city cypress

[caveman]

A friend of mine let me know several months ago that there may be some cypress logs available in Tampa on the same street as Tampa Stadium.  A few weeks ago he and I drove over to take a look and there were 55 Pond Cypress trees piled up, some up to 70' long.  Over the past couple of weekends and days off for Hurricane Dorian, we made a few trips to get logs.  Most were cut a little over 16' but some 10' and 8's were brought back.  We will have to saw some for the guy who is honchoing this project and a few more for the friend who arranged the deal but we should wind up with a respectable amount of cypress.

Today, I dumped most of the logs into my pond to keep the bugs out of them.  The ambrosia beetles had already started boring into a few logs.  We left out a few 10' logs since the guy we got the logs from has some 10' boards on his cut list.  We hauled six goose neck trailer loads and one equipment trailer full of logs and stashed a few under the forks on the trailer hauling the tractor.



 

 

 

 

 We also repaired the brakes on our trailer this week so we did not have to borrow my son in law's.  

[tule peak timber]

WOW nice sticks.....!

[Andries]

Really nice haul!
Will the logs in the pond sink, and if they are floating for a while, what protects them from the bugs?

[Resonator]

 and if they are floating for a while, what protects them from the bugs?

'Gators?  smiley_deadheaders_buddy

[Southside]

Nice score! Now they are really "pond" Cypress! 

[Nomad]

SCORE! 8)

[caveman]

These aren't huge cypress but there were some good sized ones in the mix. 

To answer Andries' question, the main bugs we are trying to keep from getting into them are termites.  They probably will not sink, or if they do it will not be right away.  There are a lot of pine logs on the bottom beneath them and about a dozen live oak logs as well. 

The logs should also saw like fresh cut logs when we get around to milling them.  The ordeal of selecting and fishing out the logs adds steps and does not help with the efficiency (a violation of the Yellowhammer Creed) but should keep them out of the burn pile.

John wanted me to post this in the Free Logs thread due to the expenses we have incurred to get them (fuel, trailer repair, etc.) and the metal we have seen in some of the logs as well as the cut list we have for the guy who provided the logs.  Regardless, we should still come out okay on these.  He may add a few more pictures.  Now to build more drying racks...never ends.

[WDH]

I am jealous. 

[Sixacresand]

Most time "free" includes major expense, equipment, time and effort.  Glad you were successful with this project, Caveman. 

[caveman]

Sixacresand, time will tell but so far it has been fun and no major injuries.  I found a few more pics of the site where we got them.


 

 

 The tree house and the cypress seen are still standing.  They are de-mucking the area but I do not know the details of the project but when we were there Saturday there were two, Terex offroad dump trucks, a skidsteer, a large excavator and a big diesel powered pump.

[CCCLLC]

Nice! One of my favorite woods to cut but rarely see it. You must be livin' right.

[customsawyer]

I've heard that if you put enough logs in a pond it can be bad for the fish. Don't have much in the way of details as to how much is to much but might be something to look into.

[caveman]

We used to keep that pond stocked with some big bass.  At one time there were four in there over 10 lbs and enough shiners and bluegills to keep them and the others well fed.  Every year or so, the pond would get so low that the oxygen would be depleted and all of the fish would die.  

We then just stocked it with shiners to use when live bait fishing for bass.  Blue talapia, an invasive, are all that are in there now as far as fish go.  We are not too worried about them.  A few throws of a castnet in any area lake will likely produce a hundred pounds of them.

[slider]

Nice score on the cypress caveman.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Congrats on the cypress. I am anxious to see some really nice lumber produced from them. 

   Now back to the important question - how big do those Tilapia get and how do they taste? :D

[caveman]

I love sawing cypress and hope that these will yield some good looking wood.  Turned to food already.  

You can buy the talapia (Nile Perch locally) in most grocery stores and they serve them in some restaurants.  They taste like a white, mild fish.  I don't generally eat them since, until the last year, I could eat snapper, grouper, flounder, bass and other native fish that I prefer (haven't had much fishing time lately).  They get to be 3-4 pounds if they are in a lake.  In confined ponds with mixed sex populations they will often stunt due to overpopulation.  If one were to put a couple hundred of the same sex in a pond and feed them, they would grow relatively fast and to a good size.

They are herbivores but we used to feed them bread around the docks in lakes where homeowners would feed them.  With a 1/4 slice of bread pinched on a small hook (float the hook) and tossed into a chummed up school of them they are easy to catch on hook and line.  They put up a tremendous fight on ultralight gear - Imagine catching a 3-4 lb. shellcracker.  

Years ago a coworker and I would castnet them in the spring and sell them to many of the faculty at our school.  The profits would help support our fishing habit.

[WV Sawmiller]

Cavey,

  Locals may call them Nile Perch around your part of the woods but I am confident they are different species. A tilapia looks and tastes a lot like a bluegill to me - which I really like. A true Nile Perch is longer and looks more like a Bass or Trout than a tilapia. People use odd local names for fish sometimes. Heck where I grew up in N. Fla as a kid many people called a Largemouth bass a trout. We did not even have any freshwater trout in that part of the world.

  I worked in Cameroon in West Central Africa for several years and the locals caught and sold Nile Perch there and typically called them El Capitane. They were a very good eating fish too. The best fish I ever ate I still believe was Tilipia cooked over charcoal on an old tire wheel for a stove in a remote fishing village in Central Cameroon. The lady was a street vendor and used a heavy wire for a grill and scaled and gutted the fish and rubbed it good with local peanut oil mixed with a seasoning called Maggi. The heads were left on the fish. Depending on the size they cost between 25-40 cents each in local currency. I bought them for me, my wife and our local guide and the first fish was served on a piece of old cement sack paper as a plate. My wife had fresh bought tomatoes from another vendor with hers and we sat on a dirty sidewalk to eat. When I went back for more, as a valued repeat customer, the lady served them on a community plastic plate she had washed in the dishpan full of soapy water and likely rinsed in the runoff. The cement sack was likely cleaner but I ate several and I still contend they were the best fish I have ever eaten in all my travels all over the world.

EDIT: This my journal entry for February 19, 2008 regarding this incident:

            We go up to the village to look for some cool water or Cokes and find a couple of small stores. We buy a large cold Coke from a lady nursing an infant behind a chicken wire screen. In front of her store we see a lady cooking fish over charcoal and a wire grill. She is also cooking long tubes of cassava in leaves. We buy several of the fish which look and taste like our bluegills. I assume they are Tilapia. They have been scaled, gutted, heads left on and scored on several places to speed the cooking. The lady spread locally made peanut oil on them before and after grilling them We first buy three which she puts on a piece of brown paper from a used cement sack. These three fish cost 500 cfa or $1.10. Becky buys several tomatoes for the adjacent open air stand to eat with hers. We sit on a concrete step in the shade nearby and eat our fish. Across from us is another small shop which I later learn is the village pharmacy. The vendor rushes out to loan us a wooden stool about 15" tall by ten inches square at the base and six inches square at the top. This is very generous and thoughtful of him. I eat my fish and I find that it is very tasty so I go back and order two more and eat them. This time the lady serves them on a thin plastic plate since she sees we are dining in the area and we are repeat customers. I finish mine and go back and get Becky another. She enjoys her meal of fish and fresh tomatoes. When we get ready to leave we return the pharmacist's stool and thank him for his kindness.
 
            We return the lady's plastic plates and leave the village again crossing the power dam and saying goodbye to the Security guard. To this day I can't ever remember eating better fish than these grilled over a tire wheel full of charcoal on this dirty, dusty alley of a street in this unknown fishing village in Cameroon.

[LeeB]

WV,
Most of my most delicious meal memories come from roadside stalls in foreign countries. I will miss all that but won't miss the travelling back and forth.

[WDH]

WV,

Maybe you need to start a "My Best Fish Meals" thread. 

[caveman]

Some of my best meals have been fish.  I think Danny is on to something.

John took a short video of us dumping the last few logs into the pond.  I was traveling pretty slow across the rough ground near the palmetto due to the heavy load for my tractor and not having the box blade on the rear to offset the weight.
https://youtu.be/e5gxzoweQqY

[WV Sawmiller]

Cavey,

   Done. Check out the food threads.

   Okay it looks easy to put those logs in the pond but how easy is it to get them out? Do you have to be able to identify species by the feel of the bark with your bare feet? (Any snapping turtles in that pond? "Nary a one said 3 toes McGee.")

[caveman]

WV, I enjoy reading the accounts of your experiences and adventures.  I'll probably add to the fish thread in a day or so - too tired tonight.

I expect the cypress will continue to float.  Most that we have put in there over the years has.  It is easier to identify and retrieve if it is floating.  The pine and oak is on the bottom.  This time of year they are a challenge to get because parts of the pond are 10-12' deep.  In the spring it will be much lower and some of them will be exposed or at least visible. 

I have seen very few snapping turtles but some monster softshells.  We used to get a few gators in there every spring when they are exploring but I have not seen any in this pond over the past few years.  We have snakes but I have seen very few moccasins.  A few years ago on any given day you could expect to see at least half a dozen banded water snakes sunning or mating on floating logs and they would eat the smaller tilapia when we would feed them in shallow water.

 

 The birds may have worked on the snake population.

[WV Sawmiller]

Cavey,

   I don't like the look of the shape of that snake's head.

    Those softshells sure sound tempting. They are very tasty and a lot easier to clean than the snapping turtles IMHO. 

[WDH]

Caveman,

You looked a bit tipsy in the video.  

[caveman]

Nah, completely sober. 

Moving the logs was relatively uneventful and without excitement (just the way it should be).  I did remove a small, rotten section of fence to shorten the trip by a couple hundred feet each way.  It took about two minutes to fork a log or two, dump them in the water and be back at the log pile.

The fence, my parents' back deck, and painting their house were on my summer to do list.  Those are just some of the items that I did not get to.