A Canoe Trip and the 2021 Great Catfish Final Total...

I don't think I'll make it out to fish tomorrow on the last day of the year so I went ahead and counted up this year's catfish tally. We ended up harvesting 491 catfish on 21 fishing trips to the lake for an average of 23 per trip. I did not count white bass, breams, crappie, largemouth bass or the small ankle biter blacktip sharks we caught at the beach. I also did not count canoe, swimming or skiing trips in the trip total. 

The fish count looks a bit down as I mark that we recorded 592 fish last year but if not mistaken that's all species so we are probably pretty close to the same I would say. After all those other fish, except the sharks are swimming in my belly. Shark is good but sometime we all have to start those baby steps to save the planet and that was one of mine for 2021.  

Today Matt and I made a canoe trip to the Walnut Slough paddling trail on B.A. Steinhagen. This has been a panfish hotspot for us and I did not expect much today but with the mild temps the small bream were in the shallows. If we don't have much of a winter those big girls might show up soon. Matt holds up 9 bream, probably males on the smallish side but certainly good to fry and eat whole. We did CPR, catch, photo and release these fish. . 

There must have been a heck of a spawn on this lake the past spring because we caught a literal bucket full of these small largemouth bass. All fish caught on either 1 inch Charlie Brewer Crappie sliders or the scented Gulp Baits all fished on 1/16th jig head.   

Don't worry we did not eat this little gator that slipped up on this log wearing a water hyacinth as camo. Like the small bream we caught he will get bigger.  

Matt with a small bass. 

One thing we did see was an airboat spraying for the invasive species giant salvinia. I'm really not sure which other plants are invasive and which are not but this is fast becoming a topic on the Sam Rayburn Fishing Report Facebook page. 

Bass fisherman, in addition to not trusting what chemicals are being used like to have hydrilla, another invasive plant species that happens to be good for the fishing. Salvinia is not good for fishing because it quickly covers a lake and kills wave action and oxygen content.  Fishermen think the spray kills the good plants along with the bad ones. 

Both plants clog docks, ramps, beaches and restrict some recreational activities. Fisherman from Louisiana where salvinia has taken over whole lakes seem to favor spraying. Texas and Florida fishermen think kill the grass, kill the lake. 

I have not made up my mind. I don't like chemicals in the water. I almost always catch fish. I think those guys in the boat should wear some protective equipment. There was a slight chemical smell to the air after they passed.    

A blue heron stands in a clump of dead water hyacinth probably killed by spraying. 

In the new year I'll keep up with water issues, wait for the big panfish to move in and maybe this weekend we can start a new catfish count. As I scrolled through the old blog posts looking at the fishing trips of the past year it was crazy how the grandkids had grown.

Here's to growth for all.  

 

Sometimes I'm Just Not On It...

I walk around taking lots of photos. These days it seems like I make a bunch of grandkid photos and they are usually blurry. They are blurry because have you ever been able to make a ball of action that is just old enough to have it's own agenda be still? No I have not either but I try. 

The phone, which you should never complain about when you see a poor person with a nice one because you just can't live with out that online connection for all business and it's a lot easier way for a younger person to do their business than trundling along writing on a desktop like I am, keeps me posted on photos. Each day some kind of memory thing goes back about 10 years and photos I made at the time magically appear. Often times they are photos that either I did not consider my best and did not use on a social media post, they are kind of random events and seem to have been made with phone or as I call it even though it's not, the big camera and I don't know how those get in the cloud so to speak. My point I guess is in retrospect some look pretty good. 

I was walking near the PK house in Chicago recently. Of course I had my camera. I passed a little restaurant about a block down called Pizza Fried Chicken and Ice Cream. It's named so because that's what they serve. 

The pizza is a tavern style, thin crust, cut into squares. It's a kind that came to be a favorite in Chicago bars after WW2 because you could just roll the crust out instead of hand tossing, bake with toppings and cut into squares to be served on a napkin for a guy drinking at a bar to eat so he did not have to interrupt his drinking to get up for food. If you did not know the world worked this way, wake up it does. I've had their pizza, not at the bar but take home and it's good. 

I have not had the fried chicken. I only eat Cathy's fried chicken. It's one of those things young lovers promise each other in moments of passion. "only your's honey, it's the best." I've stuck to that promise almost 33 years now. 

The ice cream is a bar on a stick type thing in whimsical flavors like shad blueberry and it's good to grab one after an evening stroll over to a nearby park but it's nothing like sinking your whole head in a carton of the cheapest stuff HEB sells while watching a Netflix series that you can't even connect with. 

Ok, back to the photos. I've strayed and when that happens it's like the guy who messaged me when I went a period of time without a blog post about my late father in law. He wrote, "Get back to Bill."

PFCIC had an outside wall plastered in these old style posters in a design that conveys a sense of emergency. Here are a couple of examples. I made photos of my favorites thinking that these would be inspirational later on but I failed to take a big picture of the whole wall. They were all kind of subversive and maybe I thought some would take to much explaining so I picked the ones with the most apparent message.          

I think now, about people in the world that don't take in the greater effect of their actions on all of humanity and maybe that's what happened to me standing in front of that wall. I did not take in a total view. I'll try to do better next time. I did not make a blurry picture, I just did not get the whole picture. 

Hopefully I can get the whole picture before my phone reminds me to think 10 years in the future. I'll try. 

 

The Great Christmas Catfish Roundup...

Me and brother in law Matt headed out this morning for a Christmas Day Catfish roundup. We had gone to church Christmas Eve, had supper with kids and grandkids, Cathy signed on to work a day shift at the hospital the 25th so nurses with kids could do Christmas and our family Christmas is scheduled for January when we could all have time to be together. We were two guys at loose ends.

 Besides checking the fishing log we have a history of fishing on Dec. 24th or 25th going back about 10 years with a lot of fishing going on even further back that that in the last half of December. It's a good time to be on the water.  

Another tip from the old fishing log is that while there has been an occasional December short sleeve day most late December trip photos show we were dressed in coveralls with most catches coming from deep water but some photos show us slip

corking shallow.  On a overcast day with a bit of surface ripple those shallows did look fishable. 

Today we caught the cats on a minor solunar period 25-35' deep on punch bait. They were nice sized, no big fish yet, a few throw backs and about four we kept for frying whole.   

Final total was 29 cats. If we don't go anymore before the end of the year I'll total what we caught for the year in the next few days. I'd guess numbers are down a little bit but we have not been all that mad at them.  Most fish we have caught have been fried fresh as soon as we got home. I might have less than 10 pounds of frozen catfish fillets. When that East Texas Blizzard hits next month and the power is out I'll pull them out of the freezer so my people can eat.  

There were quite a few husky channel cats this size. 

Everybody likes catfish 

People like to eat my fish. I don't have any cooking secrets but I do know what I like.  

 

Street Busking or Things You See Passing By...

As I move along in what I call my music career I enjoy street busking and playing in the park more and more. Cathy claims when she soon retires she might be up for some also. Certainly the downtown area of Lufkin is ready for that and with plans to develop more gathering areas I think it's something we need. 

There's some musicians that like to have an audience out there. They like to have people sit and listen or depending on the venue get up and dance. I've done those things and probably will again but I like to play to the passerby and I think I have traced that back to it's roots.

Once years ago I took a flight to New Orleans. I can't recall the occasion and don't remember anything about the trip other than what I describe here but I was drinking then and flew because I knew having a car was just going to be an encumbrance. After all some famous person said once that all you need to discover New Orleans is a good pair of shoes. This incident took place years before I knew of that quote. If shoes could talk. 

At the end of our trip we departed early by taxi from our hotel. This was before Uber and you could get the nice gay men that always seem to work the desk at the better French Quarter hotels to call you a taxi for timely departure. We loaded up and slowly cruised through the sights of the neighborhood and were already beginning to suffer from what I call post New Orleans depression. My attention was drawn to a small group of people I spotted leaving a corner bar. 

The center of this group was a big, burly, bearded guy with long hair. He was wearing a spaghetti strap t-shirt, cut off blue jean very brief daisy duke style shorts and black fishnet stockings. I did not see the shoes but I'm sure they were perfect. Obviously the group had spent the night bouncing from bar to bar in the Quarter and were is the process of being surprised as they exited this one that it was broad daylight. 

My taxi carried me on out to the airport but I have always remembered this incident and when I street busk with tuba to passing people I hope to turn their heads the say way. "Did you see that, a guy playing a tuba!" just like I said "a guy in fishnet stockings!"

Yesterday while busking Christmas music on my tuba in the downtown area there was the occasional passerby on foot, people who drove slowly past possibly making the block again, (that's hard to tell these days, all cars look alike and there is not but about 4 colors in use) one car who stopped at the curb for awhile and listened with windows down, and the big guy who took a cell phone video from 75 yards away and yelled "woo hoo" as encouragement. He had on shorts, not too short and no stockings.

Hopefully these people are all are writing blogs today about the guy with the tuba they saw. Maybe I will be as influential to them as the guy with the fishnet hose was to me all those years ago. There are enough things in the world that need our involvement. Climate change, the poor, Covid 19, politics, and so on you can make your own list. For a minute there you passed a guy on the street in fishnet stockings or with a tuba and you forgot about all that stuff.            

I try to take a photo of any buskers I see. I drop money in the hat so they get paid when I use their image. Here's a couple of shots of guys drumming on buckets in downtown Chicago. 

Whenever I see buskers on the street I like to think they are junior high band directors just out on a Saturday morning supplementing their income.       

I mean they could be in fishnet stockings. They could have a tuba. 

 

Celtic Angels Christmas...

Last night it was Celtic Christmas at the Pines Theater as part of the Angelina Arts Alliance concert series. As you know, us and friends have season tickets but you know what kind of year the past couple have been. Cathy has been under the weather a few days with the plain old garden variety flu, (covid negative) Suzi broke two toes and sprained her ankle so her and Charile loaned tickets to friends. Me and Ann soldiered on and enjoyed a great performance.

Most of the Christmas songs were the old favorites but great voices, dancing and fine musical accompaniment brought the show to life. My favorite was the Celtic Knights, the men who danced in the traditional Irish way.      

There were different costumes for each number with very smooth changes. A performer would finish a number with another number beginning and then would be back singing or dancing in a different get up. 

Here's a clip. 

I forgot my good camera so pictures are not what I'm used to. Here's the drummer. Maybe we can have him over and do some kind of druid ceremony out in the East Texas bottoms. He looked like he would like that.  

I see people who make great cell phone photos but there is some kind of old guy technology barrier that erects itself when ever I try to make action shots with mine. 

There's not a lot of info about the Angels I saw on a quick check of the internet. They did offer information during troupe introductions of things like he's been with us 12 seasons, he's on America's Got Talent, in Riverdance, or a has a high musical degree. Check their entertainment website for tour dates and for the gear heads and the hanger ons there is the tour rider for equipment and backstage goodies. No surprises but I think I'll add "fresh caught catfish dinner" to my document.

The Pines is a great venue and our front row seats have been the best. I think all the ushers at the Pines events are friends of mine. For the second time now Bonnie, the owner of Music World who ushers has used one of our empty seats. I purchase the occasional sheet music and valve oil there but my horn playing friends tell me if you need a certain horn Bonnie will know where to get it. 

Check out the Pines. In addition to the events our season tickets cover they have entertainment all the time and that's what I'm talking about. 

 

Anyone Surprised...

 My parents grew up in the depression and then there was WW2. Events like that mark people. When people get marked they tend to mark other people so I guess my folks marked me but I consider it a marking in a good way. The mark I'm talking about is how to handle your money. 

I can remember one of my dad's things was keeping cash on hand. About once a week he knelt at the bed, spread the money out and counted it. I don't know how much he had. It was certainty peanuts considering the salaries made by sports starts and CEOs these days but to his depression mentality this cash seemed like a good idea. 

I don't keep cash on hand but I adopted some of his other ideas such as don't spend more than you make, use cash if at all possible or don't buy, pay for the kid's college, be thrifty and work when you have the opportunity. I was fortunate and retired early. My wife retires at the end of the year. 

There's a guy who writes a newspaper column that's carried in my local paper. Basically some of the same advice but something about Dave Ramsey's way of handling money, or maybe it was the telling other people how to handle money never set quite right with me. I read the columns anyway. That's a thing I do, read the uncomfortable thing that you don't agree with. 

I opened up the news today and sure enough like I suspected Dave is not a nice guy. Seems that a lawsuit has been brought alleging that staffers who wore masks and had Covid 19 concerns were mocked and derided.

 

Help me here. In this country there have been public figures such as Dave is who have mocked women, foreigners and the disabled. I guess this has become ok in some circles. If you have a public platform I would think that it could be used to do good and maybe even provide leadership. 

I looked Dave up and read on him. After some hard financial times in the late 80s he was on the rebound by 1994. Chances are he's been in a gated community since then and has not much hung out with anyone that was not like him in almost 30 years. He's a carnival barker selling you advice that I doubt he gives his children or grandchildren. 

I wear a mask especially in large indoor groups. I'm vaccinated. I have some of the same concerns Dave's employees have. I would not want to catch covid and not be able to babysit my grandkids because I'm sick. I would not want to give my wife, a Eucharistic Minister who brings Communion to the home bound covid so she takes it to one of these older, delicate people. I would not want to pass covid to the health care workers in my family and have them expose patients. It goes on and on with all the reasons which 800,000 dead seem to not matter to people that think like Dave. 

I am getting old. In another month I'll be considered elderly. At this time I can still cut a pretty imposing figure, 6'2", 250 pounds, long hair and all tattooed up I was once a 2nd degree black belt. No one has derided me for wearing a mask and I bet Dave would not either. 

I don't need his kind of advice. 

      

          

Chicago Trip...

 This past weekend we made the trip to Chicago to babysit Wallace and Hamish while the PK took off to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. It was a great trip for the parents to get some time off and the grandparents to spend some time with the most distant grandkids. 

Hamish, Hammy, Hambone what ever you want to call him is a happy baby and laughs a lot. I mean all my grandchildren laugh a lot but this one doing it so young indicates that this may be a highly hilarious personality in development. 

Wallace laughs a lot too and like most four year olds he laughs the most when he is doing exactly what he wants to do. A play session in Maggie Daley Park, bound by the city on one side and Lake Michigan on the other in downtown Chicago made a great place to be outside enjoying the cool northern temperatures and the bustle of people taking in the Christmas decorations of the city. 

The brothers! It takes some special equipment in Chicago with Hambone bundled into a snowsuit that is incorporated into the straps of the big double stroller and Wallace wearing the mask that is required in all establishments and on any public transportation to reduce the spread of Covid. 

Mask use is 100% in Chicago.   

Katie and Peter did eventually return because they missed their kids. We got in a day of visiting or so and then it was back to Texas. 

Christmas Music Review...

 I hear people say they hate Christmas music. It's probably just the music you are listening to because there are tons of good Christmas tunes and I bet the same old ones crossing your path are the songs that some streaming service or conglomerate radio station pushes to you. So I decided this holiday season to run a few music reviews to help out on the fun of seasonal music. I'll start with a new spin on some old favorites.

A Christmas album I have been listening to for almost 20 years is Christmas Music Remixed Volume 1. I also have Volume 2 and there is a Volume 3 which I have not heard. These albums remix the old standards by Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and others with a few beats and electronic trickeries that are not too strange to the ear but give you a nice listening surprise to enjoy just when you have settled down by the fireplace with the chestnut roasted just like it said in the book. 

Volume one of this set peaked at #5 on the Billboard Electronic/Dance Music Charts of December 2003. It's various DJs doing the mixing and I have never heard of any of them. The release was out on the Six Degrees record label. I've found lots of music I like on that label and I don't think you could go wrong with any of their artists.

Cathy thinks Halloween is the most wonderful time of the year but Bing gets paid each time this is released on a Christmas product and makes money he can't spend. 

Another for the nut fans:

I not sure if physical copies in the form of CDs or records are available but there is a Bandcamp page where digital downloads are available. I think bandcamp pays the artist better than some streaming services. 

I'll try and make a couple of blog posts before Christmas on my favorites as the spirit moves me. There are always good songs on WWOZ, New Orleans listener supported radio and as Christmas gets closer there will be good holiday music on the Traditional Jazz/Dixieland and ragtime show 9 to 11am each morning and more eclectic stuff on the Friday night Music of Mass Distraction. 

Of course your local public radio will always bring good listening. 

Music should make you happy, be new and enhance the experience.   

  

   

Making Memes...

Usually mass culture passes me. Take the eighties as an example. I was wearing pointy toe cowboy boots, a black t-shirt with a pack of Winston 100s rolled in the sleeve, had a new Fender P-bass and I was playing music with a guy who was trying to be Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins or Jerry Lee Lewis or maybe just his own self and I missed the big iconic drum sounds, digital guitar processing and scenic fern bars of the decade. The 1980s were not really kind to music or anyone else for that matter and I'm sure Chuck, Carl and Jerry Lee wondered what the heck was going on. 

I'm with it now though. I've learned to make a meme. First I had to learn how to say meme which at first look looks a whole lot like me me which with all the money, money, compliments and publicity this blog generates me is something that's on my mind all the time.  

Every now and then one of the kids takes a photo of yours truly. I make sure to produce them plenty of material and they make a meme out of it. They are pretty funny. Here's some of my work, if you can call it that because intellectual property seems a bit strong. 

I do own a cowbell. If called for I have played it at gigs occasionally. If I didn't play it and you hollered "more cowbell" I'll be fighting back from now on so don't do that. It's so 80s.   

I'll have to finishing writing this later when I stop laughing because I think this one is so funny and Cathy hates dogs. 

I love this guy and any meme made with his face. I did a sample study of what people I know might think of these memes and some one said sinister. I don't know. I feel joy and excitement but have not figured out all the backstory here. 

Gotta love a big backstory.

 There's an English electronic musician that calls himself Aphex Twin. He's a white guy, a big ginger hippie looking dude and this is a computer generation of his face. The album it's from is called Richard D. James which is his real name. I listened to some of the record and I thought at first some kid toy was hidden away under the furniture but music is a process and I have seen some stuff of his I liked.  Old Aphex was born in 1971 and probably started noticing stuff real good in, you guessed it, the 80s.   

What do they say, the best art is stolen? I copped this idea from one of my internet heroes, added a bit to it and I'll call it original. I had a friend once who practiced his guitar stank face in front of a mirror. It was in the 80s. He got to be a pretty good guitar player. His stank face stayed about the same. 

I missed that in the 80s. I'll work on it now.