Did You know - outdoor edition

[TroyC]

I wonder if a long narrow trenching shovel/spade with about a 4" wide X 16" long blade would work?

Don't know about the shovel but the tube sort of traps the clam so it doesn't move through the mud and get away. They can go thru the sandy mud almost like a fish swimming in the water so you do have to be fast. They do have a long sharp edge along the two halves so I guess that's where they get their name.

[TroyC]

 

I've only had one ocean-caught Sockeye that I got on a party boat in the sound south of Seattle.

They do troll for sockeye in Alaska before the fish head up into the freshwater rivers. They use big flashy lures and side planers. I only fished the rivers and was quite humbled. When I first got to Alaska I did not know you had to be there when the fish came thru. Depending where you are they may be there a week or so and then be gone.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I am not a huge fan of the way salmon taste. My daughter really like them. My favorite eating fish is a bluegill. Rainbow trout and Walleye are good too as well as catfish.

   I have said before the best fish I ever ate was Tilipa cooked over a small charcoal fire that I bought off a street vendor in a small village in Cameroon in West Africa.

[caveman]

When I was about 10 years old, while staying with my Papa in Mulberry, we would often rig up the biggest surf rods we could find with big treble hooks (snatch hooks) and head for one of the many phosphate pits.  With a heavy weight below the hooks, we could cast quite a long distance.  We would work the rig like a big jig.  When you hit a big tilapia (we called them Nile Perch), you knew you had a fight on your hands.

We would also spend quite a bit of time searching between the crossties on the tracks for fossils and riding slow moving freight trains.

If you can ever find a dock where people feed fish and tilapia are around, they are suckers for a 1/4 slice of bread pinched onto and floating a small hook.  We used to catch them up to five or six pounds on ultralite spinning reels.  Imagine catching a six-pound shellcracker on light tackle.  

At night they can be gigged with homemade of store-bought gigs.  When gigging them, we would cut a 1"x6" notch in the top side of a plastic drum.  Snatching the gig through the notch would pull the fish off of the gig and it could fall into the ice in the bottom of the barrel.

Tilapia are not my favorite fish to eat but we have caught and cleaned a bunch of them that we sold to pay for our fishing habit for other species (back when we had time to fish frequently).

[WV Sawmiller]

Cavey,

  I never heard a Tilapia called a Nile Perch. We had Nile Perch in Africa and they looked more like a trout or such while a Tilapia looked more like a bluegill in shape. In Cameroon Nile Perch were locally referred to as El Capitan. Nile Perch can become very big fish. I don't know that Tilapia ever get over a few pounds.

   Then again, in mid to southern Fla people call a Crappie a Speckled Perch or Specs. Where I grew up in N. Fla we used to call them a Chinquapin.

[Texas Ranger]

The Cajuns call crappie Sac-au-lait or, sack of milk. and sac-au-lait Coubion is wonderful stuff.  Deep South Dish: Cajun Coubion - Courtbouillon

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know isolated lakes and ponds with no inlet from other streams sometimes get stocked with fish from the eggs that stick to the feed of wading birds such as herons and ducks and such. 

   We visited a pair of twin lakes in a volcanic crater in Cameroon in West Africa many years ago. It was apparently spring fed with no other inlet or outlet but one of the lakes was filled with Tilapia. We were told the other lake, the one referred to as the male lake, supposedly had no fish. The lakes were separated by a narrow strip of land and they would even appear at different levels so there was no connection below to the Female lake. I always wondered if there really weren't fish in them both or if there was something in the water in the Male Lake that inhibited fish life or such.

   Anyway, newly formed farm ponds and such that have never been stocked often have fish suddenly just appear in them apparently from the birds.

Caveman,

   Do you know if the phosphate mines/borrow pits you mentioned in a previous post being full of big tilapia were stocked or do you think birds or such brought them in? I grew up fishing in big sand and gravel lakes left by the dredging/pumping out the sand and gravel and they were full of local fish but they flooded every year or so and the Escambia River stocked them.

[WDH]

I love fish, but the one fish that I do not care for and do not eat is tilapia. 

[KEC]

Any time that fish appear in bodies of water  that were thought to not have  fish you have to consider that someone put them in there. There are many small lakes  and ponds in New York that state fisheries people killed all the fish and then stocked it with trout. They put up signs telling people not to use fish as bait and to not put any fish in from other waters. Along comes someone who thinks he's doing a great thing and dumps bullheads in, dooming the trout. I have talked to people who admitted to doing this. I do think that the theory of wading birds bringing in eggs is plausable.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sorry you feel that way and no doubt some fish are smuggled in by do-gooders or miscreants. My friends and I have on occasion discussed stocking trash fish such as gars or bowfin or such in neighborhood ponds or such but the lakes I saw in Africa were too hard to access for me to believe any tribesman smuggled them in on their back. 

   While the vast majority of the eggs might not survive the journey, just a few hatching in a lake with no predators, a nearly endless supply of food and cover, could and would be expected to rapidly increase. 

   I know on occasion birds will drop a fish they have been carrying and if was a gravid female that is another likely source for transplanting fish. I know I have seen herons and ospreys and such drop fish they were carrying.

  If nothing else Occam's Razor applies.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you ever watch a wet dog shake the water out of his coat? He has a specific sequence he follows starting at his head and sort of rippling down his neck, shoulders, mid section, hips, then finally he shakes his tail vigorously to get rid of the water. It is pretty effective and reminds me of ringing out a wet towel  where you start at one  end and twist and push it to the other end.

[TroyC]

Did you know (I've heard this but never witnessed it) that some animals will get in water to drive off fleas? I heard a story that fox or maybe coyotes will grab a cotton ball or something in their mouth and go swimming. As the fleas head to the cotton or whatever, the animal will release it to the water and crawl out out the water leaving the fleas to float way. Fact or fiction.... you decide 

[WV Sawmiller]

Troy,

  My old mentor used to tell the tale that there in N. Fla he once saw a fox wade slowly deeper and deeper into a stream or pond. He said as it got to the point only the neck and head were out of the water you could start to see fleas climbing up and darkening the fur. Finally the fox had only his nose above the water and stuck his nose up to a stick and the fleas hopped off on to it then finally the fox dipped his head, I guess to rinse away any remaining fleas then waded out of the stream.

   Sounds pretty similar to the tale you heard so maybe there is some basis in fact there.

    I also heard swimming in salt water would cause chiggers/redbugs to leave. I got into a bunch in Dixie Count Fla so bad one time I'd have probably climbed into a 55 gallon drum of diesel and set it on fire if that would have gotten rid of them.

   BTW - did you know that a chigger or redbug is naturally a parasite of reptiles like snakes and turtles and the chigger is an intermediate phase that will also get on warm bodied animals - including people.

[TroyC]

Chiggers- did you know that fingernail polish and other such remedies are are useless? I read up on chiggers a few years ago and if I remember correctly, the chigger feeds and leaves relatively quickly. The red dot that itches so bad is a result of the bite and feeding, sort of like a mosquito bite. The red dot is not the chigger as is widely believed. Based on this, I'd be surprised if salt water would help much after the bite.

Here's a fact- when I was a kid, grandpa would sometimes take me to his 'farm' and we'd shoot and walk in the woods. Upon exiting the car he'd tie a strip of cloth around my sleeves or pants legs to keep the chiggers out.  Soon as we got home, I'd be put in a bathtub with a little bleach. Seems the bleach would get the chiggers before they could actually do the boring and biting. I guess it worked to some degree as I'd get a bit or two but nothing overwhelming.

[TroyC]

Did you know the old timers would take sulfur pills? They would also line up at artesian wells for sulfur water. The sulfur would exit with perspiration and help repel mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers. I was able to find sulfur tablets at the pharmacy years ago but I doubt they are there anymore.

[TroyC]

My old mentor used to tell the tale that there in N. Fla he once saw a fox wade slowly deeper and deeper into a stream or pond. He said as it got to the point only the neck and head were out of the water you could start to see fleas climbing up and darkening the fur. Finally the fox had only his nose above the water and stuck his nose up to a stick and the fleas hopped off on to it then finally the fox dipped his head, I guess to rinse away any remaining fleas then waded out of the stream.

Your story sounds better than mine, and since he actually saw it, I'd believe it more than mine!  8)

[Andries]

. . . guess it worked to some degree ass I'd get a bit or two . . . 

Sometimes a typo make for the best punchline. 😂

[TroyC]

I do think that the theory of wading birds bringing in eggs is plausable.

I'm pretty sure the birds transferring fish and other eggs is factual. I've read this from other sources.

[TroyC]

Sometimes a typo

Sorry, darn big fingers.......>:(

[WV Sawmiller]

Did you know the old timers would take sulfur pills? They would also line up at artesian wells for sulfur water. The sulfur would exit with perspiration and help repel mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers. I was able to find sulfur tablets at the pharmacy years ago but I doubt they are there anymore.

I think it is back earlier in this thread about the sulfur. My grandfather spent most of his time in the woods in central Fla and he would dust sulfur in his shoes like foot powder and he said his skin absorbed enough to help keep the skeeters, ticks and redbugs away. He would also drip syrup into sulfur and roll it around to make a pill and swallow one every day or so for the same reason.

  There was an artesian well in the middle of the community of Pollard Ala there in Escambia County Ala across the state line from where I was raised and it had a good bit of sulfur. I remember standing there at sunset fighting skeeters and the locals who drank from that well every day did not seem to notice any so I figure that it worked for them.

(Of course I always figured it was just because I was naturally so sweet anyway. ;D)

[wisconsitom]

re: waterfowl bringing in fish eggs, etc...seems like accepted fact in my experience.

In my working life, we built lots of ponds, constructed wetlands, and stream restorations.  Always amazing too to see how frogs seemed to magically appear more or less immediately after completion of project.

[TroyC]

Of course I always figured it was just because I was naturally so sweet anyway. ;D

Well, that may attract honeybees and such, but mosquitoes, really? :D

[KEC]

Some birds are known to take an ant in their bill and preen their feathers with it. Theory is that the ant has formic acid and helps kill or repel parasites. As to animals going into water to get rid of fleas, I won't discount that. But beavers and mink get fleas. Understand that when the animal goes under water the fleas can take refuge in the layer of air trapped in the fur by the skin, which protects semi-aquatic animal from the cold water. I have watched birds sit in direct hot sunlight and spread their wings as if to expose themselves to the sun which is probably rough on fleas or mites. Reckon I'd do the same if it would help get rid of parasites, if I had them !

[caveman]

Caveman,    Do you know if the phosphate mines/borrow pits you mentioned in a previous post being full of big tilapia were stocked or do you think birds or such brought them in? I grew up fishing in big sand and gravel lakes left by the dredging/pumping out the sand and gravel and they were full of local fish but they flooded every year or so and the Escambia River stocked them.

I don't know if the talapia are stocked or not.  They are commercially fished in a lot of local lakes and pits so it is possible that some were stocked.  I remember old timers telling me that fish fell during heavy rainstorms but your theory of eggs being transported by birds seems more plausible.  We have tons of ospreys around.  I suppose some of them may occasionally drop live fish into other water bodies.

[WV Sawmiller]

Some birds are known to take an ant in their bill and preen their feathers with it. Theory is that the ant has formic acid and helps kill or repel parasites. As to animals going into water to get rid of fleas, I won't discount that. But beavers and mink get fleas. Understand that when the animal goes under water the fleas can take refuge in the layer of air trapped in the fur by the skin, which protects semi-aquatic animal from the cold water. I have watched birds sit in direct hot sunlight and spread their wings as if to expose themselves to the sun which is probably rough on fleas or mites. Reckon I'd do the same if it would help get rid of parasites, if I had them !

Great info. I never thought about aquatic mammals like beavers, otters, mink, muskrats or nutria or such getting ticks or fleas. I never thought about it but just assumed the fleas drowned  of couldn't hold their breath any more and turned loose and headed for the surface. :D

   I had never heard of birds preening their feathers with an ant or that the formic acid killed parasites. I have seen movies where people in the jungle used ants as sutures. Seems like Rambo and others used them in some of their movies. Can't verify if it is true but sounds like the rumor must have come from somewhere so might be some truth there. 

(I know my son put a pair of Anole - Southern Chameleons - on his younger sister as earrings. :D She survived but was duly traumatized. The lizards would readily open their mouth and clamp down on anything in their mouth but did not have teeth or enough bite power to really hurt anything.)

   Anhingas and Cormorants will often be seen with their wings spread to dry their feathers as you describe. I don't think it has anything to do with parasites. I think they lack oil in their feathers which would prevent them from diving and staying under water any length of time and when they come to the surface they dry them in the breeze looking like a deodorant commercial The most I saw was in March several years back in the canals across the everglades.