Parting words...

Is this my last post? :-(

I'm having a hard time tapping these keys this morning. My mind is not right at all today. I've been away from blogging lately because my plain-jane little life has once again become TOO complicated, despite my best efforts to keep it all simple. You see, I lost my job recently and that as you may know, SUCKS on so many levels. The reality now of losing my fairly cheapish one bedroom apartment and it's pile of collectibles accumulated over the last 15 years, has me terrified. Tears roll down my cheeks as I type this knowing I'm at the end of my rope. There's no cash reserves in my bank account, no rich relatives to help me out, no good friends who'll just let me stay at their place and most certainly NO Government outfit of any kind set up to actually give ageing, single white males, a break at all, despite what they tell ya. Their process does NOT work!

To add even more shit to all that, yesterday I received 3 statements from the EI office in my mailbox. Never mind they lost over 8 million in gold from the mint then spent hundreds of thousands looking for it to find out it wasn't actually lost after all, just misplaced, like ALL government moves! When opened, each one of these forms had different dates on them, so again, the stupid rotten government arse-holes can't even mail shit properly. Thus, I was informed then, perfect timing, (NOT) that child support payments were being deducted once again, even though my kids are in their 20's and I haven't even seen them in years. The gold digger X got the house, the cars, the kids, my motorcycle and wrecked me and then went through about a dozen dorks before she fond one with enough money to marry. But the law makes sure that she still gets plenty of new shoes and bangles, by wringing blood out of this dry old rock. Merry Christmas my ass! This uncaring commercial world has finally, mentally destroyed another productive individual and made it impossible to even live a basic life in the big city.

So now I'm behind in rent, hydro, bell and this internet connection, which is only the basic slow speed telephone jack service. My EI payments will now be about $484 to get through the month. Obviously these idiots don't give a shit about math because that just doesn't add up no matter how you look at it...

So, sadly, my life as I've known it, will soon come to a devastating, crashing end! I've been in this apartment for over 15 years and have accumulated an impressive pile of neat collectibles, fishing gear, survival stuff, photography gear, outdoorsy clothes, Outdoor and health books, BassMaster magazines for the last twenty five plus years and just a lot of really neat stuff. All will soon be lost. You can only haul around so much stuff when you have to live on the street.

I really wish I could have a bunch of folks like you, my readers, come through my place here, scooping up anything you see for say, 10 cents on the dollar. I'd so love for all this great stuff to go to folks who like it, instead of in the trash bin behind my apartment building after they throw me out in the snowbank. All these years of collecting cool stuff, has now finally become a total waste of time and money. What a total drag! I'm SO bummed out!

I'm going to start putting together 2 or maybe 3 BOB's of what I think I'll need for the next phase of my life, if there even is one. :-( You know, I came to the big city of Ottawa about four decades ago, with a backpack and my thumb stuck out on the side of the road and now it's looking like that is the way I'll be leaving too. This time though, I'll be on the road to nowhere.

I've always been very resilient and adaptable and live cheaper than most folks I know, but this seems to be the final killer blow that takes me down. Congrats to the whole new society system for contributing to the demise of yet another poor sap that's supported it's various crookedness and insurance scammers for all these years! You win! I lose! One finger salute and a minute of silence please...

And now finally, I'd like to extend a very heart felt Thank You, to any and all of You readers out there who have ever come to any of my blogs and shared some of your time with this little ol' outdoorsy dude! I've been thrilled to have been able to entertain you! Your various valued comments have got me through many rough society days in the past! Peace to all of You. I will miss Y'all! :-(
...Where to now?

Cool Contest News...

Time for some Hot News...

I was just recently informed by Sherri Russel, boss lady, over at She's So Fly... that I have won her latest neat contest! Oh WoW! Like, I'm speechless!......Thank You Sherri for providing such a fine opportunity for me to score so nicely on your site! :-)

I've only known of Sherri for a short while and yet I have come to respect her already as a fine Outdoors teacher. This woman Loves to get other Women involved in our beloved sport of fishing. And, she does it in a real cool way too. Yup, she teaches other ladies to Fly Fish! How cool is that? Go have a look at her blog and I'm certain that you will be as impressed by this woman as I am. :-)

Speaking of Cool Contests...
My fellow blogging slash fishing friend, Wolfy, over at Flowing Waters... is right now, running a fantastic Free Bass Fishing Tackle Give Away contest and it's open to everyone! I'm tellin' you right now, you won't hardly believe all the great stuff he's gathered together for this contest. Here's a sneak peek at just a wee bit of this Big Bass Tackle Stash, at Wolfy's.
Hard stuff...
Soft stuff...
So there you have it. Go get yourself signed up like I did before it's too late. You don't want to miss out on the chance to haul away this pile of awesome bassin' gear, now do you? :-)

Cheers!

Eyes on the Jock...

Jock River Secrets...
I just had to share this cool fishing link with y'all after an hour's touring of this fine site this a.m. If you like Fly Fishing and you live around Ottawa, you'll Love what the folks on this forum have to say! This particular entry was crafted by Todd B.(Site Admin) over there and as you can see by this sweet "Eye" picture, he knows what he's talkin' about! :-)
Todd's Fly "Eye"...
So, head on over there and be prepared to learn a pile of powerful information, that You can put to real good use, anytime in the future...
Eyes on the Jock...
Oh ya, and don't be shy about joining this Awesome forum either, these folks are People persons too! :-)

Later,

Remembering Bob Jones...

Jonesy on the coast...

On paying attention...

This is a post about outdoor observations basically. Many years back when I considered myself a very competent fisherman of the day, I had the privilege, while working at Laurention Trading Post in Ottawa, of meeting and befriending, and then fishing, with the legendary Robert H Jones of British Columbia.

Way back then Bob was living in Ottawa at Uplands Air Base with the R.C.A.F. and he fished for everything around here. He was a Master Fly Fisherman and Fly Tier and that is how he started out making lead head jigs, on a semi-commercial basis, for friends and the PX. Bob's the Man that took me under his wing and shared freely many, many tips and tricks with me to do with jig makin' and jig fishin' as well. Anyway...

Being the lighter of the two of us, I was positioned in the bow of his Sportspal canoe for ballast and he manned the stern and the little trolling motor. I faced the front with Bob behind me, using little jigs that I had made through Bob's excellent coaching. Now, these jigs were very similar to Bob's. The thing is, he started out fishing me right off the bat. He was up to his twenty third Black Crappie and I had managed five. I decided that something was really wrong here and asked if I could go ashore to water some beautiful Day Lilies that were growing near the bank and looked a little on the dry side. When I climbed back into the canoe I changed my seating position so that I was now facing good ol' Bob, so I could watch his every move. Now if you know this Master Angler, you'll know that he has more moves than a snake and is twice as smart as your average bush guy half his age.

Well, we started off kind of slow like and after about ten long minutes I finally lured a very aggressive Crappie to the side of Bob's "Tin Goose". I made certain to whoop it up a little and tease Bobby that his charm must have worn off and that now the Kid, would show him a few tricks. Time to grandstand maybe? :-) I then tied on a floating/diving, customized, micro-crank-bait to capitalize on the hard hit I had received. By the time I had landed my sixth fish with a bonus Large Mouth of around 2 lbs thrown in, poor ol' Bob had only managed one undersized Perch. He grumbled a little for a few seconds then fumbled around in his pack for the tie breaker he had hidden there. You see, he had to 'fess up in order to get back in the game and even try to catch up to me, now that I had such a rockin' lead in HIS canoe. Chuckle, chuckle. :-)

He told me it wasn't actually his charm after all that had caught all the fish earlier. :-) Nope. What Bob had done while I couldn't see him was ad a little piece of smuggled dew worm to his jig. Gilding the Lily, we used to call that. Sort of a semi-cheat way/manner of getting results.

As young kids in our pre-teens, we always thought the biggest trip of all with this cool fishin' stuff, was to actually trick, hook, play, and land, a real fish on nothing but an artificial lure made of wood, plastic, metal or hair and or feathers, yarn, wool, string, or that you built your self even. NO BAIT ALLOWED. We simply called that real Sportsmanship.

Of course, not to miss out on the fun, there were other times like when we went for 'pout in the early evenings, that we used nothing but bait. And then we tried ALL kinds of live or even partially alive or even fresh dead, live bait. That is just how a few of us cooler budding fishin' dudes felt back then and it has simply carried through my whole life.

Anyway, back to Mr. Jones being able to spank me that first hour or so. Because I failed to add a simple hidden factor (observe/pay attention/make note) into the equation and didn't have the opportunity to see his manner(style,method,etc)of fishing,I was definitely at a disadvantage and he was just soakin' in the ol' Top Dog feeling, that a lot of folks like to express on their fishing trips. :-)

We both had a real good laugh over the whole thing and talked at length about the morals and the general love of fishing, that we both share. What rules do you want to make when it's your turn to show your kids or your friend's kids how to go about fishing? Sportsmanship has always been a big word to me and by showing others how You think the thing should be played, you are making it better for future generations of folks who love to fish, are good at it, and share it with their loved ones.

The main moral of this little blurb here to-day is of course, Observe,observe and observe. :-) Then, put all the here-to-for unknowns, into the known categories and the odds are GREATLY increased in your favor for a successful day on the water! Pay attention to everything. Little details, are important when fishing.

Sadness arrives...

Robert H. Jones - Beloved Friend...

The Epilogue of this old story of an old friend of mine, is that I just heard the other day, by a chance meeting on the Rideau Canal,through our mutual friend Grant Hopkins, that our beloved friend Bob Jones, had passed away in October 2008! Man! Was I floored or what? :-( I felt like I had just lost a brother. When Grant went east and I went west, from Dow's Lake, all I could think of were memories. Times that Jonesy and I shared that wonderful canoe of his and spanked an awful pile of fish together. And what about the times when we fished the little bay/creek at the second bridge in Kars, for Black Crappies in the spring? How many hours did we spend in his basement on the base at Uplands, tying jigs and talkin' tackle? So many good memories of a really, really good man, saturated my little brain, all the way home on the bus. :-(

Here's a link or three to some of Bob's legacy, so You can know this Legendary Fisherman a little, even now, after he's gone.

Outdoor Writer - Bob Jones...

Fly Fishing...

Best In B.C.

And finally, this one, to Bob's own article about an old Outdoor Friend's passing...

Remembering Bill Macdonald...

My deepest condolences go out to his wife Vera and Karen his daughter and to Bobby Jr. his son! We miss him over here too, my friends...

Why Blog...

Why do you blog?
Over the last few years I've been asked that very question a fair amount and posted this little blurb, to do with what blogs are and why I'm into them. Maybe it will answer a few of the questions you've had too? Maybe this little blogging piece, will encourage You, even, to build Your own little blog? Now That would be Really cool. :-)
Why do I Blog?

Adding a little bit more here too. Blogs are a really fine way to communicate with others. Strangers and friends alike, are all fair game. Blogs can really help you locate old and new friends. Anyone can blog. No diploma necessary. You just need a simple phone connection to put out beautiful blogs. Are you an artist or a poet or a singer, or maybe a collector of some type of Cool stuff? What better way to show off your skills and talents and all, than on your own blog? Never before in the history of Mankind, have people been able to communicate with other people, so easily, about what they're doing. All of my blogs are FREE too, so that should open a few more doors to those of you who thought that it must cost big bucks to put up a pretty spiffy blog, eh? :-) See, I told you this bloggin' stuff was Cool!

Well if all that's not enough to get you charged up about blogging, then here's something else for you. Now, bloggers can even add a Twitter button and a list of their most recent Tweets too, right on that blog. I have met a number of very fine people through Twitter already and I'm enjoying the quick interactions it provides, with links to pictures, or news or vids or anything, pretty well.

How about your Facebook account? Wanna spread it around the web a little? Yes sir, can do! The new Facebook widget hooks right up on our blogs, seamlessly, to spread the word around the Blogosphere too, even!

Or maybe you have a lot of pictures, stored electronically say, over on Flickr or Photobucket? Bloggers just have to add a little link, with a picture or three, right to their blog and Poof, everyone goes to their photo streams. :-) Too easy!

I'm constantly learning about more ways to personally use the three or four of these powerful Internet tools together. It all good folks. ;-)

Anywho, Thank You for popping in to-day and I hope You have a Super Day out there! :-)

lb

Fishing the light stuff...

Concentration time...
We're Perchin' it...

Here's a look at some of the small stuff that I use, for the small stuff. Oh ya, and that's a Loonie coin in there if you aren't from Canada. :-)

Ultra-lite Artificial Lures...
A Rocky Jr. Panther Martin & Dardevle Skeeter
and I never leave home without these if I'm goin' Perch Jerkin'! :-)
A pair of F2 Flatfish
However, after like an hour, I took out my trusty pocket knife and went to work on this unit, hoping to get at least one or two bites from Somebody, Anybody. ;-)
Customizing again...
Well sir, on the second flip I had five or six Perch following this little tweak but they all seemed very spooky and nervous. I figure there was a Musky or fat Walleye milling around in there close by and that would explain a little of the non-action I had been gettin'. Anywho, on the third flip I slowed everything down another notch to let my hacked Senko glide longer between short slow pulls and Boom. Fish on!
Perch action... Well, to save face, I managed to catch five or six more of these colorful fish in the span of an hour or so, once I got onto the productive lure slash technique that they were sort of interested in. Another fishin' work-out. :-)
Heading out after Perchin' I came across this cool birdie boy but unfortunately he was standing in the fading light in a brushy area. Great Blue Heron
Not really a good combo for photography but what the heck, doesn't cost much to try. Maybe I'll catch him again another time, in better lighting and closer to me.

All in all, it was another fine Outdoorsy experience and more proof to me that it's Good to be Alive! :-)

Take care.

Female Anglers...

More Lady Anglers...

So it's nice to see that there are other writers on the net who share my Love for Women who just Love to Fish. This is a nice piece I'm glad to share with y'all about women who fish. Taro Murata does a fine job of sharing his Love for girls who love to fish. Here's the link to his kind and encouraging words...

Girls Fish Too...

Oh ya, Taro's wife knows her way around a fishing rod and she's a pretty good bass lipper too, as you'll see in the linked article. ;-)

Go Lady Anglers!