from his days of trapping before I got started. Today will be another rat day with the last of the rats from the freezer (another 50). Once all of them are on stretchers, the season of rat caught will be done. Bob started working over the traps yesterday, fixing them for next season and putting them in bags. When the rats are finished drying on the stretchers our plan is to put them in bags and freezing them. We have decided if we can’t get at least $6 straight through for them, it will be worth it to freeze them and try to sell them next year. The price of rats is down because of several reasons….Oil prices in Russia, the world sanctions put on Russia for their invasion of Ukraine, the flood of ranch raised mink during the past several auctions and I’m sure there are other factors suppressing the wild fur market. Whatever the real reason, the price for rats is “in the tank” right now and a high dollar right now might get you $4 p/rat. That price would barely cover our costs of trapping the rats, yet alone put any money in our pockets. It is worth it to freeze them and hope the price comes up next year.
Ok! I’m caught up now! By the way “pi” has not paid off yet!
Bears Butt
March 18, 2015
Lots of people are on board with what I’m about to tell you, but today is a special day. For one thing I purposely purchased a lottery ticket with the numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 14 and 15 for tonights drawing. Well, I purchased it thinking about tonights drawing but actually I bought the ticket for 10 consecutive draws, which will include tonights drawing. What is so significant about these numbers? Have you ever heard of Pie? Have you ever heard the statement “Time for pie”?
Out lottery luck has not been very good, ever, and I decided to spend some of my hard earned cash on a chance that just maybe it is “time for pie” and turned to the computer for those numbers.
Before I go much farther I have to tell you a short story….Tracker, No Grimace and I were hunting deer once and stopped for a hot dog cooked over a fire. I placed two hotdogs on a forked stick parallel to one another and one across the forked stick and on top of the other two. Sort of like the symbol in this picture:
With the video rolling, I looked up at Tracker and said “Time for Pi”! And went on to roast the hotdogs. No Grimace made up the buns and we ate heartily. Now back to my story.
Pi does a lot for us in our every day lives and we don’t even know it is happening. Pi is a mathematical thing that when employed can help us determine “stuff”. The stuff that is determined is very much undeniable and impossible to counter in an argument. So, Pi has been determined to be scientific in nature and not just a “theory”. Pi has been around for millions of years.
The lady in this old rock carving is holding up two pi symbols and is most likely saying….Hey Bears Butt, make me six hot dogs while you’re at it!!!
Today is March 14th, 2015….Think about it….March is the 3rd month….3/14/2015….Pi is an infinite number that nobody has every reached the last digit in it, because there is no last digit in the number pi…it is truly infinite in nature. The following number, beginning with 3. was taken from a website where these people worked pi out to one million numbers. I copied but a fraction of those numbers so you can see how the numbers play out.
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962749567351885752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946395224737190702179860943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923542019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049951059731732816096318595…..etc. etc. etc.
3.1415…..that is today…3/14/15! And some say at 9:26 this morning and again this evening….luck will fall upon you if you believe…..I believe! The lottery Gods should wait until 9:26 this evening to draw the numbers, but we all know they won’t, they will draw at 9 p.m. like they always have, but my faith is really in the 26 seconds that they just might delay the drawing tonight. There is someone on the lottery drawing team that is thinking about this pi thing and I’m counting on him/her to do the right thing!
My numbers are 1,4,5,14 and 15 with the lucky number being 3. Watch for it and if you are very quick and send or give me a dollar before the drawing happens, you too can enjoy the benefits of winning!
Bears Butt
March 14, 2015 (Happy Pi Day)
Today marks the end of the trapping season for 2015. Bob and I will be pulling all our traps and then we have shed work to finish up with. 100 rats lay in wait for fleshing and stretching. Today I also get the pleasure of meeting someone I’ve been providing carcasses to for the last couple of months. This guy owns Bones N Beasts Taxidermy and uses the carcasses to keep his flesh eating beetles alive (enter nightmares about that). He sent me a picture of one of his beetle colonies…..
I’m sure they are in a place that they could do no harm should they escape, but in my dreams they can and do get out in large numbers and roam the house looking for sleeping members to devour. He hasn’t counted his beetles and so his guesstimate is several thousand….creepy.
So, this morning I’ll head out to Doris’ pond and pull the 5 traps I set yesterday, I don’t expect to catch any rats out there. Then on in closer to pull the remaining 57 traps. It is sort of a sad day in one way, but on another note I won’t be spending gas money and wear and tear on the vehicle(s) chasing rats that don’t exist.
More to come on the daily happenings when I get back!
Bears Butt
March 13, 2015 (Friday the 13th)
UPDATE:
Well the trapping season is officially over….I ended up with one rat (a run of one) and Bob ended with 5 rats. Not bad for the season. And with Weasels rats from the farm pond of 5, a total of 515 rats for the season!
We would like to thank our sponsors…..uhhhh….
Well, we would like to have sponsors like, Victor traps, Conibear traps, Chevron Gas, Chevrolet, Yamaha ATV, Toyota, Bobs Floats, Willow stakes, Water Proof boots, Gauntlet gloves, Sharp knives, Mak’em good stretchers, Shed warm heaters and humidifiers, Olympia and Keystone brewers and a host of other sponsors. You too could join the team…just send cash, check or money orders to……please respond in the comments below and I’ll get back with you! Any amount will be gladly accepted and remember….It ain’t tax deferred.
Thanks for following the 2015 trapping stories! Watch out for next years events…God Willing!
Bears Butt
Well today marked day two of no rats on my big line. In fact I caught ZERO rats today and no traps were set off. The season is over. I went over to Doris’ pond and they have done a whole heap of work around the pond. Widened the bank where the dam is, put in a very large drain pipe. Dug out the pond nearly 3/4 the way around it and it looked like they used a hydro unit to do the digging as it is very deep. They also raised the level of the water at least a foot. The toolies that are on one end of the pond have water about a third of the way up on the stocks. I’m sure when they raised the water level it would have drowned any rats living in the bank, or at least caused them to move out. There was no sign anywhere, but I did set 5 traps, just so they can see I tried.
I don’t expect to catch any rats there and am planning on pulling the 5 traps tomorrow right along with the rest of my traps.
Pete closed the gate on my raccoon line area up on Bull Run which forced me to park on the side of the highway and open the gate. It is not an easy gate to deal with. That was all I needed to encourage me to pull all the raccoon traps.
So, it looks like the 2015 rat trapping season is over. I stopped along the highway and talked to Bob, he had 5 rats and was feeling good! He too is ready to call it a season.
Bears Butt
March 12, 2015
Tracker and I watched the Orbiter Rocket Motor test yesterday out at ATK…here is my youtube.com video of it.
Enjoy!
Bears Butt
March 12, 2015
It’s been a day or two since I’ve posted a trapping update. Yesterday was Tracker and my day to head out to the trapline for a couple of reasons. One was the Orbiter Rocket Motor test firing and the other was to check my traps that are out that way. We were in quite a traffic jam for about a half hour as hundreds of people were going to see the test firing of the rocket motor. I hadn’t thought of that aspect of things. Had I put my thinking cap on I would have gone at least a half hour before we actually did. As it were, we made it but with no time to spare. We were set up to watch from our position when the announcer said “T Minus 3 minutes”! That is how close we were to missing it.
Well, we did get to see and feel it and it was a very big deal. Lots of noise! Lots of fire! Lots of rumbling of the ground! Very cool experience AND if I can ever get my video to publish on You Tube, I’ll be sending you there on this site. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Back to trapping!
Tracker took quite a few short video clips while I checked my traps and I ended up with two rats for the day. No coons or skunks. However, they did manage to knock over one of my dog proof traps and covered the entire thing in mud. Do you think they know what it is?
Meanwhile, Bob came out and checked his traps after the crowd had left the rocket motor test site and he managed to catch 4 rats….3 from a colony trap he had set the day before.
Today I’m heading out to Doris’ place to set her pond and hopefully I’ll run into Richard and make arrangements to set his slough. He has to remove his bulls however before I’ll step foot in there. If it’s anything like last year it should be good for about 50 rats.
After setting Doris’ pond I’ll come back to the Big Spring line and pull it. Two rats is not worth the trouble.
If I catch two today it will be a bonus catch, in my opinion.
Bears Butt
March 12, 2015