Nothing Like Ending 2017 With A Skunk

Lake Amador yesterday.

One for Yuki

He gets to go first today. 

One for me

This for the rest that didn't catch anything

That's a wrap. 

See you next year. 

Christmas Food Memories

Alan over at Small Stream Reflections suggested we post memories of food from Christmas.

OK Alan, here it is:

Fruit Cake

EVERY YEAR..............

I think I'm going to be sick now. 

Merry Christmas everyone............

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

North Shore Lake Camanche.

One for me

One for Yuki

Fishing Has Been Kind Of Crappo

Just thought I'd get everyone caught-up on what I've been doing.

First of all, the fence project is complete. Here are the results:

21 - 8' sections, 2 gates, and 2 replaced posts, 1 new post. I don't think I need to explain the pictures below. 

I have been fishing a couple times, but since I didn't catch anything I didn't feel the need to stick my skunk out there. OK, you can laugh now.

Several doctor appointments lately. Had another skin cancer removed, from my chest this time. Last night I had a, my doctor calls it a "Barnacle", removed from my face. Don't know if it is cancerous, but it's being sent out for biopsy. As a kid, I lived in the sun. Paying for it now.

The next project has been put off until the beginning of the year. Wife wants, after painting the dining room, all the base board replaced. It was a deal I made so I could justify buying a pin nailer. Didn't want to get into another project with Christmas, a foot operation (the wife), and my Grand-Daughter's wedding on the 21st. Too much going on in December.

Oh yeh, statistics update: 1071 posts since January 2009. Just short of 550,000 hits.

Interesting (to me) is that after the American page views, Ukraine is second. You remember I'm doing this genealogy research? My roots come from Germany via Ukraine. Thank you to those from the Ukraine supporting this blog.

Any of you from Ukraine have the name Kautz, Werschinka, or Verschinka? I'd like to know.

Yuki and I are meeting out at North Shore on Thursday.

Stay Tuned. 

2018 Calendar

Once again, Marisa (Yuki's daughter) has produced another amazing calendar for 2018.

Keep in mind that she has taken all the pictures that comprise the calendar.

It's awesome, well done, and you can get it here at Lulu.com.

I've already gotten the ones I ordered. Delivery is 3 to 5 business days.



Sure, you can buy a calendar in the store, but never one that is this good.

Let's get out there and support Marisa.

Happy Thanksgiving

From our house to yours.

One Don't Make A Dinner

My wife had the day off work today so I thought I'd drive out to Lake Camanche and give her some time at the house by herself.

I got to the lake at 8:15, parked out at the point where I usually fish and put out two lines with rainbow PB. Somewhere between then and about 11:00 I got, either a couple hits I missed or fish hitting the line on the way by. In either event, nothing stayed hooked.

So I sat and sat and sat and finally decided to go further out on the ever widening peninsula.

I tried one rod with rainbow PB & a little Pro Cure Garlic and one rod with rainbow PB & a little Pro Cure Trophy Trout (one can hope after all) on the other.

Then I reeled in one line and started throwing Kastmasters. Now, I don't know what they want this year. For the last six years or so, it's been something different every year. For the last two, it's been silver. Before that, pink was hot for about four years. If you've been following this blog, you know that already. 

So this morning I started with silver. Then progressed as follows: gold, pink, green/silver, blue silver.

Did I mention I finished the replacement of the fence in back?
This is the final two sections:

11-19-2017

This is the final product. Sorry, I didn't realize I didn't have a day time picture. Just took the one below. It's just after 5:00 and dark already.

11-21-2017

If you want to see a daytime photo, let me know.

OK, back to fishing. Holographic (that's a Kastmaster color), silver/orange, and finally Brown Trout color. The last one was what brought this little Rainbow to hand.

Maybe a pound soaking wet, har har

I put him in a little pond on the edge of the lake for a photo and then shooed him back into the lake for another day. Wasn't big enough to make a dinner. On the other hand, it was big enough to do away with the skunk.

That was it. They have been stocking like crazy, in fact they stocked yesterday for the holiday weekend, I think that until the lake turns over, fishing with be spotty at best.

So that's it for this trip. After a little cleanup of the area behind the fence and a trip to the dump on Friday the next project with begin.

Stay tuned.

Just A Quick Trip Before The Storm

Started the morning with breakfast with my son Ken. My Grand-Daughter is getting married December 21st, so I wanted to find out what was going on a little bit early. That and bring him up to date on the Genealogy hunt.

Then I headed out to North Shore Lake Camanche. A couple posts ago I mentioned 4500 lbs and 1200 lbs planted. Last week they planted another 800 lbs at North, South, and the Pond. They are those wonderful Mt. Lassen Rainbows with the orange meat.

We have a big storm coming, tonight I think, so I decided to see if I could sneak in a couple hours of PB soaking. 

Got to the lake at about 9:15 and put two rods out with rainbow PB. Lake sure looked different from when I left back on the 8th.

Sunshine & blue skies

Even other people fishing out there.

The others had the same idea I had. Sneak in a couple hours before the storm.

First, and only fish of the day came about 10:15. Notice the beaten up tail. It's tough being a hatchery trout.

About 2 lbs

I took a photo and then sent him back for someone else to catch. A nice size, about 2 lbs, but before I sent him back I asked the guys behind me if they wanted it to go with the one they caught, but they said no and back he went. First downcountry trout this Fall.

After that, nothing. I tried Kastmasters in a few colors and Power Eggs in white with a Mice Tail, but nothing seemed to be interested or the fish are already widely dispersed. The Kastmaster was a test of sorts. For the last two years silver has been the color of choice as was pink the previous three years. Haven't found the right color this year it seems.

Hey, there's always next time.

The said storm I mentioned above is heavy rain with 30 to 40 mph winds (per the weather guessers) and not very conducive to fishing.

I'll be back out again soon.

Stay tuned.

A Veteran I Knew Little About

My Dad was a Veteran of WWII. I'd like to share some pictures I received from my Sister-in-Law a while back that I didn't know existed. She's sorting through boxes of stuff my mother had packed away years ago.

The picture on the left is my Dad on the left and some of his Coast Guard Cronies. The picture on the right is my Dad and Uncle Richard, Dad's brother and the youngest of the Kautz 11. The 11 are the 11 children of my Grand parents. I never knew Uncle Richard as we lived in Wisconsin and he lived (and died) in California. Actually lived South of me in Fresno and he died just North of Sacramento in the town of Woodland. 

Dad

You see where I get my fishing ability from. That's a pretty big one. 

My guess would be Northern Wisconsin

Coast Guard in Action

So there are a couple pictures of a Veteran I knew little about.

Trust me, I was blown away when I got the package. There was about 50 pictures of my family that I never knew existed, in it.

A Scouting Mission

I sent Yuki and email asking if he'd heard anything about stocking of Lake Amador or Lake Camanche. He heard that they were indeed stocking Amador, but nothing on Camanche.

Since it's supposed to rain this afternoon. and I can't really do anything outside I thought I do a scouting mission out to Lake Camanche and see what was shaking.

Just as a side note, I take the recycle cardboard we have and cut it down and box it up. Then when Fall or Winter comes, I drop it off in the recycle dumpster at the County Dump off Buena Vista on the way to Lake Camanche. That was the plan this morning. So I threw my fishing gear in the truck and several boxes of recycle cardboard in the back and headed out.

I got to the dump, deposited the boxes, and then noticed my fishing license wasn't hanging around the back seat headrest as it always is. I had forgotten that, because my truck was in the body shop for the last two weeks I had taken my license out of the truck and hung it by the fishing rods in the garage so I wouldn't forget it the next time I went fishing. Apparently I missed that part because when I got back home a half hour later (can't fish without a license) it was hanging right there.

With license in hand I drove back out, past the dump, and on to Lake Camanche. At check-in the girl said that they had planted 4500 lbs two weeks ago at each of the three locations (North Shore, South Shore, and the Trout Pond) and 1200 pounds last week at all three locations. That's a lot of fish so I told her "Put me in coach".

I drove out to the peninsula where we usually fish and there was nobody there. They didn't know it had been stocked. 

Don't want to say that too loud. Next thing you know there will be thousands out there.

See, nobody

 \\

All by my lonesome

The usual setup

Being a bit chilly this morning I had a long sleeve T and my hoodie. It wasn't long before the hoodie was back in the truck and I was wishing I had a short sleeve T. It got rather toasty for a while then the wind came up. Then the hoodie came back out of the truck. I think the next time I might take my parka. 

During all this goings on, not a bite. Fished two rods with PB for a while. Threw Kastmasters for a while and then when the wind got to about 70 mph, OK maybe 8 or 10 mph I decided to call it a day.

Not calm by any means

Besides this was just a scouting mission and I had some chores to finish at home. It did tell me that downcountry fishing is back. I, too, will be back.

Stay tuned.

How Was Your Halloween??

When we moved into this neighborhood 2 1/2 years ago, I queried my neighbor across the street as to how much candy I should get. They had been here several years and I figured out they would have a handle on trick or treaters.

They said to get 3 bags of candy. One for the kids and two for us to eat. Works for me. We had about 15 hit the door and of them, 10 were the minions from the end of the court and their friends from school that were having a party at the Minion House. There is a story behind this (minions), but that's for another day.

This year I got one bag and proceeded to eat it. OK, went back to the store and got another bag with 100 pieces in it. Should handle about 15 trick or treaters.

First to the door were two. I gave them 4 each. Wanted to makes sure I had enough for the rest. What rest? That was it for the night. The minions from the end of the court went to a party over in Sutter Creek and took their group with them.

Now if I can subtract correctly that left 92 pieces of candy for us to eat (no problem there) because I always get the type of candy I would eat too. That plus the other bag I consumed (most of it anyway) is more of a sugar overdose than I've had in a while. I should be good with the sugar intake until..................maybe next Wednesday.

What is more appropriate than a trip to the cemetery on Halloween?? You all know I've been doing the Genealogy thing since last December so I'd like to share some of my cemetery discoveries.




My Great-Grandmother

Frank McGovern
Birth:  unknown Death:  Jan. 8, 1898

My Great-Grandfather. This is all I've ever been able to find other than the Obit my mother had.



My Grandmother on my mother's side

I've not been able to find the gravestone of my paternal Grandfather Henry Joseph Fish on my mother's side, yet.

 

My Grandfather



My Grandmother

OK, won't bore you with any more, but I have 3 Word documents with pictures of gravestones of my ancestors. If you're interested in seeing your's, you might try this website.

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi

There is a huge project out there to photograph headstones for Genealogy research. I've even found some of my relatives gravestones over in Europe on this site. Another site you can look at is Billion Graves.

https://billiongraves.com/search/#/

Both are FREE and you'd be surprised the information you can find on your ancestors on one of these sites.

If you have any questions about searching for your ancestors, let me know, you can email me at markkautz1946@comcast.net. I'm getting pretty good at finding people and can probably send you in the right direction.

I might get to fish next week if I get my truck back from the shop.

Stay tuned.

Three Shocks In One Day

I would have posted this yesterday after I got home, but I was watching the Dodgers beat the Astro's in the World Series game 1.

About a week ago, Yuki and I planned a trip to the Secret Lake. After looking at my journal, Fall was the time where most of the fish were caught there so it was time to go.

Since my truck is in the repair shop (my wife had a yellow post, you know the kind in a parking lot, jump out and hit the truck one day when she was driving it) so Yuki drove.

Keep in mind that the road to the Secret Lake is one of those mountain roads that is straight up on one side and straight down on the other. Kind of scary for one who doesn't drive those kind of roads very often. Now, I didn't hold Yuki's hand (he had both tightly on the steering wheel), but gave him words of encouragement like "Don't be a weenie", "It's not the fall, but the sudden stop at the bottom". Words to keep him focused. I think he'll make me drive the next time.

We got to the lake about 10:30 and started floating crickets at the inlet.

The inlet

Beautiful day

Sunshine and blue skies 

The first shock of the day was a small (about 9") Rainbow. I didn't know there were Rainbows in this lake. I always thought it was strictly Browns, but one must have come through the tube from Salt Springs Reservoir. It was such a shock that I didn't even take a picture. 

The second shock was the Brown in the picture below.

Come to Papa

It doesn't look very big in the photo, but my guess was about 16" and maybe a couple pounds. 

Gotcha 

Gently back into the lake

Bye Bye

Then yours truly continued to swing crickets with several additional hits, but no hook-ups.

Swing-in

When we finally ran out of crickets, I decided to see if a Kastmaster, which in the past produced nothing, would get any interest. Then the third shock of the day came. I put on a brand new 1/8 oz. gold and threw it toward the inlet tube. The second cast and the fish below was on. Turned out to be (my guess was a female with eggs) because it was a 'football" and no hooked jaw like the first one.

Carefully released and sent home.

Then I proceeded to get that brand new gold Kastmaster stuck in the rocks and break the line. 
So goes a $5.00 lure.  

After that, no interest in any other color of Kastmaster, Power Egg, Mice Tail, or nightcrawler. 

We called it a day. 

Well, At Least I Tried

I texted (21st century phone guy) Yuki yesterday about fishing. Basically I said I'd go fishing if they ever planted again. The last place they planted ANYWHERE was Silver Lake back on 9/3. Before that was the end of July.

He suggested Middle Bar Bridge. So I said, OK I'd check it out this morning. 

This is how the morning went. I started the truck, 37 degrees outside and frost on the front window. First time this year for frost, first time this year I've had to scrape frost off the truck windows, and the first time this year I've had wear gloves while driving. That's OK though, I'm over the 100+ degree heat.

The bridge, you've seen it before. 

I cruised over (It's only about 4 miles from my house) and when I got there, the bridge was empty of people, a bad sign. The shot above was not this morning. 

I stopped in the middle of the bridge, there wasn't any traffic in fact there wasn't anybody anywhere.

When I looked over the side the water level as 12" deep, maybe 18" at most. You could see everything on the bottom in great detail. That would make it about 4 feet lower than it needed to be to do any decent fishing.

It wasn't quite as low as the shot below, but close.

Back in 2011

All I can hope is that Lake Amador and Lake Camanche start planting soon. 

One last item, flippering in the Float Tube Cumberland (as mentioned in the last post) doesn't seem like something that's going to happen. I'm experiencing quite a bit of pain in my feet because of the neuropathy, so the movement of flippering is definitely not in the cards. Maybe one of these days I'll just suck it up and give it a try.

Stay tuned. 

OK, So It's Been Two Weeks

Yeh, I'm still here.

Two projects have kept me from fishing for two weeks.

First is the back yard. It was something like this:

Same color

Flagstone filled with pea gravel. Looked like crap and hard to walk on.

Now it looks like this:

The second project is the fence around the back yard. Last Winter I replaced 3 sections and the gate that blew down during a storm. Later last Winter I replaced 3 more sections. Another storm. Now I'm replacing the rest. It seems that the fence is falling apart faster than I can replace the sections. Every time I work on one section, the boards from other sections fall off. 

I only have the strength to replace about one section a day and then I have to quit, so it's going to take a while. I have 14 more sections to go. 

I made the mistake of leaving one section open overnight and the deer (you know the City of Jackson apple cleanup and hedge trimming department) helped themselves. I guess tomatoes aren't as good as apples since they just took a bite and then dropped the tomato. Kind of pissed off my wife. She babies her vegetables. 

I guess you can say that fishing is on hold for a while, but don't forget me. As Arnold said "I'll be back".