Come on guys
 

Its spring already. Why aren't we seeing any reports on range time?
I mean the weather has been cooperating in most parts of the country. I have a good excuse. I'm in FL and not a clue where to shoot.
When I get back in May, after I get my gobbler (I hope) I will be starting shooting in earnest. I have a N. Carolina deer/hog hunt scheduled and if I'm lucky I'll draw a ME moose tag.
For the deer/hog hunt I'm going to take my .54 flinter and my .58 caplock and probably my CVA Accura.
For moose it will be the.58 all the way.

Were are you in FL maybe I can help you with ranges in your area. i'm in Central FL.

It might be spring in Florida, but it's snowing here.

Feels like it's summer already! Had some nasty thunderstorms the last couple days. Got the first hail of the season yesterday at my house. Just pea size but still early.

Bronko, the weather here has been changing on a dime every day for the past 2 months now. Sunshine at 8am and 60 degrees, 8:20am rain with sleet mixed in!!! Weatherman around here gave up even their usual "coin flip" predictions and just say "your guess is probably better than mine"! Hell, I have a range 50 yards off my back porch and haven't even had good shooting time!!!

Kind of the same story here. Mornings nice and cool, below freezing and it looks sunny. Then suddenly the temp comes up a little and it turns over cast. They are talking a good snow storm coming Thursday. The weatherman joked about snow machines again. This had been crazy here.

I went to the hunting lease last weekend with three guns in the truck. Rifle range was so sloppy with soft mud and standing water that I didn't even attempt to set out a target. Hoping to have a first session with the .58 Hefty Hawken on Saturday.

On Sat. i went to our property north of Elmore City, OK with the secondary intention to shooting the .50 Black Diamond on the range there.

Got out the gun and put everything on the bench. One little detail: i forgot the powder.

I have done that a few times myself. But my saving grace is my powder was only twenty feet away. You really want to feel foolish, picture this ... your on your hunting stand up in a tree, rifle loaded at the house before you walked out. And as you sat there you suddenly notice ... no ramrod in the ramrod thimbles. Then you remember, its leaning by the back door where you left it. Now the question ... do you remain hunting betting you can do it with one shot ... or do you walk back to the house?

I stayed in the stand that morning and by nine o'clock had a nice doe dead, on the ground.

I've been fishing in my spare time. The Mrs. and I just had a nice meal of fresh caught Bullheads today!

BPS

Man its been ages since I had some home cooked catfish! My mom made the best fried catfish I ever ate. As I recall she just used butter and onion and salt and pepper. No bread or cracker crumbs. Nice and crispy outside and soft juicy and flaky inside. Darn it now my mouth's watering.

I have actually been working!!!

I started selling real estate in June and I'm concentrating on rural properties, so far it's going great!!! As most know when you start a new business it takes working long hours, the nice thing is, it doesn't seem like work when you are walking new properties and taking pictures!!! Thankfully, I've closed 5 deals this year so it's all coming together for me... :)

Nothing personal nc... but where I call home, realtors are as unliked and unwelcomed by us natives as revenuers are by the folks in Appalachia. 😠

BPS

When I was a kid, I used to fish this lake close by me. Especially in the spring. Now I never could figure it but Bullhead was one fish the family would not eat. In fact we'd catch them and bury them in the garden.

One spring day I was out with a can of worms, and pole. I took a 5 gallon pail with me to sit on as where I went it was kind of wet and muddy. By the end of that day, I had all but filled that bucket (probably twenty or more large spring bullheads) with bullheads.

Got home, and a friend told me how to skin them. So instead of going to the garden I went to the shop, and skinned all them bullhead. I then begged Mom to roll them in her breading and cook then for me. I really wanted to try them. Well she did. And the rest of the family saw me sitting there really enjoying the fish, so they started eating them.

We never buried another bullhead after that. That has to be one of my favorite spring time fish. Of course the suckers and red horse will run soon. So its time to catch them and then smoke them. Oh the pleasure of smoked carp, suckers, and red horse, with a box of Ritz Crackers.

So lemmi get this straight cayu, your family would eat smoked carp but would bury catfish????? That's about as backwards as I think I have ever heard!

I have to agree with ya on that sh54. I've eaten suckers that were taken from a cold clean stream in the spring or gigged through the ice, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to eat Carp. Those things will live and thrive in raw sewage. They're fun to catch or shoot with a bow. Other than that, they're fertilizer.

BPS

Yeah I used to fish for Carp all the time. They tug a hell of a line that's for sure. But eating one? Never!! They sure do make a really good fertilizer for a mater patch though :D

The local fish buyer around here usually buys around 10,000 pounds of bull head every spring. Somebody must like them.

Here's a little tribute to my fellow Bullheaders out there.... :happy0001:


BPS

It's spring huh? If that's the case, it snowed 10" 4 days ago, and today its snowing.

Let me find that gopher that said it will be an early spring. I'll make soup out of that rat.

Good for the plots though! I planted chickory in the clover/alfalfa plot before the big snow hit. Should germinate quite nicely now.

Looks like it's not going to happen. It started raining around 6:00 this morning and is still going. My rain gauge tops out at 6" and was overflowing by 3:00 this afternoon. The only option I see now is to bring a pirogue to set out targets on the rifle range, and pontoons for the targets.

Imma git me one of them new fangled hover crafts to get me over my mud field without tearing it all to hell!!!

Wow, I didn't know it was that bad all over. Rain, mud, snow, flooding.

Went outside to get wood from the shed this morning. April 2nd and we are having a blizzard of sorts. They said 3-6 inches of snow. Well we have a good 4 already and its snowing like the devil out there. That picture is not out of focus. That's how hard it is snowing out side. And with the strong winds, there will be drifting again. So no shooting this weekend either. I was kind of hoping to get out and shoot.

Funny, the other day it was 50 degrees outside. I mean I was out in the yard, no jacket, just a thick flannel shirt. And was comfortable. Worked out in the shop and never even built a fire. Then wake up to this. I guess winter wants to hang in there.

We are getting flurries here right now. My son said they are getting them in Chicago too. It's just now starting to lay here. Heavy winds as well. This weather is just freaky this year!

The whole month of March was beautiful here. But starting last night we got 6" of white crap and 30 -40mph winds and went 14hrs without power with more snow on it's way.

In like a lamb and out like a lion I guess...

BPS

Not really that uncommon. Bullhead in our farm ponds tasted like mud and goose poop. Carp and especially buffalo carp were far better eating if cooked/scored properly to get rid of most of the bones. Ive eaten a lot of buffalo fritters.

Clean river suckers like red horse suckers are excellent table fair. I would rather eat them than a trout any day.

With carp the thing is to clean them properly. Redhorse, are really good too when smoked.

Where I used to live down in Southern Wisconsin, we used to bow fish carp. That is a real challenge. Up were I live now, we have the Chippewa River to spring fish carp and suckers. Its kind of laid back, just sit on the bank of a beautiful river or back water and fish. Its kind of exciting actually when you hook a big carp.

Wheaties, wheat germ, a little Karo syrup and some lake water mashed into a ball. Let it sit out in the sun a few minutes to firm up.....excellent carp bait. The water from a can of corn works good too mixed with the Wheaties.

A dime sized ball or smaller on a tiny treble hook stays on the hook fantastic.

We normally just use worms. But that sounds like an interesting bait to try. I will have to mix some of that up. Thanks.

My gram would make that for my Pap. She called it dough bait.
He was 6' tall and I remember him bringing home lots of carp. There were two times that he brought home one almost as long as he was tall. I swear I never saw any other carp that big. There was also one time he brought home a snapping turtle that was just a tad over 2' across. He was showing it to us grand kids using a Gram's broom when the monster struck out and snapped the handle in two! He shot it in the head with a .22 and took it to a restaurant downtown where the cook made a mess of snapper soup. He sent a big jar up to the house and it was delicious.

We used to use just wheaties not all that other stuff. Just get a handful of wheaties, dip your hand in and out of the water crush it up and roll it into a ball onto a hook and toss it as deep as we could get. Hooked an ungodly amount of carp that way and quite a few cats as well. Another good trick is to drop some vanilla extract onto a good amount of worms for cats. Big stripers hit the hell out of that too. Some people soak chicken livers in vanilla extract for cats as well. Never tried that myself but they seemed to get good results.

Never had cats from a pond before GM so I wouldn't know. Channel cats, Blues and the occasional shovel bill were all we caught in the Tennessee river. Hooking onto a big ole 70 pound channel in a little 10 ft flat-bottom john boat was always a thrill!!! Nantucket sleigh ride!!!