Did You know - outdoor edition

[Tacotodd]

I could see it making a great impromptu rope. Twisted together for a strand for 1 and do that 2 more times and then braid those 3 together. There's got to be better ways than that, but I think I could easily do it.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Makes a heck of a Gilly suit if you need one.

[Magicman]

Henry Ford hauled trainloads of Spanish Moss to be used as stuffing for seats in his early automobiles.

[KEC]

When I was a kid growing up on a dairy farm I used to take the baling twine that we pulled (not cut) off bales of hay and braid 3 together, then braid 3 of those together making a strong rope. I then tied it to two of the beams in the barn; made a great swing.

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

  Dad said they cut a lot of big old hickory trees to get the moss when he was a kid to get the moss to sell to Henry and also for mattress stuffing. I think it was a pretty big industry in Louisiana and I am sure in Mississippi too.

  In central Fla when I was a kid they did not have any range laws and cows and hogs ran free and were just rounded up to mark the pigs, brand the cows and castrate the boar pigs and bull calves. Then they would round them up and fatten and sell or butcher for their own use. I remember taking my new bride through there 43+ years ago and it was February and the cows had had a hard winter. We'd drive along the old sand and limestone rock roads in Dixie County and see starving cows everywhere then round a bend and see a round fat Braham bull. He might be sleeping in the road and he might move or he might just stand up and paw throwing big clods behind him as he shook his head and debated on charging or not. Sometimes you could drive around him, sometimes you backtracked. The old cows would all eat any Spanish moss they could reach but the bulls could rare up on their hind legs and eat moss 12-15 feet high the smaller cows could not get.

  I'll ramble a bit - A local realtor had a live one on the wire from up north somewhere. Remember southern etiquette does not allow dishonest representations but when dealing with northerners such rules do not apply. The realtor was showing them a site with about 100 acres of palmetto scrub (No doubt full of rattlesnakes and yellowjackets) and the yankee asked "Is this plant - pointing to a palmetto - okay for horses as we want to raise some horses?" Billy Bob the realtor replied "Oh it is the finest kid of horse feed known to man." (I don't know any animal that can eat a palmetto - even a goat won't touch it.) Then the Yankee prospect asked "How about all these old stumps - pointing to a bunch of fire blacked lighterd stumps. Are they a problem." Billy Bob replied "No sir, they are some of the finest fertilizer known to man." They rounded a bend in the road and saw a crew of men out there dynamiting and dragging stumps out. Our northern friend asked "If they are such good fertilizer, why are they working so hard to get rid of them?" Billy Bob responded "They are stealing them and as soon as we finish closing on this sale I'm going to go call the sheriff and report them."

KEC,

  I save my hay strings too but I do cut mine. We lost a cow when I saw a kid who got one wrapped around her hoof and lost circulation and her hoof so I am paranoid about leaving an uncut hay string around. I used 23 this afternoon to tie up 23 dozen/bundles of tomato stakes I sell to the local nurseries, at flea markets and to individuals. A hay string with several wraps around a dozen tomato stakes works real well to make a neat bundle.

[ellmoe]

An Uncle of mine stressed to me when I was a young child , "Only use moss found hanging in a tree for T.P.". Poor man was a city slicker married into a family of dirt farmers. He learned this lesson the hard ( and itchy ) way. Red bugs/chiggers ... only thing I truly fear in the woods!

[WDH]

You could always tell a rookie Forester when they would sit on the pine straw.     I know where someone will be scratching tonight  :D. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know bullfrogs will readily attack an artificial lure? If you happen to spot one on the bank of a lake or river toss him and plastic worm or flip a dry fly or cork popping bug on a fly line over to him. Warning - they are vicious fighters. I was never able to land one on a fly rod but boy did we have a fight for a while before he broke the line. I spotted one in an old gravel lake where we were fishing and I pitched a plastic worm on a bass rod to him. It landed a few inches from him but got hun on a root so I was trying to twitch it loose and the frog slowly turned to face it then attacked, got it free and hooked himself.

   I hooked an owl on a live oak limb on the Suwannee River the same way one time. I pulled him to the river with a real surprised look on his face but he got some air under his wings, lifted off broke free.

[Will.K]

Bullfrogs will readily attack a bare hook. Bounce it in the air in front of their nose. Enjoy.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I read one article where I guy had a long cane pole with about 1' of line and a gob of worms or a crawfish or just a small piece of colorful cloth on a treble hook. He'd scull slowly through the thick lily pads and when he'd spot a frog he'd drop it in front of him and they would latch on.

    My grandmother used a similar outfit she called a "dabbler" to catch big bream under low over hanging bushes. She'd poke it in those tight spaces and maybe jiggle it a bit to attract fish and when they'd grab it she'd pull it out end over end.

   

[Magicman]

I threw over and past an ole Cottonmouth once intending to snag it when I reeled it.  Yup, I snagged it and what a fight it put up?    Now, what da heck do I do now?    Surely neither PatD nor I wanted it in da boat and thankfully it finally entangled itself enough that I could break da line.  Dat won't happen again!!

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

   The first time I went frog gigging I gigged a big old water snake with the same results - now how and I going to get this thing off! It is amazing how many things seemed like a good idea at the time but further down the line you're asking yourself "What was I thinking?" : ???

[Tacotodd]

I've done similar. I think that all of us that have done it/that must've gone to different schools together, somehow!

[Texas Ranger]

That time in Texas.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know an effective way old timers caught big bass was to use a long cane pole with a lure tied on about 6-12 inches of strong line which was also tied back about half way along the pole for insurance in case one broke the pole. They would fish along the banks of the lake at night gently beating the tip of the pole in the water creating ripples that looked like a frog swimming? We used to call this jigger fishing or JoeMoling. My old mentor made one out of a 6" long piece of leather with 5-6 hooks wired to it facing up. Other people used a jitterbug lure and dragged it along the bank and up under the overhanging bushes and such on moonlit nights. The best fishermen I ever knew of to use this technique were a pair of brothers my dad's age. They'd use a big treble hook over a big white rubber skirt and swim it along the bank and around stumps and along the edge of heavy grass. A strike was a near heart attack inducing event and all you could do was drag back on the pole to drag the fish into the boat. They fished in several big gravel borrow pits near where I lived. I was working with them on a summer job at a St. Regis paper mill and asked one of them one night if they had been catching a lot of fish down there lately. He replied "Yeah we are catching lots of 10-12 lbers but not near as many of them old big ones as we usually do." I never did figure out was he meant was a "big one." He did say you had to be super stealthy and he always fished with his brother as he knew how to scull a boat. He said the bass were real spooky when you were that close and even an electric motor was too loud so you had to ease along the bank in complete silence to catch them 

[KEC]

Sort of reminds me of when I was a teen I did a lot of fishing. I found that largemouths went for rapalas. But, the most effective way to fish it was to cast out to the edge of some brush, let it sit for 10 seconds and then give it just a light twitch. I think the fish are a little spooked when a lure hits the water so you have to let them calm down for those 10 seconds. The little twitch tells them that the lure is "alive" and they go for it. 

[WV Sawmiller]

KEC,

   I think that was the standard way when I was a kid that very good fishermen used a Lucky 13 which was a big topwater lure with a concave mouth. They'd throw it in a likely looking spot and let it sit then twitch it which made a popping sound and indicated a live bait. 

[Tacotodd]

Talking about fishing. My WORST day was the day that my friend & I went and on the very first cast (we hadn't even got the motor in the water yet) I made with a top water jig of some sort and got a fairly good strike, fought it for about 8sec and nothing the rest of the day. My buddy that is with me must have landed close to 20 that day. I was so pithed off all day because of that. I believe that was a big cause of me forever going back to hunting instead.

[WV Sawmiller]

Todd,

   I am sure my worse day was when I was a kid and we took and old wooden boat down a rough washed out dirt road to a place called Ralph's Lake which was just a wide spot in a creek. My dad, older brother and me were fishing and I was using a Zebco 22 on about a 3' long stiff el-cheapo rod throwing a Bomber lure. Most places we could not cast very far but we finally got the boat positioned where I was able to make a maximum length cast so I took aim and threw as hard as I could and watched and waited patiently for the lure to land, and I waited, and I waited and it never landed so I turned around and saw my lure hanging from my dad's jaw. I immediately just started crying because I knew I was never going to get to go fishing again - ever! My brother tried to pull it free but could not get it loose. Finally Dad spotted a turkey hunter walking along the bank and yelled over at him and he came a finally wrenched it free with a good chunk of bone in the barb.

[Old Greenhorn]

Talking about fishing. My WORST day was the day that my friend & I went .............................

My worst day of fishing was much better than my BEST day at work. :D

[KEC]

The past few years I've gone fishing a number of places known to have walleyes. I went at the times that they allegedly bite and cast rapalas until my arms were sore, which is supposed to be effective. Not one walleye.
I'd love to come home with a few nice sized walleyes to filet and have a tasty meal or two. Any suggestions? I know there are fishing authorities here.

[WV Sawmiller]

KEC,

   I hope they reply with some help. Don't ask me as I have never caught one in my life although I love to eat them. I well remember a great meal of walleye fillets up around Erie PA when I worked on a project at Kodak HQ in Rhochester NY.

   I remember on that trip seeing lots of dead deer along the interstate in PA and thinking "These guys must have a lot more deer than we do as they sure have more dead deer laying around." Then I realized "They don't have more deer, times are just better up here and when they hit a deer they leave it laying while we take it home and eat it."

   When we moved in here July 4, 1990 we had a team of teenagers come help us unload our U-Haul and get settled in. I was cleaning up outside and complaining about the junk left behind and one of the teens said "My grandpa has a junk dealership in town and he'd love to have those old electric motors and such in that old log barn" so I told him to send him up. He came and helped us clean up and invited us to come fish at his place on the river in town. His name was E.C. "Carlton" Cox and he had caught the WV state record walleye here in the New River just above the bridge over highway 20 but he said somebody else had beaten him out that year by a few ounces so it was the last year he was listed as the state record holder. 

[HemlockKing]

I always wondered if those dead roadkill deer could be of use to maybe farmers for say butchering up and using as heard dog food etc. Basically free meat, dogs wouldn’t care. Maybe they already do this I’m not sure I’m not a farmer, always made me think about it though when I see one, I mean it would make sense if you wanna save money instead of buying dog food... saving a buck is earning a buck.

No pun intended ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

Hemlock,

   I understand around big cities with a large zoo the zoo often works a deal and the county road department call them to collect and feed road kill to their carnivores. In nature the big cats, wolves, hyenas, etc. eat small bones and chew on the big ones and they need such to stay healthy. 

   Many years ago WV caught a lot of flack from Jay Leno, et.al. when we passed what is called our road kill law. It basically says if we kill an animal we can call it in then take it home and process any salvageable meat. I think it is a very reasonable law. No reasonable man is deliberately going to hit a deer with a car because the repair costs far outweigh the value of the meat but if one is killed I am a firm believer in trying to use it if possible. Besides, if the animal is left on the road or right of way the county has to spend money to clean it up and until it is removed it creates a hazard to other drivers crashing into coyotes, dogs, cats, possums, foxes, hawks, eagles, etc attracted to the kill. 

   We have hit and picked up and eaten deer and once a turkey hen and I have no shame for doing so. I think it was the responsible thing to do.

   Okay - for today's topic: Did you know bamboo/river cane is wonderful stuff with tons of uses but to properly dry it so it does not split and weaken you need to store it completely out of the sun and let is dry? We used to cut canes for fishing poles and the larger ones for gig poles, push poles, etc. We would store them under the house  or in the rafters of our shed or such where the sun never hit it for a year or so until it was well seasoned. I assume most fishing poles were dried over heat as any you bought would likely have scortch marks. When dried they would varnish them. Fiberglass has largely replaces bamboo as crappie/bream poles and such. 

[HemlockKing]

I’m not so sure about folks avoiding deer because of cost of damage to the vehicle, could rig up a beater from a old Toyota pickup weld up a front bumper and good to go  :D :D. It’s probably been done actually, some ppl are hungry 

You never know with the general public