A PERFECT SIX

I have a six-point check list that helps guide me when I’m planning a perfect winter get-away. If I can hit 3 of the 6 marks, I’m sure the vacation will be good. Hitting four of the marks is better and until this year, I’ve never been anywhere that rated more than 5 scores. Here’s my checklist:

1)Warmth of the tropics. I’m not talking jacket warm, I’m looking for sweaty warm on a sunny afternoon.
2) White sandy beaches. I don’t really care if the sand is white, red or black, but white sounds better.
3) World Class Fishing. Fishing for what? I don’t really care other than the bigger, the better and if they happen to be tasty, that’s an additional plus.
4) Cold Margaritas, (good food, plenty of choices - but cold Margaritas are very important.)
5) Affordable prices. This one is tough since you have to factor travel expense, accommodations, food and fishing.
6) Small town atmosphere. This may not make everyone’s list, but I choose to live in the boonies and heading for a city (even one with the above 5 attributes) for a vacation isn’t high on my list.

In February, I found a perfect-six at the Isla Mujeres (Isle of Women) which is about 6 miles off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. Cancun is in the Tropics. That’s why it’s become a popular winter retreat for millions of people.  Isla Mujeres is small town. I loved it.
Isla Mujeres features white sandy beaches on one side and rocky, California-like beaches on the other. Both sides have numerous restaurants and stop-over points where cold Margaritas are dispensed. And there’s never a line. Okay, maybe by the ferry boat docks it might take a minute to get a cervesa-frio, but elsewhere, a cold drink and warm welcome is instantaneous.

One of the reasons Mexico has become a popular tourism spot is affordability. Cancun is huge and offers lots of flight options. The ferry costs 12 bucks round trip. On the island a taxi can take you from one end to the other and back for $3 - if you feel the need to travel.
And the fishing is good. I hired Capt. Jorge Mostalac (www.sportfishingcenter.net) for 4 days for what a comparable experience state-side would cost for a day.
A perfect-six? Absolutely!


THE END

SNOW FLEAS

     It’s hard to look at a snow covered landscape and think spring is anywhere near. But yesterday made me confident. Though the temperature only climbed to around 40 degrees, with little wind and almost zero clouds against the blue, it was easy to feel the warmth of the early March sun. 

I didn’t look for robins, it wasn’t sandhill cranes flying like last week. I spent the afternoon in the “sunroom” on my pole building repairing, oiling and respooling my fishing reels. Just outside the solar heated ell, I checked for (and found) thousands of “snow fleas,” the little insects that are one of the a surest signs of spring. In the world of entomologists, they are known as Achorutes nivicola; to others they are springtails, but when they emerge to play on the surface of melting snowdrifts, it’s easy to understand their snow flea moniker. 

 

        They are not even distantly related to real fleas and with a magnifying glass, they don’t look much like a flea, either. They don’t climb on dogs, cats or people. I’m told they feed mostly on decaying vegetation and fungi. But when you walk outside and spot what looks like energetic flakes of pepper frolicking on remnant snow, it’s snow fleas. 

I suppose there’s some life cycle reason for them to crawl out from under where ever they huddled down for the winter. Perhaps it’s a prelude to their breeding season or an escape from the meltwater dripping under the snow. I like to think it’s just the joy of spring, calling them out for a few hours of spring’s promise.  

TROUBLES IN PARADISE

    I go a lot of places and do a lot of things. I use many different products. Most are as expected. Many are better than expected. A few are less than what I bought into, whether that’s products, places or activities. I recently discovered another category: disappointment.

     Long story shortened, some close friends invited my wife and I to a week at the Avalon Reef Club on Isla Mujeres, a small island off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. We paid our airfare, I set up and paid for fishing excursions and we split expenses for incidentals such as taxi rides and the like.

    I have 1 great thing to say about the Avalon Reef Club. It’s placed on the absolutely best location on the island - actually on it’s own island accessible from Isla Mujeres only by a long wooden bridge. There are a few other bright spots. Unfortunately, there's one huge drawback.
 

    ARC is likely the most ill-managed resort I’ve ever visited. The management is rude, usually unavailable and completely unyielding. As a result, both workers and guests seemed to go about their days and stays wishing they were elsewhere, like being in a bad mood at a Christmas party.

    Again making a long story short, there was a misunderstanding and dispute on our billing. They understood and though they couldn’t make us understand; in their mind, there was no dispute. Fork over the dough (lots of it) or leave. I voted for leaving.

    The place is clean and no worse for wear than other places I’ve stayed. It’s also empty. Sure there’s a recession but it's not that bad. The hotel was less than 25% occupied. The word is out and there were no repeat customers. We won't be.

    I’d make a return trip to Isla Mujeres tomorrow. Certainly next winter. I wouldn’t go back to ARC if they said it was complimentary. If they charge 10 pesos for the second day’s packet of coffee for the two-cup coffee maker in your room, what would complimentary mean?

SPRING BREAK OUT!

        When the first salmon were stocked in Lake Michigan to control the overabundant alewife population, no one knew what would happen. The alewife, an invasive species that migrated into the lakes from the Atlantic Ocean once the shipping lanes were established, exploded in population.

         Though they only live a few years, once they became established, trillions of them died from natural causes each summer and their little bodies drifted with the ever changing winds fouling beaches all around Lake Michigan.

The solution? Stock cohos. Would it work? Time would tell.

It worked. And the first indication was when commercial fishermen with gill nets set to catch yellow perch in Indiana started catching “funny looking trout” in the spring. The funny fish turned out to be coho salmon.

        What wasn’t known then but is well documented now is that cohos prefer water temperatures around 50 degrees. In a lake like Lake Michigan, which is 300 miles long, the north end cools faster than the south end. As the lake cools in autumn, the baby cohos stocked from hatcheries months earlier migrate south to stay in water temperatures to their liking.

By late November, all the salmon in the lake have pushed to the south end of the lake. Indiana’s end of the lake. The part of the lake where I work.

And when winter ends, they are still here. Millions of them.

When the nearshore waters start to warm in March, they swarm inshore offering the hottest and fastest salmon fishing in the world. That’s why you need to get out there with your own boat or hire me to take you. Where’s the best place to fish?  Where the fish are!

Spring break is the perfect time to hit the water. Most schools schedule their breaks in late March and early April and that’s the peak of the season time to be out for Indiana’s “spring coho” bonanza. My spring break dates are already filling. If you want to sign on, give me a call soon. Don’t wait, don’t be late. I’ll be there with you or some other person. I’d rather be with you.   Go to www. brother-nature.com for contact info and prices.

MEASURING UP

Stories of big bucks are common where ever
deer hunters gather. 

I can only imagine 3 or 4 hundred years ago when Native American hunters sat around the campfires at night they bragged up the “big bucks” they had shot in past hunts. It doesn’t matter that the killing the deer was more for survival than sport. Harvesting a big buck or catching a big fish is something worth remembering.
One thing the Indians didn’t have was the ability to easily compare one deer with another. So the size of some of the bucks probably grew with the story-telling ability of the hunter. That’s not the case with modern day deer hunters.
In 1950 the Boone and Crockett Club introduced specific guidelines anyone can use to measure the antlers of the deer they harvest. The B&C scoring method is used by other clubs, as well and here in Indiana it’s used to rank your deer against other noteworthy deer bagged last year or decades ago.
For many years, the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife kept the records and produced the record books. As the number of deer harvested in Indiana, what was once a nearly insignificant program became very cumbersome with biologists spending a lot of time measuring and compiling. The Indiana Deer Hunters Association took over the project, but continued as a volunteer scorer.

Measuring all the points, circumferences and other
details determines the final score. 

Since leaving the DNR, I don’t interact with as many deer hunters as I once did so I don’t score very many deer heads anymore. A local hunter dropped by last evening with a beautiful mounted deer head, just back from the taxidermist. It had 14 “measurable” points meaning they were at least an inch long. Ten of the points were “good” ones, the other 4 were in odd locations so they actually counted against the final score.
When the tally was done the combined total for all the points was over 175 inches and with 9 inches of deductions from the odd points and minor variations from one side to the other, its final score was over 166. When my friend sits around future campfires with other hunters, he’s got some bragging rights.

RAINY DAY TEST

I’m frugal. Okay, I’m cheap. The thought of shelling out hundreds of dollars for rainy day wear seemed excessive.

Whether or not it’s excessive, it is a lot of money. I could buy a very nice shotgun for the price of a quality rainsuit; several dozen coyote traps, a bunch of rod and reel combos - probably a one way ticket to Honolulu, if I shopped smart.

But when I turned “pro” and started taking people on Lake Michigan for hire, one of my first acquisitions was a Bass Pro XPS rain suit. What I then hoped would prove to be a worthy investment I now say is among my most important assets.  I love it and wear it on my boat everyday during the spring and fall, rain or shine. It’s the perfect top layer, warm and wind proof.

I would buy another one - probably.

But I might switch to a Frabill XFE Stormsuit. The folks at Frabill gave me one to try out.

Just my luck, it came during a drought year, one with record warmth. So it’s just been sitting there waiting for a suitable, rainy, dreary day.

Like yesterday!

By sunrise, the rain gauge showed over 1/2-inch and the drizzle was steady. Temperatures in the 40s. I had traps scattered over 4 farms and I’d need to attend to each one. Not just drive by and keep going if there was nothing caught. Each trapsite was water-logged. I planned to remove most of them.

The perfect test day.

My initial impression of the Frabill suit? It’s great. It fits great, it’s built for outdoor activities that require standing, kneeling, sitting down, climbing into and out of trucks, boats and onto ATVs. It features pockets inside and out, special spots for pocket cams, cell phones, extra protection at knees and elbows. There’s even a tiny towel on string inside for, ah, well, maybe to dry off your glasses?

The materials and workmanship look to be top of the line. At the end of the day, I was warm and completely dry. Will it hold up for the long run? Ask me in a few years, I’m betting it will and I’ll be putting that bet to the test.

YOU LITTLE WEASEL

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. This photo is a complete detective novel if you give it a quick study.

For you non-trappers reading this, let me give a bit of background to make what you are seeing more understandable. The metal and wire you are seeing in the photo is properly called a body-gripper trap. They are often called Conibear traps because they were invented and first marketed by a man named Frank Conibear. Now, most trap manufacturers produce their own versions. Body-gripper traps come in sizes from very small models, used mostly for mink and muskrats, to very large ones used to capture beavers.

Here’s a photo of one set and ready. The trapper places the trap in a location, such as at the entrance of a burrow or on a trail used by the animal being sought. Hopefully, when the animal comes along, it will try to crawl through the trap, rather than go over or around and when it pushes on the trigger wire, the trap snaps shut.


These traps are killers and aren’t ever used if there is a chance any non-target animal is likely to encounter it. Once the trap fires, the end is near for the captured animal.

Usually, the trap strikes hard enough to render a knock-out blow and the animal becomes unconscious. The grip on it’s body or neck then prevents it from breathing and it quickly dies from asphyxiation. Picture how a common mousetrap works and you will understand the workings of a body-grip trap.

Weasels are the smallest fur bearing predator that is legal to trap in Indiana. Few trappers target them because they are relatively uncommon, usually require special traps and techniques and are of low value in Indiana because most weasels this far south don’t turn white in the winter. In northern states and Canada weasels do change color with the seasons and white weasels, called ermine, are much more valuable to furriers.

The body-grip trap in the top photo was set in a dry ditch in a trail being used mostly by raccoons. It’s a common set. Perhaps spots like this are “weasel highways,” as well. Weasels are so small and skinny, most can pass through a trap of this size repeatedly and never hit the trigger wire.

That’s the story of this picture. The trap set and ready. The weasel hunting for its next meal captures a deer mouse and is proudly carrying it down the trail. Perhaps the weasel has gone through the body-grip trap several other times unscathed, but this time, the mouse in it’s mouth strikes the trigger, the trap fires, weasel caught and the mouse becomes a clue to this mystery novel.

The epilogue to this tale is the mouse will become bait for a coyote. The weasel will go to a taxidermist to be turned into a nature display.